I Make, Therefore I Am
“To be alive — and Will!
’Tis able as a God —
The Maker — of Ourselves — be what —
Such being Finitude! “
- Emily Dickinson, “To Be alive — Is Power” (677, written 1863)
As we trek towards the World Maker Faire at the New York Hall of Science,
Descartes had it only half right — I would say, “I make, therefore I think, therefore I am.”
“The thinking hand,” as Juhani Pallasmaa calls it.
Our hominin ancestors were making tools 3.3 million years ago in East Africa. It is all we know of them, but it is enough to connect us, to recognize them as part of the extended family.
“Make” is part of English’s innermost vocabulary, the c. 600 words held in common by the Indo-European language clade, from the putative root: “ *mag- .” It is one of the originals, from the well-springs of thought in this language, along with words such as “stone” and “wood,” such as “to carve” and “to weave.”
Possibly related via the Proto Indo-European root *magh- to “magic,” “might,” “to be able,” “machine.”
“Shop class as soulcraft” indeed, in Matthew Crawford’s formulation.
I do not know but I would wager that the other language families — Sino-Tibetan, Bantu, Turkic, Dravidian, Semitic, Mayan, Algic, Austronesian, Nilotic, all the others large and small — likewise each have their word for “make” as part of their proto-vocabulary. (If anyone knows of a study to that effect, I would love to read it).
As such an essential element to our nature, making — whatever we call it in our many languages –should occupy pride of place in our educational systems. One day we should not have to go on pilgrimage to the maker fair but participate in making every day in the mundane surroundings of school.
By Daniel A. Rabuzzi
Executive Director, Mouse
Opinions my own, not necessarily those of Mouse
