The Enduring Enigma of Wood
The resistance of wood against the Machine
Let us raise three cheers for wood. In an age where blandness, standardisation, and uniformity — referred to by some as perfection — reign supreme, wood sports all its knots, dimples, and variable colours with pride. Though these surely would be considered unacceptable blemishes in most other products, for some unfathomable reason — to the Machine at least — wood can rest assured that in spite of its prominent blemishes we will still look favourably upon it. And truth be told, it is partly because of these “imperfections” that we aesthetically desire this most natural of products and adorn so much of our homes with the stuff. Wood wouldn’t be wood without its “flaws”.
They are not really flaws anyway. Being a natural product cut directly and without subsequent adulteration from one of creation’s grandest masterpieces, it is to be expected that wood will bear many blemishes from nature. Natural things are subject to endless degrees of variability — sunlight, rain, wind, temperature, genetic mutations… the list goes on. Each of these phenomena leave their marks behind. And nowhere are these marks so evident and prolific than upon immobile creatures such as trees. They cannot hide nor run from all that nature throws at them; they simply stand and bear the brunt of the storm or revel in the sunshine. And as no two trees are ever subject to the exact same suite of conditions and phenomena, it is evident that no two trees will ever be identical; each is a visible expression of the climatic variability they have been exposed to over time, portrayed most notably in how their branches bend towards the prevailing sunlight or away from the prevailing wind.
All this variation is beautifully and uniquely expressed in the patterns of wood. Its blemishes are nature’s signatures: its knots are scars where branches once grew, its rings the disused channels where sap and water once flowed (and whose width records the intensity of that year’s sunlight), and its colour is from the stains of resin and tannins which may have been released to fend off an invading beetle.
We don’t seek to remove these blemishes and patterns when we make or purchase wooden products. Doing so would destroy their essence and would replace beauty with blandness — something our modern-day bureaucrats, architects, and town planners are already too eager to do — they don’t need further encouragement! No, we let these blemishes be and even desire them — the more patterned and knottier the better! Why is this? Well, apart from their obvious beauty, these patterns and blemishes remind us that this table, chair, or door, was once part of a living and magnificent creature (and oh, how we do love trees!). And for another, they remind us that we are dealing with a product of enduring quality and not with artificiality; let me sit in a wooden chair over a plastic one any day.
The fact that we continue to desire wood with all its marks, variable patterns, and knots, is, though, somewhat strange when we come to think about how much we demand flawlessness and uniformity in our modern age. And most certainly, our enduring love for wood is an enigma to the Machine. The Machine has worked hard — expending great energy, power, and precision — to make flawless perfection possible. But we shouldn’t think this is an expression of altruism. The Machine (and those humans standing behind it) have their own interests in mind. Their pursuit of perfection is for efficiencies’ sake. For flawlessness, once mastered, is tremendously efficient and thus tremendously profitable.
This efficiency can be seen most clearly in industrial mass production. Once a standardised blueprint or prototype is designed, and once the machine(s) to implement these designs have been fabricated, then the machines (and their human attendants) can simply be programmed to mindlessly churn out the same flawlessly shaped, coloured, and textured products, whether that be uVPC doors, plain white ceramic crockery, or pink plastic dinosaurs. Economies of scale, cheap inputs, and mass consumerism. All made possible by the wonders of the Machine!
Conversely, having to constantly change to adapt to variable inputs (such as wood) or to create variable and/or ornate creations, costs time and money. Much easier to just create sterile, bland, but flawless productions. This is blatant industrial logic —Machine logic — and you and I have fallen for it. The Machine has conditioned us to desire efficiency and cheapness in our lives, and conditioned us to value, therefore, what is the visible expression of efficiency. Sleek and metallic; geometrically perfect and whitewashed; standardised and uniform. These are the aesthetics of efficiency. These are the aesthetics we see displayed all around us in the modern world. These are the aesthetics we are being conditioned to expect, accept, and even desire.
Our enduring love for wood is thus an enigma to the Machine. Surely after all these years of the Machine’s influence we would have chosen to reject wood and all its blemishes, and instead embraced the aesthetics of efficiency and the products of cheapness. Surely by now we should have accepted the metallic park bench instead of the wooden one; desired plastic, stackable chairs instead of wooden pews; and bought hygienic plastic toys instead of hand carved ones for our children. Surely by now we would prefer cheap and uniform plastic products of mass production than variable and expensive wooden ones. Surely?
But, frustratingly for the Machine, it gives me great joy to say that many of us thankfully still prefer wood. We delight in its blemishes and patterns, its texture and its quality, and thus resist the industrial colonisation of our aesthetic desires by the Machine and its army of plastic minions. Long may that continue. And long may we continue to support those craftsmen and women who work with this most marvellous of materials — a material whose enduring quality is a match made in heaven for their good, skilful, and beautiful craftsmanship.
Wood thus wilfully disobeys the unnatural, totalitarian, and downright bland aesthetic standards of efficiency. It wears its natural blemishes as badges of honour, and we love it for its radical resistance to the Machine. Let us then buy it more often (from the craftsmen, if you can) and delight to fill our homes with the stuff.
Three cheers for wood!
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Further reading
A Tidal Wave of Mass Production
“Attempts are made, here and there, to revive the rural crafts, and sometimes with excellent results; but there is nevertheless something Canute-like in these endeavours, for the unpalatable truth is that quality and durability, which were the virtues of the crafts, are qualities incompatible with the age of mass production, whose aim is not to provide what is needed but to make people need what is provided
Quality Against The Machine
The Machine. It is inevitable, often integral, part of our everyday lives and this is something even techno-sceptics like myself have to accept. We may not approve of this fact, but that doesn’t make it any less true. More sobering is the reality that we are all complicit in the continuance, and perhaps even the
Brilliant! I love wood! House full of wooden furniture. Lounge and dining furniture still perfect 52 years later. Beautiful wood.
Can we cultivate a culture of heirlooms, an inheritance with long renewal times, maintainable? Our oak table is approaching 100 years old, and a long time ago we played sailing ships and camps under it, as our older brothers had done before. Agrarian heritage in its different forms can provide examples round the world, from plants to furniture, to landscapes. Tools, usually in a combination of metal and wood can be precious, looked for and looked after.
It is not too big a stretch to think we will need the tools, and value our handing-on more urgently in a generation or so, or perhaps even earlier. There will be choices if we are lucky. I have made a choice here for plastic mains water supply. We are lucky there is sufficient local rural supply in our part of Britain likely into the knowable future. The old local grid of asbestos-cement and iron pipes is left to history. I guess the specific plastic grid will last for several centuries. After that they will have to cope.