[HN Gopher] Apprentice, Journeyman, and Master: The Medieval Gui...
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Apprentice, Journeyman, and Master: The Medieval Guild (2018)
Author : squircle
Score : 70 points
Date : 2024-08-04 15:11 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.philosophicalsociety.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.philosophicalsociety.org)
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Journeyman sounds very much like a postdoc. (the traditional
| costumes are rare, but I've seen a few journeymen all togged out*
| for going "auf der Walz" over the last couple of decades)
|
| * eg https://www.wirholzbauer.ch/de/magazine-
| online/detail/?tx_hb...
|
| more on the topic:
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
| geertj wrote:
| These levels are are still used in the US today for eg
| electricians and other licensed trades. Interesting that they
| survived for so long.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| (2018)
|
| Some previous discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24473869
| repelsteeltje wrote:
| Of course, the tag line for the classic Pragmatic Programmer book
| originally was not _your journey to mastery_ , but _from
| journeyman to master_.
|
| So much more apt.
|
| https://pragprog.com/titles/tpp20/the-pragmatic-programmer-2...
| Simon_ORourke wrote:
| These are still very much in use in Germany today. I met a few of
| these guys in Berlin looking for a couch to crash on for a few
| days, all carpenters and very funny guys.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman_years
| zoogeny wrote:
| It is important to note, especially given the positive view given
| to the guild system in this article, that it is written on a
| masonic philosophy page. The freemasons have a long and esoteric
| history that should be viewed with some skepticism. Secret
| fraternal orders have a sketchy history.
|
| George Carlin has a famous comedy bit where he states "It's a big
| club and you ain't in it" [1]. My own feeling is that guilds of
| all sorts prioritize exclusivity for the purposes of bestowing
| power on some select few. As the article states "Master's were
| few and far between". This is similar to how luxury brands
| maintain their high value: exclusivity. The standardization and
| guarantees of quality seem to be secondary to the pyramid scheme
| nature of ascension within these organizations (in the same way
| that the quality of luxury goods is often secondary to their
| exclusivity). It reminds me in some ways of the concept of
| "familiars" in vampire lore, humans who willingly toil away for
| their masters hoping one day to be elevated to the same level.
|
| It is a complex topic because of the positives and negatives of
| these systems being highly intertwined. To this day in Canada
| there is an apprenticeship system for trades. However, it is no
| longer an inner circle of masters deciding who gets the special
| status, it is a regional qualification body with clear
| guidelines, training, testing and certification.
|
| As a society we haven't at all gotten away from the degenerate
| aspects of guilds. Think of the association with the
| "golf/country club" crowd. Or things like the Skull and Bones [2]
| type organizations at elite universities. Or when people joke
| about the Illuminati. This article is arguing _for_ that by
| presenting a rose-tinted-glasses view of the past.
|
| 1.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyvxt1svxso&ab_channel=SkyEc...
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_Bones
| waveBidder wrote:
| Historically, guilds were first and foremost a tool to enforce
| monopoly power on the part of masters against anyone else
| trying to enter the market (and against eachother to maintain
| monopoly pricing and supply). Luddites were actually just doing
| what guilds normally did.
| robwwilliams wrote:
| Agreed, but parent article makes the good point that the
| Hansa League and guilds also pushed back very effectively on
| the nobility in Germany snd Northern Europe (Bergen Norway
| was in the Hansa League).
|
| And if you are willing to be more generous (as the author and
| I are) these protective societies of workers and merchants
| were an early step toward free market economies unencumbered
| by lazy landed gentry. Compare the history of Spain and
| France during this era to that of Germany and Holland.
| zoogeny wrote:
| > guilds also pushed back very effectively on the nobility
| in Germany snd Northern Europe
|
| If your argument is that exclusive initiatory societies
| were an improvement on hereditary nobility rule then you
| won't get much of a push back from me. However, are they
| better than constitutional democratic republics?
|
| I don't actually have a clear answer to that question. I
| mean, I have a feeling that I have more chance of being
| initiated into a guild than I do being promoted to
| nobility. That _potential_ for inclusion goes a long way,
| much like the oft-cited American dream where even the poor
| think they have a chance at being a millionaire. And our
| current democratic system doesn 't seem to be adequately
| controlling the quality of our society.
|
| As I mentioned, it is actually a very complex question. I
| just recommend people to be skeptical. Societies that form
| around keeping some thing secret except for initiated
| members for the purposes of exclusivity should be treated
| with a large dose of skepticism.
| o11c wrote:
| According to people who complained about guilds, sure.
|
| But let's not forget that fraud and incompetence are
| _extremely_ common across history. And also that the very
| concept of _universities_ derived from guilds.
|
| So in a sense we _do_ still have, and rely on, a guild system
| today.
| motohagiography wrote:
| not sure what the issue is unless someone had fallen down the
| rabbit hole of anti-masonry. FOSS projects could learn a great
| deal about how to run sustainable organizations from
| fraternities, and their hierarchies and lodge structure is
| likely a more stable and sustainable form than 501c non-
| profits.
|
| if you want to know about freemasonry, consider the quality of
| their enemies.
| zoogeny wrote:
| I think there is "anti-masonry" and what I suggested as
| skepticism. For example, nepotism and cronyism aren't de-
| facto bad (e.g. a father handing the family business to his
| son or a person hiring a trusted and loyal friend). But if
| someone is a member of the "cronyism promotion society" and
| they write an article extolling the benefits of cronyism then
| that opinion ought to be digested with a large grain of salt.
| It is worth pointing out that there are some negative aspects
| to cronyism, just as there are negative aspects to secretive
| initiative societies.
|
| At it's core, this article is a stealth motte and bailey
| argument. It points out the benefits of guilds (where there
| is a legitimate argument to be made about skill transfer and
| quality of work) to support a deeper ideology about
| hierarchical structures of society. If one wants to make the
| argument that the ritualization present in free masonry is a
| net benefit to X, then present that argument directly.
| diffxx wrote:
| Late Carlin got far too misanthropic for my taste.
|
| Like all things, we need balance. This is a good argument
| against guilds, but there are positive aspects of the system
| too. Imagine a world that was truly a free for all -- one in
| which there were no trusted authorities in any field. I believe
| such a society would quickly devolve into a dystopia and
| collapse.
|
| From my perspective, the big problem is when there is no
| competition among guilds and the guild leaders wield
| disproportionate societal power. That is how you end up with
| oppressive oligarchy, which honestly is a reasonable
| description of the global order right now. My hope though is
| that we are better able to organize and compete against the
| current oligarchic order.
| zoogeny wrote:
| > I believe such a society would quickly devolve into a
| dystopia and collapse.
|
| The main argument in favor of
| totalitarianism/authoritarianism is pretty much always law &
| order. And the main argument against the prevailing power
| structure is pretty much always freedom (e.g. from oppression
| and/or protection of fairness in competition). So the
| question is often, what is more important to you, order or
| freedom? How much freedom would you give up for order, and
| how much order would you give up for freedom?
|
| However, guilds aren't the only way to promote
| structure/order. As I said, the system in Canada is
| regionalized through state run organizations which are
| answerable to a democratic process. It is not through some
| secret cabal of "Masters" who make arbitrary decisions. We
| can achieve order without requiring esoteric fraternal
| societies. For all of their flaws, constitutional democratic
| republics offer a much better system of accountability.
| q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote:
| > My own feeling is that guilds of all sorts prioritize
| exclusivity for the purposes of bestowing power on some select
| few. As the article states "Master's were few and far between".
|
| One possible reason could simply be there's a lot more _future_
| impact to granting someone the final title. If you proclaim
| someone a "Maestro of C++," then suddenly all the other C++
| laborers will get a clear signal that whatever that person is
| doing is implicitly _also_ what they should do, if they want to
| move up the ladder.
|
| Beyond that, the top jobs usually comes with required work to
| train the next generation. So this person would heavily
| contribute, both implicitly and explicitly, to the future of
| the C++ guild.
|
| Considering that impact in combination with how hard it would
| be to undo the decision, it's not surprising that many
| organizations might be cautious about deciding to hand someone
| that title.
|
| > clear guidelines, training, testing and certification.
|
| This makes sense, too. For any organization that wants to
| _stay_ in the business of handing out these titles for the
| long-term, meaningful transparency is a good way to go about
| it.
| danjl wrote:
| I have often felt that programming would do well to have a guild-
| like system. Current job titles and years of experience do not
| really help to differentiate the quality of individuals. There's
| also the intangible benefits of trust and quality that come from
| the system. I'd love to write "craft" code, that is about
| producing quality code that elegantly solves real problems.
| Especially in comparison to the current trend of writing code as
| quickly as possible, with very little regard for quality from
| folks outside of the dev team.
| eddd-ddde wrote:
| I love the idea.
|
| I think some people may fear the concept that their years of
| experience are just not equal to someone else's same years of
| experience.
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