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Habit and Tools



The forms of tools influence their culture, but are also are
influenced by the cultures within which they are used.

What is valued in one culture may not be valued in other.
Woollen cloth protects against the cold in both Scotland and
Kashmir. In Scotland woollen cloth is valued for being thick,
warm and sturdy.In Kashmir the best wool is thinly spun
and tightly woven to make it windproof. The stuff of Kashmiri
legend is a shawl so thin it can be pulled through a ring.
But no Scotsman would pay any attention to a bit of stuff
so thin and flimsy.

Conversely, tools influence social action. While knives are
used in every culture, only in the West do they also appear as
utensils for eating, perhaps because the heavy bread made
from wheat, the staple grain of the West, required cutting
immediately before eating.

Table manners were in fact originally the means of controlling
violence at meals. The development of the rounded-tip
'butter knife' came about by a mediaeval king who wished to
reduce dinner-fight fatalities. Where the staple food of rice
or millet requires no cutting and knives are confined to
the kitchen, only bite- sized pieces reach the table.
As a result, Eastern eating manners are associated less
with self-control and more with speed and flavour.

 

© 1993- 1995 Alexander Manu ©1995 Danish Design Centre "ToolToys - Tools with an Element of Play "
The author grants permission to make a digital or hard copy of part or all of this work for personal use provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit. The copyright notice and the title of the publication must appear on all printed copies.