Bill Coperthwaite, syncretic journeyman extraordinaire, was a man who lived his life as if it was his greatest work of art. A Handmade Life is the testament—a beautifully designed distillation of his philosophy of education (centered around the home), insight gleaned from mentors, cultural wisdom acquired from excursions abroad, and practical instruction on home-building.
Here is one of the more poignant summarizations:
“There was absolutely no way, that I could see, that society could avert catastrophe. Everywhere there was pollution of air, water, minds; everywhere there was crime, poverty, political corruption, war, land and food poisoning...I viewed the mass humanity as easily duped, with people willing to sell themselves for material gain, while remaining provincial and violent. Democracy had become a system in which the many were manipulated by the few. Yet slowly it became clear to me that the basic human stock was sound and that the “democracy” I saw was not democracy but a distortion of it. As I became aware of our untapped potential as human beings, I began to grow in optimism and belief in our latent ability to solve problems...Only a minute percentage of our abilities has been developed...[I was not] concerned with what economic, political, or social system is best.. I [was] concerned with education—the development of human beings, their growth.”
Out of this despair Coperthwaite began a quest compiling the world's cultural wisdom necessary for living a life of simplicity, nonviolence, and the pursuit and dissemination of education.
What I most enjoyed were the wry commentaries on the absurdities of modern life interspersed throughout the book, i.e:
“We started leaving the home to go to work in order to support the home. We have been doing this for so long that we have forgotten the purpose for which we sold ourselves in the first place.”
“...machines can be used to create any form of chair we like, but commercial interests can make more chairs (and more money) if the simplest designs for the machines is chosen for production. So we end up surrounded by furniture designed to fit the needs of machines.”
“Wouldn't it be grand instead of jogging, to pedal exercisers that generate and store electricity? ... Why not seek a way to build up your body and help others at the same time?”
“Are we so afraid of becoming one with the earth that we need to fill dead bodies with poisons and seal them away in caskets to slow their return to the soil? To deny our nature in this way demonstrates a fundamental insecurity and lack of appreciation for life and its cycles.”
“In the past, success has generally been relative and competitive—measured by the failure of others. It now behooves us to think in terms of cooperative success, wherein we feel happy as the group about us succeeds. After all, what does it gain us to be “successful” in a failing society or, as J. Goldsmith has said, “To win in a poker game on the Titanic?”'
If you enjoy the writing of Wendell Berry, Buckminster Fuller, and Dick Proenekke you'll find kinship in Coperthwaite's words.
“How one lives is fundamentally a political act.”
