Defining our Toolboxes

In a post on G+, Tim Carmody proposed the notion of a full disclosure for tech journalists including what particular devices/systems they owned and used. For example, if one was writing about Windows, and didn’t actually have a Windows machine, should that be acknowledged?

The brief consensus in the comments was that this information is certainly helpful. I noted that when on a tech forum discussing problems with one’s tech, the first thing you’re asked to do is state the system you’re using to set the context. So shouldn’t this be standard for tech praise or tech criticism as well as tech support?

Justin Pickard brought up the site UsesThis at which influential tech folks are interviewed about their setups for particular tasks. Certainly this counts as an endorsement of some sort. And yet, obviously the reader interested in a particular graphics engine box will be taking these personal choices with a grain of salt. People still have preferences, and no one person’s choice can be said to be the canonical best of all. Every choice has pros and cons, and that what a reviewer hopefully seeks to identify in reviewing a product–saying “this is not simply the best for me, but here are the sorts of tasks it does well or poorly, by which you might make your own decision.” The declaration of one’s own setup is quite subjective, while reviewing intends a sort of objectivity.

And yet, there is more to these alternate points of view. When hearing about someone else’s gear, one doesn’t just take it as a personal endorsement. There is something more dynamic than that. You aren’t just reading someone else’s shopping list, or their wish list in a catalog. You are hearing a narrative about how they’ve solved a particular problem. The choices they’ve made speak to their workflow, and their way of confronting a regular, complex task. It doesn’t represent the best way, or the cheapest way, or the newest way: it speaks to the actual way that something is done.

This is not a narrative of qualitative or quantitative indicators, it is a narrative of praxis. It’s like looking into your grandfather’s tool box, or watching a friend drive. By listing one’s central tools or gear, you are learning about the person as much as their objects, because you are learning about the network of the person, extending outward to their objects.

I’m not a tech reviewer, but I take my gear seriously, and while I don’t fetishize it I select it carefully. So I came up with my own toolbox list, which is now a standard page here on the website, which I’ll update as it changes.

I didn’t list everything I use or own for everything, but I listed the things for which I had a choice, and after some thinking, made that choice carefully. I’m a writer, and a part of my daily work is reading, so I’ve also listed some standard reading sources. This is a potential place for the list to turn into the fetish catalog–it would not be completely inaccurate to list every book I’ve read, or basically add a blog roll or even my Twitter follow list, as these all affect my daily work considerably. But this would be veering towards the Minimalist Lifestyle Design Fetish, which is to make everything one associates with a personal accessory and endorsement. Brand is not an element of praxis. Brand is the total picture–the holistic aesthetic that commodity merchants attempt to sell, because once the brand is sold, accessory products can be shilled with the ease of action-figure play sets. Brand washes over the actual praxis, erasing use-value and replacing it with aesthetic. Aesthetic can be part of praxis, but it is the use of each particular object that defines its part in the network, not the overall image, or the construction of a total lifestyle list. Think of it this way: it would make sense for tool box to contain screwdrivers. And, a person might choose a particular sort of screwdriver, with ratchet grip and selectable tips, if that provides them more utility from time to time. However, it does not make sense for every toolbox to have this particular screwdriver, simply because it is more functional. And furthermore, although one might be able to order this particular screwdriver in custom colors, that is not relevant at all. Praxis extends and networks a certain amount of usage and features in particular devices, in a contingent framework that is developed individually, and uniquely at each occurrence of use. On the other hand, attempting to bind every feature or object together as a single continuum is where the brand develops. The difference between a real life toolbox and the Sharper Image catalog is the difference of steel, grease, plastic, and scuff marks, versus glossy paper, photos, and artful descriptions. It’s the difference between the things you use, and the things someone thinks you should use.

And in the end, this comes back to Tim’s originally raised question. In listing the items in our toolbox, we aren’t only rattling off a list in the effort of full disclosure, description, or identification. We are picking up each of our items individually, and thinking about why and how we use them. Is this a “toolbox” item? How carefully did we consider this object when we brought it into our possession? Would we accept a different tool in its place, or is there something about it that is unique to our relationship with the objects around us? These are questions of praxis, whereas an itemized list is a catalog, or a collector’s checklist. Perhaps reviewing technology as products should be more personal, more practical. But certainly our relationship with our own tools should be.