The critical eye towards forging.

[Daswulf]

Lately the critical eye towards forging has got people more upset at me. As in " the truth hurts their idea of what they see" 

anyone else with this problem?

[JHCC]

Das, what do you mean by "the critical eye towards forging"?

[Jim Coke]

Greetings Das,

        “ THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DOING SOMETHING WRONG AND DOING SOMETHING THAT SOMEONE DOES NOT LIKE”

           “THE SUCESS OF AN ARTIST IS DIRECTILLY PROPORTIONATE TO THE SIZE OF HIS SCRAP PILE”

       Just this ol boys words of wisdom. 

Forge on and make beautiful things 

Jim

 

[Lou L]

This needs context!  Can you give the background story without incriminating people?

[Daswulf]

Ok, a little background is: people have their misconceptions about forging and black smithing. I set them on the right path to the truth of what actually happens or what the general steps are and they argue based on what they know or saw on TV or a movie or whatever. Same deal with blade smithing. I can run out of breath before I can counter the misconceptions or just wrong stuff they have in mind. 

[John McPherson]

I believe it was Mark Twain that said "A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get it shoes on."

As I get older, I agree with him more.

[Daswulf]

Well stated John. 

[Lou L]

Honestly, John has it dead to rights.  If you want to feel better about all of it just read more Mark Twain quotes.  There is a reason the award is named after him.  He was amazing at reminding us that, ad a group, we are brutally flawed.  Only in individuals do we meet our potential as a species.

 

edited to add my original thought:  Don’t even waste your time teaching them.  It is a lose-lose proposition for you.  Odds are they will just perceive you as a blowhard know-it-all and ignore you...and, even if they have an epiphany, it will do little to change the misconceptions because they are unlikely to spread your gospel.  Sadly, it’s best to say nothing unless people directly ask you for explanation.

[ausfire]

I know what you mean, Aric. I run into that sort of thing every so often with demos.

I think it may have been good old Shakespeare who said  'To thine own self be true'. You know what you're doing so don't trouble yourself over what others think.

[rockstar.esq]

Daswulf,

You got me thinking about something in my own life that may apply here.  I've been working as a construction estimator for over ten years now.   A few years back, my neighbor across the street was working on a landscaping project.  We were talking about it when she made an offhand comment about how she needed to figure out how much topsoil she needed to order.  I noticed that all the dimensions were fairly obvious (uncut lengths of standard lumber) so it wasn't too difficult to calculate.  I told her she needed two cubic yards of topsoil.

She looked at me as though I'd pulled the answer from thin air before telling me she'd have to consult with someone at the home center.  I've known this lady for fifteen years or so and she often asks about my work as an estimator.  

In contrast, I wrote a blog article several years ago about how to write a winning bid proposal and I'm still getting comments from people thanking me for the tips.

My point is that I think people tend to see whatever they're looking for.  Maybe my neighbor wasn't looking for an answer, so she felt entitled to disregard my professional opinion.  Perhaps people struggling to win their bids went searching the net for answers and found their way to my article.  They don't know who I am, or how I came to know this stuff, they just recognize the answer(s) they were looking for.

It's really weird, I can beat everyone on the market to win a job yet the client will argue with my ability to estimate.  Yet I can be having a quiet talk with a colleague at a job walk and the whole room of competitors will listen in.

 

[Daswulf]

hmm. Like some people that come to this forum even that ask a question but are only looking for an answer that they Want to hear and discount valuable answers they received. 

 

[rockstar.esq]

Maybe so. Keep in mind that there's an audience beyond the person asking. I've learned lots from exchanges that probably fit your description. 

[Daswulf]

Oh, I wasn't saying it was pointless in answering, pointing them in the right direction or even sometimes the continued attempts to get them to see reason. I have learned things from some of those as well. 

Thats where a good forum like this one is so valuable over a one on one with that type. I was just mentioning that type of person. With a forum like this others Can learn if they want.  

Perhaps it's all just about the box mentality. Some people just want to stay in and others are willing to step out if given a little help seeing past the lines. 

Then again, there are those that think about blowing up the box with them still in it to get out. 

[swedefiddle]

Happy New Year,

Who built the Box??????

Neil

[Marc1]

On 01/01/2018 at 12:42 PM, Daswulf said:

Ok, a little background is: people have their misconceptions about forging and black smithing. I set them on the right path to the truth of what actually happens or what the general steps are and they argue based on what they know or saw on TV or a movie or whatever. Same deal with blade smithing. I can run out of breath before I can counter the misconceptions or just wrong stuff they have in mind. 

 

My wife is a doctor and deals with this scenario all the time. Well not about forging but in relation to patients that argue with her after consulting Dr Google, or Dr Grandma, or the local herbalist. Sometimes she sends me a text asking if I can research a particular supplement and what it is claimed to do.

Her approach is to listen what the patient believes or trusts and why do they trust a google hit more than her 30 years experience and multiple qualifications. I sometimes say to her, why do you tolerate that? Send them away! She replies, it is not about me. 

Her idea is that if a patient needs to google or trusts a supplement that says on the label "may be of some help for this and that symptom" more than her professional opinion, there is something wrong not with the patient but with the trust she thinks she is not conveying. 

Blacksmithing or rather Bladesmithing has become popular through TV series. Just like cooking and renovations. This TV series are a business created to lure the viewer in whatever way possible, not to learn but to be the target of the advertisers that pay for the slots. It is not your fault nor can you change it, and I don't think you need to feel it is your duty to do so, unless you are talking about students of yours, don't make the same mistake some religious fanatics have done in the past. 

 

[rockstar.esq]

Marc1,  You've made really good comments all around.  There's a book I'm looking to read entitled "The Death of Expertise" that addresses your wife's situation.  The reviews I've read made the book sound compelling.  Another one that's on my list is by the Dilbert comic author, Scott Adams and it's titled "Win Bigly: Persuasion In A World Where Facts Don't Matter".  Adams correctly predicted the US Presidential election before most of the candidates announced they would run.  His predictions have been consistently accurate since then as well.  His blog is mainly focused on analyzing social issues in terms of psychology, sales, and negotiations.  While I can't speak to the long-term utility of his approach, he does seem to be well-tuned to our current state of affairs.

Daswulf,  The part of your post that Marc1 quoted reminded me of something.  I could pick just about any popular movie/play/story where the underdog eventually wins over their love interest.  Looking back, I can recall people (sometimes myself) who followed the arc of that story as courting advice.  It never worked, which is probably obvious to anyone fortunate enough to earn their way into a happy, stable relationship.  Basic stuff like successfully pursuing our hearts desire truthfully requires a lot less magic and lot more substance.  Embracing difficulty to correct personal short-comings doesn't sound very appealing.  Selecting on the basis of character, integrity, and dedication requires  judgement that is hard to come by without experience.  Maybe the stories promote the failing arc because it's fantasy for new and old alike.  The young want to believe it will be easy, the old want to believe things might have gone differently. 

There's a quote attributed to Mark Twain that seems relevant here.  "When I was 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But by the time I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he'd learned in seven years."

 

[Daswulf]

Marc, I have always been pretty skeptical on what a doctor will passingly prescribe to me. Guess I'm a bit guilty   One year I got a couple tick bites ( never got the tell tale limes disease rash) and months later I was experiencing pretty bad joint pain. I went to the doctors thinking I could have limes disease. My new doctor ran all kinds of tests and in the end said I was on the verge of rheumatoid arthritis and prescribed vitamin D. I was pretty surprised and gained a bit of trust from that one because usually ( from my experience) they tend to put you on whatever new drug is being pushed at the time. Not that I had any better idea tho. The vitamin D helped. Still wondering why I've had a nickel allergy since then tho.

I guess we can all have some misconceptions or ignorance of areas of life. A difference is keeping an open mind and listening to those that do have more knowledge. Rockstar, I think that last quote is a very good one about youth. 

Lots of good stuff in this thread. Maybe I need to be rereading some Mark Twain. 

 

[ThomasPowers]

I've notice a number of folks coming here and basically saying "I don't know squat about propane burners and designed my own---why doesn't it work?"   This rather croggles me!  If I was wanting to build a burner and didn't know how the fiddly bits worked I'd use a known good design OR expect to spend a lot of time researching, testing and learning how burners work.  I realize that maybe on the internet *everybody's* opinion has the same worth; but in the real world things don't work that way. (I've even seen a couple of youtube videos where the person says "I've never done this before but this is how you do it".  I can't understand why they are posting a video if they don't know how!)

[Daswulf]

There are actually a Lot of videos on yt of people documenting a first time building something and showing " how it's done."  

I see it on instructables as well. 

[ThomasPowers]

I don't mean to denigrate the "This is what I wanted to end up with and the problems I ran into trying to make it" videos  Very different from the "This is how to do it!" ones.

[Daswulf]

I was meaning the " this is how to do it" or the "how to" crowd. Not taking away from people documenting their work but the ones that do post it as a "how to"  I think I worded it poorly. 

[JHCC]

On 1/1/2018 at 1:10 AM, Lou L said:

[Mark Twain] was amazing at reminding us that, as a group, we are brutally flawed.

People, that is.

Blacksmiths, as a group, are anything but.

[Marc1]

Perhaps my example of doctor patient is not the best one. A doctor has to deal with a lot of other factors in a 5 minute consultation besides the patient own bias and misconceptions. Think of the major ones, vaccinations, antibiotics and Xrays. 

Vaccinations refusal has social consequences, demanding antibiotics when it is not required has a cascading effect, the request of an xray or MRI or CT in the belief that it will somehow cure has economic repercussions in a country that provides everything for free ... sorry not free, just using my money.

So perhaps a better example is the religious one. I understand that a little known trade like Blacksmithing is obscure to most folks and when a TV series seems to uncover all the secrets to the viewer, the experts abound. It is a given that such armchair expertees is bound to clash when someone in the know hears or is challenged by such bogus knowledge, however the way we respond to those challenges makes all the difference.

I remember with some trepidation my times as an amateur evangelist. New to the faith full of zeal and in my twenties, I was ready for any challenge. I studied all the denominations and what each of them thought in detail. I had a reply for every challenge, from the agnostic and the atheist to the JW and the 7DA and the Mormon and the Mason, the Catholic the Pentecostal and everyone else, I knew where to strike ... yet I made no converts.

I was winning every battle but lost the war. Because I thought it was about me, but it is actually about the other guy, that one that irritates you and tells you that you are choking the hammer or that you hit like a girl or that you will burn the iron, that the anvil needs the face milled, or whatever they say because they believe it. There is a complex process behind every belief and it is very difficult to dismantle it with a frontal confrontation that usually makes it stronger. It is far better to show what we know as an alternative that can coexist with the other person's assumptions. 

This probably applies also to some of the answer that are given to newcomers in this forum, most likely well intentioned and that have the ability to make me livid ... but like I said ... it is not about me ... or you Das for that matter

No sinner is ever saved after the first 20 minutes of a sermon ... Mark Twain

[SLAG]

Marc1,

I think you are onto something.

I have come to the understanding that confrontation does not win friends.

If we attack, they defend.

(that, of course, is my own personal observation)

Regards,

SLAG.

[ThomasPowers]

I've posted before about methods to correct people, particularly parents, when they are spreading misinformation about smithing at demos with things like:

"That was generally thought for many years; but recent research has shown that XYZ is what actually happens when we do this."   

or "That was how it was done when they used to use real wrought iron; but with the advent of more modern steels we now prefer to do it this way..." 

Confirming their previous ideas and then indicating that the current thought on the matter has progressed.

Of course there is when they tell their children; "Look he's making a horseshoe" and you hold up the rose you are forging and say "You should see the horse that wears this!"