Welcome!

Welcome to a new blog dedicated to Nicholai A. Bernstein.

Due to a couple of interesting events; Chapters stores clearing their back rooms, and the work of two men who diligently brought the 50 year-unpublished work of a Russian who sought to bring insight into dexterity to the scientific community, I found myself with the good fortune of having in my hands one of the most influential books I've ever held.

In the posts that follow, I hope to be able to aid in propagating an understanding of what it is to be a skilled craft or trades worker.

Dave Armishaw

Monday, January 11, 2010

Comrade Pavlov & Handwork

One of the key issues of the book is of Bernstein as a young, well educated scientist working for the Soviet government to improve worker efficiency finding out something very much different; that Pavlov's ideas, which brought great fame to Russia were in fact very much oversimplified and plain wrong. It's important because many decades of thought and labour relations practice are based on a condescending, overly simplistic concept of human action.

We do know now that even dogs don't act purely on conditioned reflexes as Pavlov described. Much more, humans act purposefully in making and creating, engaging higher thought as much as intellectual activity.