A Vocational Point of View
Dublin Core
Title
A Vocational Point of View
Subject
Craft
Description
Letter written by Sr. Angelina to the editor of the ecologist, proposing a return to craft-based vocational understandings as the only sustainable path in a post-industrial world.
Creator
Sr. Angelina
Source
Sr. Angelina. "A Vocational Point of View." the ecologist 9.8/9, Nov/Dec 1979; http://www.theecologist.org/back_archive/19701999/
Publisher
the ecologist
Date
1979
Language
English
Type
Text
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
Dear Sirs,
Ken Penney’s article in the September Ecologist mobilises a coherent and powerful attack upon the economics of greed. However, there is one crucial point which in this, as in many similar statements, is left vague.
He points out that communities such as the Amish and the Hutterites have remained content with lifestyles unchanged over centuries, and dismisses the objection that such communities are only successful because of their high religious scale of values with the suggestion that ‘it is only a matter of definition whether some values are religious and some are not. Could it not be possible that profit making itself is the religion of materialism?’
It is scarcely disputable that the race for material goods is a religion-substitute; but that leaves unsolved the problem of what substitute the secular stable economy can find for both religion and money-grubbing. Mere contentedness to live in peace with one’s neighbours is a pleasant idea on paper, but it ignores the actual dynamics of human psychology.
The late Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy pointed out in many of his works that all traditional pre-industrial societies had or have a complex metaphysical doctrine of their various crafts (including agriculture). Each is seen not only as a means of producing material necessities, but as a paradigm of the cosmogonic act; and consequently also as a meditative path. An individual’s craft was a vocation in the true sense; an inseparable part of her own being.
The loss of this traditional approach to the crafts is the root cause of all ‘industrialism’, since it is only when the inner meaning of craft has been forgotten that its whole essence can be sacrificed to methods which merely increase its external productive efficiency.
Having seen for myself the level of real motivation and dedication generated by the ‘path of works’ in traditional Madrian-matriarchal communities in this country, I am convinced that a return to a vocational society in the traditional sense is the only workable long-term solution to the psychological and spiritual problems of a post-industrial economy.
Yours faithfully,
Sister Angelina,
Lux Madriana,
Oxford.
Ken Penney’s article in the September Ecologist mobilises a coherent and powerful attack upon the economics of greed. However, there is one crucial point which in this, as in many similar statements, is left vague.
He points out that communities such as the Amish and the Hutterites have remained content with lifestyles unchanged over centuries, and dismisses the objection that such communities are only successful because of their high religious scale of values with the suggestion that ‘it is only a matter of definition whether some values are religious and some are not. Could it not be possible that profit making itself is the religion of materialism?’
It is scarcely disputable that the race for material goods is a religion-substitute; but that leaves unsolved the problem of what substitute the secular stable economy can find for both religion and money-grubbing. Mere contentedness to live in peace with one’s neighbours is a pleasant idea on paper, but it ignores the actual dynamics of human psychology.
The late Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy pointed out in many of his works that all traditional pre-industrial societies had or have a complex metaphysical doctrine of their various crafts (including agriculture). Each is seen not only as a means of producing material necessities, but as a paradigm of the cosmogonic act; and consequently also as a meditative path. An individual’s craft was a vocation in the true sense; an inseparable part of her own being.
The loss of this traditional approach to the crafts is the root cause of all ‘industrialism’, since it is only when the inner meaning of craft has been forgotten that its whole essence can be sacrificed to methods which merely increase its external productive efficiency.
Having seen for myself the level of real motivation and dedication generated by the ‘path of works’ in traditional Madrian-matriarchal communities in this country, I am convinced that a return to a vocational society in the traditional sense is the only workable long-term solution to the psychological and spiritual problems of a post-industrial economy.
Yours faithfully,
Sister Angelina,
Lux Madriana,
Oxford.
Original Format
print (1p.)
Files
Citation
Sr. Angelina, “A Vocational Point of View,” Digital Library for Filianic Studies, accessed September 4, 2026, https://filianicstudies.org/cms/items/show/1.