Thursday, January 26, 2006

What do you choose: Spigot or a Well?

According to Borgmann, a spigot is a device and a well is a thing. But how are we to know how to distinguish between what is a device or a thing? The major difference I think distiguishes the two concepts is the thing you have to put forth an effort to achieve your desire outcome. Using the example of the well, Borgmann explains that a well just does not give a person water but work is needed to be done such as digging the well, and retrieving the water with a bucket. On the other hand, the spigot to modern people is just a turn of a knob. No hard work is actually used to recieve the water. Another point Borgmann brings up in the book is how with a spigot people lose a sense of place. For an example, a person cannot tell someone to meet them at a spigot but a well may be a meeting place for a community, since this is the place where people get their water.
There was one point that was brought up in class that stuck out to me which was when you work for something it means more to you. I think this statement is very true. The people who use a well may realize how precoius water is and not take it for granted. They realize how the whole mechanism works. But for people who use a spigot may not fully understand how the device actually works. If a spigot broke people would have to call a plummer to fix it where as if a well was broke the person would understand how to fix the problem with out needing an expert on the thing. I believe modern people take so many things for granted and do not even realize it. We do not work hard today like the people in the past did. Everything for us comes easy and we take total advantage of it.

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