I was staring hard at the face in front of me, trying to bring it into focus. From what I could see, it and the person attached to it were not in very good shape. Dissipated might be too strong a word but it certainly didn’t look any too healthy.
But it was difficult to tell, partly because I was having difficulty focusing, partly because the lower half of my face was covered with shaving foam and partly because the mirror kept steaming up.
Although my hand was shaking, the razor slid smoothly over my skin as the three, precision-set cutting edges did their work. I thought how easy it all was. Despite my condition, I was getting an excellent shave.
I remember the effort my grandfather had to put into shaving. He used a cut-throat razor – a lethal instrument kept murderously sharp through the use of a leather strop. It required enormous skill not to end up covered in nicks, staunched with tissue paper.
My father used a safety razor – far less dangerous but capable of doing damage if not handled with care. The instrument I was using needed no skill at all.
But my grandfather’s cut-throat lasted him a lifetime. My father’s safety razor used disposable blades but they were simple things, stamped out of thin metal. The blades came in packs of five, each one wrapped in oiled paper and put into boxes of five – blue boxes with a man with a moustache on them. Under the picture was written King Gillette. As a child I often wondered what he was king of but no-one ever gave me a satisfactory explanation.
The instrument I had in my hand uses what I think are called cartridges, although my dictionary defines a cartridge as a case containing the charge for a gun. But whatever its proper name, it is certainly a piece of precision engineering: three strips of metal set at precise angles in a complex plastic and metal housing. This comes with three others in a blue plastic tray, which is in turn wrapped in cardboard.
Perhaps because of my mental condition I began to think of the ecology of shaving as a metaphor for our times. The complexity and cost of what we throw away hardly bears thinking about; yet the de-skilling of difficult operations – like shaving with a steamed-up mirror and shaking hand – is a massive benefit.
But de-skilling of itself does not necessarily lead to improvements in quality. Word-processing and desktop publishing software may improve the look of the documents we produce but they don’t turn us into great writers.
Nor, it seems, have the resources invested in economic modeling improved our ability to avoid major problems. Some time ago, I was involved with a think-tank whose task was to work out how to achieve low inflation, high employment and a positive balance of trade at the same time. It was perfectly easy, it seemed, to achieve any two of them but always at the expense of the third.
Over time, the economists involved got better and better at quantifying the issues. As computing power developed exponentially, so their understanding of the problem also developed. But understanding doesn’t necessarily lead to solutions.
It is as if we are in a leaking boat and everyone is becoming more and more skilled at measuring the rate at which the water is coming in and calculating exactly when the boat will sink. I sometimes feel that it might be better to give up on the calculations, grab a pail and start bailing.
I finished my shave, without inflicting a single nick, rinsed my face and looked into the mirror which had, by now, de-misted. The face looked better. Not good – no amount of improvement in shaving technology could do that – but better.
I dressed, sat down at my PC and began to write this piece. Coming to the end, I begin to wonder why I was asked to write about shaving for this particular publication. Could it be, I wonder, that I was supposed to be writing about saving and someone relied too heavily on the effectiveness of a spell-checker?
The implications for our times are just too horrible to contemplate.
