not2sharp
Platinum Member
- Joined
- Jun 29, 1999
- Messages
- 20,795
Our knives and our methods and objectives in using knives seem to have undergone a major evolutionary, or is it revolutionary, change during the 1980s. That was when cutting tools came to be increasingly described by terms like "tactical" and "survival" and less by more traditional terms like "sportsman"or "hunting". To be sure, movies like First Blood popularized those hollow handled survival knives. But, I would argue that this was just a reflection of the changes driven by the fast growing custom knife making market. The old language came to be associated with traditional factory products while the new reflected the innovations introduced by many thousands of independent makers. We were at the height of the cold war then so perhaps it should be expected that we would choose to label our favorite toys and tools with military sounding jargon.
Well the 80s are long gone and those of us who grew up in the era of public nuclear fallout shelters have grown old, but the split between traditional and moderns knives continues to expand at an ever faster pace. No longer are we taking our trusty hatchets to tend to our camp fires. That task is now handled by big hulking knives made from ever more magical sounding steels which we beat on mercilessly with heavy batons. Those with a more artistic bend are now more likely to pick up a dremel tool than a whittling knife, and for even stranger reasons there seems to be a growing demand for knives that can be used to defend against zombies.
Now don't get me wrong, I am not knocking any of this. I am glad that even as the diversity of ethnographic knives solidifies into a finite number, new varieties are created by our own imagination and technological advances. But, I thought it would be interesting to discuss how you believe these undercurrents have been driving these changes. Perhaps the industry has simply embraced that the majority of us now live in vast urban centers far away from a country boy's way of life.
let's discuss.
n2s
Well the 80s are long gone and those of us who grew up in the era of public nuclear fallout shelters have grown old, but the split between traditional and moderns knives continues to expand at an ever faster pace. No longer are we taking our trusty hatchets to tend to our camp fires. That task is now handled by big hulking knives made from ever more magical sounding steels which we beat on mercilessly with heavy batons. Those with a more artistic bend are now more likely to pick up a dremel tool than a whittling knife, and for even stranger reasons there seems to be a growing demand for knives that can be used to defend against zombies.
Now don't get me wrong, I am not knocking any of this. I am glad that even as the diversity of ethnographic knives solidifies into a finite number, new varieties are created by our own imagination and technological advances. But, I thought it would be interesting to discuss how you believe these undercurrents have been driving these changes. Perhaps the industry has simply embraced that the majority of us now live in vast urban centers far away from a country boy's way of life.
let's discuss.
n2s
