“Today’s cheap, mass-produced goods lack the precision and quality of yesterday’s hand-built, carefully crafted products.” DIRECTIONS: Write an essay in response to the preceding statement in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement. Explain your reasoning in a clear, well-organized essay that supports your position. Consider both sides of the issue when developing your response.

The broad assertion that all mass-produced goods are inferior to handcrafted products is clearly overreaching, and I disagree with the statement. Certainly, in some instances handcrafted products are superior, but more often mass production yields more precise, higher quality products. A few real-world examples, including a wristwatch, suit, and personal computer, demonstrate why many, but not all, of today’s cheaper, mass-produced goods have better quality and precision than yesterday’s hand-built, carefully crafted products. The wristwatch is an example of a product that is better when mass produced. My Casio watch was mass-produced with probably 10, 000 other identical units. I purchased this watch five years ago, and it has consistently worked perfectly, with the occasional interruption for a battery replacement. The quality is fine, and the precision couldn’t be better. Contrast this with my uncle’s Patek Philippe, which was handmade with maybe a dozen others. Due to the motion-generated winding feature, his watch stops working when he doesn’t wear it for more than two days! Clearly, this is neither precise timekeeping nor quality of utility. At any given moment, the Casio will always show the correct time, while the Patek’s precision is a coin toss. The claim that mass-produced products lack the precision and quality of handmade goods, in this commonly occurring context, is clearly wrong. However, some products are better as handmade items than as mass produced commodities, such as gentlemen’s suits. For example, I wore an off-the-rack two-piece suit to my high-school graduation. The jacket was slightly large, but the next size smaller jacket was too small. The workmanship was mediocre, with loose threads and a misplaced stitch. It wasn’t cheap, but it was mass-produced, and thus had neither quality nor precision. Contrast this with the handmade, professionally tailored suit that I bought last year. The precise fit is flawless and the quality unparalleled. Though the claim that mass-produced products lack the quality and precision of handmade goods is true in this example, the claim still cannot be applied to all products. To sum up, one cannot correctly claim that all mass-produced products are inferior to handmade goods. The examples describing the wristwatch, the gentlemen’s suit, and the personal computer clearly demonstrate that the claim may or may not be true, depending on the context and product. A claim that is sometimes true and sometimes not is an invalid claim, and this claim implies that it is always true. For this reason, I disagree with the statement, and I contend that most, but not all, mass-produced goods have better quality and precision than hand built, carefully crafted products.