What a nice left-handed compliment!
When it comes to politics and the state of the United States then West Coast and I will probably just have to agree to disagree. But it may be that we are reading from the same page when it comes to the trend in aviation and perhaps in society in general.
There is a general run-down of pride in being an old-fashioned master of one's trade right across society that carries into the cockpit. Well, aviation has expanded so quickly that it may have lost something of its heritage.
I have been spending a couple of weeks pottering around the hacienda, doing small maintenance tasks as a way of getting my mind right for another spell of work in West Africa.
I had asked a fellow at the local garage (non-franchise) to drill and re-tap a sink fitting for me, a fairly basic task for anyone equipped with basic metal-working skills and tools. Result: nothing! He kept the thing for a while and then gave up without even trying, handing it back as unrepairable. (Of course one can forget sourcing repair parts for something more than ten years old!) I ended up fixing it myself using basic hand tools.
This made me think of some of my un-met expectations when flying. For instance, I seem to be coming across as unreasonably demanding to expect that someone should be ready to respond to a TCAS alert with an immediate hand-flown response rather than a nice long look at the mode selectors before putting in the VS mode and then dialling in an appropriate number.
What I am getting at is the parallel of getting to grips rather directly with a problem, I suppose. What used to be called, 'Killing your own rats.' The essence of flying is to fly, just as the essence of having a workshop is to fix things, yes? You hold an idea in your mind, the Platonic ideal of whatever it is you see yourself doing and then you damn' well do it!
Nowadays it often seems to be 'This is not in my job description!' rather than 'Let us get on with the job!' It is as if people are coming into the wide field of aviation with a very narrow set of expectations, and perhaps a narrow set of skills as well.
The trend, what with cost-cutting and legislation-driven risk-avoidance, seems to be that many of the old skills and mind-sets are either not learnt or else discarded today. If we maintain that the basics of aviation have not changed then this means they shall have to be re-learnt and re-acquired later.