Back to Basics

Why fixing faucets, teaching reading, and fixing society all start with the same first step: understanding the mechanism.

Over the past few months—somewhere between full-time work and what passes for semi-retirement—I’ve found myself living far more in the digital world than I ever expected. I write regularly on Facebook and for my Substack newsletter, work on a longer project called The American Pamphleteer, post product reviews on Amazon, and, at my daughter’s insistence, I launched a TikTok channel called RealMikeTheHandyman.

Her pitch was simple: there are a lot of young adults who can operate five apps simultaneously but freeze when confronted with a Phillips-head screwdriver. She wasn’t entirely joking. A generation raised in apartments, dorms, and managed spaces often never learned the mechanical basics that earlier generations picked up by necessity. The channel teaches fundamentals—installing a bathroom faucet, mounting a flat-screen TV, replacing a bad outlet—the sort of things homeowners once learned by watching their parents on a Saturday afternoon.

I grew up in a farm and construction family and worked on everything from finish carpentry to rebuilding tractor engines. None of that felt extraordinary at the time because it was simply what we did. The more videos I post, however, the clearer it becomes that what used to be ordinary knowledge has quietly become specialized knowledge. The goal isn’t to turn everyone into a tradesman. It’s to build confidence and competence—to help people handle simple repairs themselves and, just as importantly, recognize when it’s time to call a professional before they burn the house down or wind up in the ER.

Because of that, I always begin with fundamentals. My first series covered electrical safety and the basic tools every homeowner should own. A modest, quality tool kit solves most household problems, but only if the user understands what each tool actually does. Ninety percent of home repairs are not complex; they’re simply unfamiliar.

The biggest mistake I see is not lack of intelligence or effort—it’s enthusiasm without preparation. People jump in without knowledge or proper tools, convinced determination will substitute for understanding. It never does. Using the wrong tool turns a simple job into a frustrating ordeal and sometimes into an expensive repair.

Everyone knows the experience: assembling toys late on Christmas Eve without reading the instructions. Parts are left over, steps are skipped, and halfway through you realize you have to disassemble everything and start over. I learned that lesson about thirty years ago while assembling a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Technodrome at 2AM on Christmas morning. I finished it eventually, but I’m fairly certain we still have leftover pieces somewhere in our junk drawer. Determination was present; preparation was not.

The lesson applies beyond toys and plumbing fixtures. If you want something done correctly, you need the right tools and you need to understand the system you’re working on before you begin turning screws.

Lately I’ve wondered whether the same principle explains many of our broader societal frustrations. We often talk about social and economic problems as if they are unsolvable mysteries, yet we rarely ask whether we approached them with the proper tools or any real understanding of how the mechanisms involved actually function.

Imagine rebuilding a Chevy big-block V-8 with a claw hammer, pliers, and a positive attitude. You might admire the enthusiasm, but you wouldn’t expect the engine to run. Mechanical systems demand knowledge of tolerances, sequencing, and interdependence. A crankshaft installed incorrectly doesn’t respond to passion. It responds to physics.

Public policy often looks similar. Complex systems—economies, education, culture, incentives—are treated as if they were appliances with a single broken switch. We attack outcomes without understanding causes, then seem surprised when the fix produces new problems. When results disappoint, we apply more force rather than reconsidering our understanding.

I recently read about a student suing her school system because she graduated with awards yet cannot read. That story made me think about the “Mississippi Miracle,” where reading scores dramatically improved after educators returned to phonics-based instruction. My wife, after a forty-year career teaching reading, has preached the same thing for decades: get back to basics. Stop assuming complex is better. Stop solving a problem with expensive and ineffective tools when you haven’t identified the real problem. Abandoning “whole language” instruction in favor of phonics didn’t lower standards—it restored them, because phonics actually teaches children how reading works.

What she believes about reading applies everywhere else. You can’t build a building, a career, or a child’s future without first building a foundation. Foundations are rarely exciting, but they determine whether anything built on top of them will stand.

Competence begins with humility: acknowledging that systems exist independent of our intentions. Whether repairing a faucet or addressing a social problem, the process is the same. Learn the basics first. Use the right tools. Understand the mechanism before declaring the solution obvious. In the garage, ignoring those rules leaves you with extra bolts. In society, it leaves you with consequences no one anticipated.

Maybe our problems aren’t unsolvable after all. Maybe, like that Christmas Eve project of mine, we simply started building before we did the most important step—reading the instructions.

Maybe we just need to go back to basics.