Although I had no intention of becoming a “Future Farmer of America” I spent my first two years of high school taking courses in Vocational Agriculture (it’s just what we do in Texas). During the winter months we’d forgo the usual sheep shearing and hog castrating to work on projects more often found in a typical shop class. While we were allowed free reign to rebuild truck motors or craft wooden benches I mostly spent my time in the corner dreaming nerdy dreams.
A course catalog from Rice University had inexplicably found its way into the classroom and I treated it as a travel guide to strange and exciting intellectual world of college. Each day I’d sit fantasizing about taking classes (linguistics! anthropology!) that didn’t require a band saw.
At the time, the ivory towers of Rice seemed a million miles away from the sawdust covered shop floor of Clarksville High. And they were. I wasn’t smart enough to get into Rice (those kids are really smart) so I ended up taking a long tour through the world of skilled manual labor—laying plumbing with irrigators, fixing pump-jacks with oilfield electricians, remodeling houses with carpenters, making handbrakes with factory workers. The capstone of my career as a jack-of-all tradesman was a fifteen-year stint in the Marines as an aviation electrician.
During those years I met plenty of people who found such work intellectually fulfilling. I just wasn’t one of them. I wanted to work with ideas. My primary ambition was to one day have a job that included air-conditioning and excluded having to scrub my hands with Lava soap. But those conditions being met, I wanted to work with people who crafted abstract concepts rather than wood and metal.
My ambitions have long since been fulfilled. Although I’m still a member of the proletariat, I now rub virtual shoulders with a broad range of intellectual and cultural elites (linguists! anthropologists!). These are the type of people who read books about ideas—including books about how intellectually fulfilling manual labor can be.
Matt Crawford’s Shop Class as Soul Craft is just such a book. While you likely won’t find it on your plumber’s bookshelf, you will find it on the reading list of your academically inclined friends.
Crawford, who makes a living repairing motorcycles, presents a compelling case for the intrinsic value of trade work. The book is enjoyable but the observations tend to be rather obvious (plumbers get paid well, white-collar jobs can be dull) and his style tends to be as dry as an academic whitepaper (he used to work for a D.C.-based think tank). But the audience for the book is not Crawford’s fellow mechanics but his former grad school chums.
As every review and article about the book (and they are legion) takes pains to point out, Crawford has a Ph.D. in political thought from the University of Chicago. Presumably we are expected to find this biographical fact surprising—the greasemonkey is a political philosopher!—but such a hook is to be expected: Who would publish a book on the value of manual labor if it had been written by someone who did nothing more than fix Harleys?
This is not a knock on Crawford who, from the evidence presented in the plethora of interviews, appears to be a genuinely interesting and amiable chap. But the buzz about the book is not really about the book. It’s about Crawford, or rather the idea that Crawford embodies: The Intellectual who could—if they really, really wanted—find an authentic and fulfilling life working as a Manual Laborer.
Like the agrarian who lives in Manhattan and reads Backwoods Home Magazine, the would-be mechanic gets to identify with Crawford’s authentic vocational turn without actually having to scrape the brake grease from under their own fingernails.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with this romanticizing and appropriation of blue color tropes. Academics who want to associate themselves with the virtues of manual work are like the hipsters who wear trucker caps, only without the irony or Ashton Kutcher. They’re mostly harmless.
The problem comes when this type of folk-fetish fantasizing is adopted as a lifestyle choice. It’s one thing to dream about moving to the quiet, simple rural small town. But actually making such a change would entail a rude awakening when your neighbors turn out to be more like Hank Kimball than Wendell Berry.
It’s not that these good country workers are dumb—far from it—its just they don’t speak academese. The language barrier between the manual laborers and the word workers is almost insurmountable. For example, my favorite localists over at Front Porch Republic have dedicated an entire week(!) to Crawford’s book. Yet their discussions are not likely to be the type of thing you’d hear at the watercooler of your local garage. Their posts tend to read like this section, from a entry by Susan McWilliams:
It seems that our national inclination to value “knowledge work” – at least as it is currently practiced – over the manual trades may, almost paradoxically, be disconnecting us from some of the most meaningful human knowledge, which is knowledge how to use speech with others to seek the truth. So to revive respect for working done with hands, as Crawford does here, may do more than that: It may revive respect for talking done with heart.
As your fellow mechanic might say, “What in the world is she talking about?” Such discussions are common on blogs like FPR (or this one). But as a general rule people who work in bike shops and have names like “Joe” (which, like in my case, is not short for Joseph, but short so that it fits the little oval patch sewn on Dickies work shirts) don’t talk like that. As even Crawford’s own shop mate said about him, “Matt talked constantly about ideas while working on bikes . . . Sometimes it became hard for us to get any work done.” Indeed, such philosophical musings are often antithetical to the practical work—and earthy chit-chat—associated with real manual work.
Of course there’s nothing wrong with wanting to talk about ideas (linguistics! anthropology!). But it doesn’t necessarily fit into the lives of real trade workers. After all, shop class is a place for crafting stuff not crafting souls.
July 14th, 2009 | 8:06 am
.This is all true but there is something more. Strange to say, souls ARE created in “shop” work of one kind or another. My almost five decades as a “stay-at-home”, as it is now termed, wife and mother allow me to offer a point of view on this subject. I spent countless hours carrying out seemingly mundane chores during which a spark of the “Ideas” sprung up “which then continued burning of their own accord”. These ideas and concepts enlivened every task, investing each one with meaning. In quite plain and ordinary circumstances and often in spite of great difficulties, I was gifted with an inner life filled with a fundamental joy. My children have all pursued advanced degrees. Their studies have greatly enriched their lives. But the point I am at pains to make is that, as Pope John Paul liked to say, “life is beautiful” even (or most especially) in its simplest manifestations. I remember that Robert Coles traveled to Mississippi while carrying out his sociological research. He interviewed a rural farmer who lived in primitive circumstances, expecting to find a primitive mind as well. Instead he encountered a man who spoke in Biblical cadences; a man who in the purity of his life had achieved nobility. This is the mystery of the human person created by God for greatness. It is really true. He who seeks will find.
July 14th, 2009 | 8:53 am
“After all, shop class is a place for crafting stuff not crafting souls.”
I would agree only on the surface. The mystery of the Incarnation rather implies that “stuff” and “souls” cannot be separated that easily. This can very easily turn into a conversation about art, where art is the pinnacle of man’s attempt to infuse “stuff” with “soul.” (Or at least to reveal a glimpse of “soul” as it fleets by.) Aren’t the best craftsmen considered artists?
I have seen electrical installations and computer motherboards (Apple specifically) that could be called art.
July 14th, 2009 | 9:14 am
We need to correct a trend developing at least in the blogosphere, and that is the incorrect use of the verb “reign.”
Reign means to rule, to have kingship or queenship over something. God reigns!
It’s quite different to “rein.” Has to do with directing horses, and is now used mostly in a figurative way. If I “rein in” my impulses, I exercise a form of self-mastery. if I am given “free rein”, that means that whoever or whatever guides me gives me room to go at my own speed, or to turn whichever way. Like a horse given a very loose grip on the reins.
But I don’t “reign in” anything, and I don’t have or give “free reign.” See the first paragraph of this blog entry. It misuses the royal word “reign” and forgets the correct figurative word “rein.”
Hey, I was taught English grammar by my Mom and by the good nuns in the 1950’s. They did not fail to drill us in the correct use of various homonyms.
July 14th, 2009 | 10:10 am
Joe, I have a great deal of sympathy with what you say here, as should be clear to anyone who is familiar with my participation in various of these discussions (i.e., at Crunchy Con on NRO, at FPR, etc.).
I do live in that “small rural town” (pop. 900) but didn’t move here from Manhattan, it’s my home that I just never left. I live and move in and among these “manual laborors” (what an awful phrase) quite easily, and also live and move between them and that “other” world of intellectual (and wealth and power) pursuits.
Which raises several interesting points in my mind. First, the reification of the “intellectual” is mostly a self-fashioning game of “patting each other on the back” (as Lawler is fond of saying) which is a smarmy cover for the real goods being pursued which are wealth, influence, and power. Please let’s not pretend that outfits like First Things and Front Porch Republic are doing anything other than jockeying for position in the world of opinion mongering, status seeking, and influence peddling. The real contemplative life is being romanticized every bit as much and as often as is the “agrarian” life.
Second, you are right that my folks don’t “talk like that.” They would mostly just say that you guys (or us guys as the case may be) are pampered, air-conditioned nancy-boys and panty-waists who wouldn’t last an hour in the “real world.” By this they mean that “intellectuals” lack the most basic and necessary skills of care for themselves, their world, and their people. For the most part, this judgment is correct. And it is wrong to suggest that this anti-intellectualism comes from jealosy or resentment. By and large, it doesn’t. It comes from a certain kind of contempt and disgust for people who are less than free because they are so dependent on others.
That, to me, is where all this discussion should properly head (and to be fair, I haven’t read Crawford’s book, though I did read the original essay). There is a virtuous anti-intellectualism, and it would be healthy to explore its true motives, sources, and advantages, and to discover, as I suspect Crawford has, that such anti-intellectualism is in fact a better foundation and growth bed for the flourishing of the true contemplative, the true ground of existence for a human intellect.
July 14th, 2009 | 10:43 am
[...] Of shop class. [...]
July 14th, 2009 | 11:33 am
>>First, the reification of the “intellectual” is mostly a self-fashioning game of “patting each other on the back” (as Lawler is fond of saying) which is a smarmy cover for the real goods being pursued which are wealth, influence, and power.>>
>>It comes from a certain kind of contempt and disgust for people who are less than free because they are so dependent on others.>>
Very astute observation…
It does much to explain that old saw “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”
There are some who both “can” “can do, and also “teach”, but they’re definitely a minority.
July 14th, 2009 | 12:39 pm
[...] Joe Carter weighs in at First Things with a set of challenging reservations about the relevance of Matt Crawford’s arguments for a more general audience. He rightly notes that it’s an argument made by an egghead largely read by eggheads. It’s well worth reading and considering alongside the postings here on FPR this week. (Personal Note: I object to to his parenthetical exclamation point after he notes that FPR is devoting a week of postings to a discussion of the book. This either means that he thinks the book can’t bear this level of sustained scrutiny – which is a conclusion one might make, though I’d think only after the week is done; or, that an online outfit like this is a bit out of its mind to do so. I am very glad that we’re able to do this, particularly in contrast to the oft-fleeting and superficial flitting that characterizes so much of this medium. It doesn’t have to be this way, and I’m happy that we can swim a bit against that current). [...]
July 14th, 2009 | 1:06 pm
Further to Caleb’s excellent framing of the “common” mans’ view of the relationship between work and worth, I might recommend a reading Dostoyevsky’s chapter from The Brother’s Karamazov” where he recounts the life of the Elder Zossima to find one of literature’s greatest illustration of this same point.
Yet I think that in your initial post you are perhaps setting up a false dichotomy, for as John Paul himself taught us in “Laborem Exercens”, we can find our true fulfillment in work – both physical and intellectual.
The true issue is for all to deal with the prejudices we hold in our hearts towards those in different circumstances to our own. Being of northern heritage, I can easily call to mind the moral maxims taught to all us of a certain generation when we were children: “walk in another man’s moccasins” which I believe expresses this same moral truth. All that we “do” should be accepted as little more than a gift for the service of others and for the glory of God. This is the path that will lead us a greater peace and understanding of others, no matter what their situation in life.
July 14th, 2009 | 2:05 pm
Fr. Moyle: Yet I think that in your initial post you are perhaps setting up a false dichotomy, for as John Paul himself taught us in “Laborem Exercens”, we can find our true fulfillment in work – both physical and intellectual.
I completely agree that our work should be physically and intellectually fulfilling. But I think Crawford—and many of his readers—are making an equivocation about how manual work can be mentally stimulating. He seems to be saying that working on an engine can be just like, say, working on a dissertation.
I don’t think that is true. I think the mental challenges of manual work are often different in kind than that done by “knowledge workers.” Not necessarily better or worse, just different. But this can cause problems for those who are enamored with ideas and think they can make the shift to pure manual work.
July 14th, 2009 | 3:54 pm
Well Joe, it seems we disagree on this point. “Work” is a not a verb that is parsed so easily as you have done. Whether or not someone works with his hands or his mind to produce something it is still work. Physical work can be mentally stimulating just as intellectual pursuits can be physically exhausting. Again the act of work remains the same. To take any other position robs the act of all work as being a manifestation of our individual vocations.
Allow me to illustrate using my own life as a priest. When I spend time prayerful reflecting upon the scriptures in anticipation of the homily I will share this weekend, I am working and can find fulfillment in doing it in the service of others. The same can be said if I am shoveling out the entrances to the church during our interminably long Canadian winters. I can also say this is true whether I am sitting beside a dying parishioner, listening to his final confession before his imminent encounter with Christ or cutting the grass at my cottage along the mighty Ottawa River. In all these cases the work is the instrument of service to others and for the glorification of God.
If this then can be true, then what does it matter if the end product of our labor is a well tuned motorcycle or a brilliant dissertation? Is not a fact that the production of knowledge and understanding provides what is needed for us to achieve the fruits of our manual labor, just as without the sweat and physical effort needed to build the offices you work in, or the manual toil of producing the computer you type on, the intellectual fruits of intellectual labor could not be attained? To try to separate these “types” work work robs both forms of their essential interdependence and value.
It would seem to me that it is perhaps (and forgive me if I am being judgmental in saying this) that the root of your position is found in an incomplete or prejudiced understanding of the inherent value of physical work, just as those who hold academics and intellectuals in contempt do so only because of their limited understanding of work.
July 14th, 2009 | 4:29 pm
Fr. Moyle: Physical work can be mentally stimulating just as intellectual pursuits can be physically exhausting. Again the act of work remains the same. To take any other position robs the act of all work as being a manifestation of our individual vocations.
We’re in agreement on that point. But that does not mean that all work makes the same demands on a person, requires the same set of skills, etc. Because of that, there is not a one-to-one correlation between different types of work. That is my point of contention with Crawford.
For example, in the role of a priest a person has to perform a number of duties, say preaching a homily or counseling a grief-stricken widow, that are both mentally demanding. But they aren’t likely to be mentally demanding in the same way.
Some priests may actually find themselves mentally drained after counseling and energized by preaching. Others may have the exact opposite reaction. Both are “work” but they are not the same kind of work. To tell someone that they’d love being a priest because preaching is intellectually stimulating work is bit reductive. They may enjoy that task as much as you, but that does not mean that they’ll find all of the other tasks equally stimulating.
Or to use an example that I am more familiar with—and that is closer to Crawford’s usage—troubleshooting an electrical device and writing a dissertation are both “mentally stimulating” and “intellectually challenging.” They are also both examples of “problem-solving.” But to say that since you like troubleshooting circuitry that you’d enjoy dissertation-writing since both involve problem-solving would be quite misleading.
I do not think it is contempt for certain types of work that demands that we acknowledge such differences. I think it is more like common sense. Do you disagree?
July 14th, 2009 | 5:42 pm
Joe,
I guess that we will have to agree to disagree on this point. Let me address the points you raise, not to try to convince you of the rightness of my argument but this discussion helps to clarify my thought as well (and I am enjoying this work!).
Every priest who is energized by preaching or any other aspect of our ministry will still be tired if he preaches for hours at a time. Do not make the error of discounting the aspect of time as it relates to the degree of work accomplished. I am inspired every time I stand before a congregation who is broken with grief over the death of a loved one, for I have an opportunity to offer the gracious gift of faith in the promise of God when (to steal a phrase from Leonard Cohen) “there is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in”. Yet I can assure you that after four or five opportunities to experience this gift of the God who called me this vocation in one week, I am wearied by the effort.
I have “worked” if work is by definition an “exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something; labor; toil”, whether I am using the word as a verb or a noun.
If my life situation were to be as one who troubleshoots electrical devices and wiring, then my work would fit the same definition. Does this not sound as “common sense” to you?
You are qualifying the meaning of the word by differentiating the product accomplished. I am simply asking you to look beneath the syllogism which leads you to a different conclusion than mine and consider whether or not you are basing your logic upon a compound foundation, qualifying it as you do by your differentiation of the end product, such that you I fear you are flailing away at a straw man argument.
In my understanding, “work, is work, is work”. What is essential to the question is “why” we work, not what we produce. That is the true goal of work as taught by Pope John Paul, not to mention the witness of Catherine de Hueck Doherty here in my corner of paradise, or the exceptionally ordinary witness of Mother Theresa. Work is the path that leads us to the service of others and the glory of God. When we all work in such a manner, then the distinctions between all types of work melt into the nothingness of love and faith. This is my Catholic understanding of work. I would appreciate better knowing your understanding such that I could comprehend your position better.
I thank you for the chance to debate this point with you. I look forward to spending more time working through such questions as these.
Fr. Tim
July 16th, 2009 | 7:18 am
[...] also a danger in the growing trend to perhaps over analyze the intellectual value of manual labor. Joe Carter discusses this aspect of the book in a recent post on his First Things [...]
July 17th, 2009 | 3:50 am
[...] our society of more sensible and virtuous civic and economic relations. Other reviews (see here and here), by contrast, are suspicious of Crawford’s claims and of the borderline exclusive way he [...]
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