You may know I'm compiling a list of 1,000 posts to read before you die. They're not my posts - they're yours (well, a small number of them are mine). And I'm picky and you can read them all here. I don't have a thousand yet, but they are adding up, so get some coffee, relax, and of course - read them. Here's the most recent:
I found this article today at Tampabay.com - it's written by Michael Agger, a Slate senior editor. Mr. Agger reviews an intriguing book and the premise of the actual value of work. Value, as in dollars and value as in self worth - self worth being the true value.
An inquiry into the book Shop Class by Soul Craft, written by Matthew Crawford:
When Matthew Crawford finished his doctorate in political philosophy at the university of Chicago, he took a job at a Washington think tank. "I was always tired," he writes, "and honestly could not see the rationale for my being paid at all."
He quit after five months and started doing motorcycle repair in a decaying factory in Richmond, Va.
If you are in possession of a skill that cannot be exported overseas, done with an algorithm, or downloaded, you will always stand a decent chance of finding work. Even rarer, you will probably be a master of your own domain, something the thousands of employed but bored people in the service industries can only dream of.
Dreams. Work. It actually takes skill - skill, with hands and the will of the mind.. things that can't be sent overseas to replace you ...
Adds up to self worth.
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This more lengthy article also found by me today - is a more detailed look (and very interesting) into Mr. Matthew's essay, from which his book took form. It's titled, The Case For Working With Your Hands and is at The New York Times dot com.
When we praise people who do work that is straightforwardly useful, the praise often betrays an assumption that they had no other options. We idealize them as the salt of the earth and emphasize the sacrifice for others their work may entail. Such sacrifice does indeed occur — the hazards faced by a lineman restoring power during a storm come to mind. But what if such work answers as well to a basic human need of the one who does it? I take this to be the suggestion of Marge Piercy’s poem “To Be of Use,” which concludes with the lines “the pitcher longs for water to carry/and a person for work that is real.”
Beneath our gratitude for the lineman may rest envy.
1 comments:
Thank you for posting these articles. I've recently been embroiled in the fight against eliminating vocational classes in the budget cuts at my former high school. These articles are quite timely for me and I am passing them on to my friends who are teachers.
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