14th August, 2009
I want to bang on the drum all day
Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work by Matthew Crawford.
First off, you can tell this book was written by a Ph.D. holder as it has a subtitle. Thusly, one should expect philosophical discussion with some obscure (to most people) references to other philosophers (who may themselves be as obscure as the reference) and this book delivers. Snarkiness aside, Crawford does flesh things out a bit with interesting, well-told anecdotes, reminding me somewhat of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (and maybe this isn’t just coincidence as the author quoted from Zen in the book). You can tell he is passionate about what he does and takes care to perform at his best. Yet I can’t help but feel as I walk away from this book that it just another doctoral thesis gussied up with just enough “common-man” material to qualify it for the pop-philosophy section at Barnes and Noble.
The book presented arguments that I wasn’t expecting after having read the title. His central argument was more ‘people are losing skills, are losing the ability to think because of technology and convenience’ instead of ‘people choose to go back to manual labor/skills because of the soulful value that such work gives’. (I was hoping to see an in-depth examination with this idea in mind).
I did run across one discussion that I wanted to talk about, however. He argues, briefly, against the Marxian view that work ceases to have value when it is taken away. Instead he suggests that it ceases to have value the farther away it goes from the worker. “…when the worker’s (or fixer’s) activity is immediately situated within a community of use, it can be enlivened by this kind of direct perception”
I’d take this argument a bit further by saying that it ceases to have value when it is not appreciated. He uses the example of a woodworker being happy seeing his hundred chairs in use around the community – after all, these items have been taken away from the worker. Yet what if those chairs were abused or derided by those who owned them? Suppose one worked for a large corporation, a simple cog in the great machine, churning out work that will be incorporated yet unacknowledged into something more grand. Is there any satisfaction in this? Even in an instance as small as doing a job that one’s co-workers do not appreciate; the work may have value simply as a matter of self-pride, but that value is greatly diminished when others take it for granted or even worse, demand something else instead. In my mind, doing a job well is the best reward there is if you and others appreciate it for what it is. It may not be worth much in terms of dollars, but the craftsmanship and care put into makes it as valuable as gold.
Sadly (to me at least), in the end, this book seemed to be mostly divided between lashing out at his father and railing against the dumbing down of society by conveniences. In other words, it was a decent book but really not what I had hoped.
3/5 gogs.
Posted at 5:22 am | Comments (2)
On August 25, 2009 at 23:02 Will R said:
August 25, 2009 at 23:02
Just started the first book of the Coldfire Trilogy. CS Friedman is AMAZING! Thanks for the suggestion, I’m loving it! I’m gonna finish with this one, then start on Malazan. Sigh…truly great writing, and I see what you mean by tormented characters, none of whom are truly evil, all of whom are fallible and easy to relate to. I’m gonna have to work not to stay up all night reading this!
On August 27, 2009 at 5:15 Gog said:
August 27, 2009 at 5:15
Glad you’re enjoying Coldfire. ^^ Her latest series (Feast of Souls, etc) is pretty good as well (so far, at least).