Shop Class as Soulcraft
In this past Sunday’s Philadelphia Inquirer, Art Carey wrote an article on Matthew Crawford’s new book, Shop Class as Soul Craft: The Value of Work. Crawford values manual work above “knowledge work”
The manual laborer is closer to the finished product. There is a greater sense of accomplishment. In a lot of cases, there is also more thinking. Making and fixing things requires creativity and troubleshooting. Crawford, who has a doctorate in political philosophy has also done a stint as a motorcycle mechanic. He mentions, “There was more thinking going on in the bike shop than in my previous job at the think tank.”
Crawford believes the separating of thinking from doing has degraded work. Carey sums it up nicely. “[The cubicle captives] toil at ghostly work in white-collar jobs that have been routinized and stupidified and that are all about process, not product. At the end of the day, their accomplishments are not visible and palpable but elusive and vaporous, resisting measurement by objective standards. Over time, this takes its toll on the soul. It stultifies and emasculates.”
Joe and Wanda?
Joe Kerr: I don’t have a lot of time to philosophize? I attended 8 status meetings today.
I will say this… If this guy is so jacked up about manual labor, have him come over my house and I’ll put him to work.
Wanda B. Goode: There’s definitely a sense of accomplishment that goes with manual labor. I remember when I changed the oil in my car for the first time. It was a great feeling.
I guess the challenge is to bring some of the attributes of certain forms of manual labor into the world of knowledge work. A few things come to mind…
- Show workers how their daily activity impacts the client, other groups, the company etc.
- Find ways to challenge employees and give them opportunity to troubleshoot, to improve things.
- Finally, like craftsmen, the more employees feel like they are running their own business, the better.
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