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Zusammenfassung von Shop Class as Soulcraft

Name: Shop Class as Soulcraft
Rating: 4.4 (17 reviews)
Author: Matthew B. Crawford

Matthew B. Crawford

An Inquiry Into the Value of Work

4.4 (17 Bewertungen)

21 Min.

Kurz zusammengefasst

Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew B. Crawford is a philosophical exploration of the value of skilled manual labor in an increasingly automated and abstract world. It argues for the dignity of manual work, and the importance of cultivating practical skills and knowledge.

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Shop Class as Soulcraft
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What’s in it for me? Discover the perks of a job in the trades.

When asked what they want their children to be when they grow up, most parents today would probably answer something like: a manager, a lawyer, an IT specialist. Many parents probably wouldn’t be thrilled to hear if their kids told them: “I want to become a car mechanic.” But, as you’ll learn from these blinks, parents needn’t be afraid of such ambitions. The job market is changing and the career prospects of skilled manual laborers are looking better and better compared with those of knowledge workers, i.e., those whose jobs are all about handling information.

There’s also the (very important) question of happiness. Sure, it sounds comfortable to spend your life at a desk and never get your hands dirty. But many students who opt for white-collar jobs are heading for a miserable working life trapped in cubicles, overworked, underpaid and deeply unsatisfied. These blinks make a strong case for the alternative: a career in the trades. They address office workers young and old who are tired of dealing with menial tasks that can never satisfy their yearning for meaning.

In these blinks, you’ll find out

why working in a cubicle can be much more exhausting than working on an assembly line all day;
what Sherlock Holmes has in common with your local car mechanic; and
why you may tell hundreds of dirty jokes if you’re in a crew, but not a single one if you’re member of a team.

Even though we don’t fix and build things ourselves anymore, an interest in manual labor is on the rise.

Can you recall the last time you worked on your car, built a piece of furniture from scratch or made your own clothing? Chances are it’s probably been a while – if you’ve ever done it at all.

That’s because the modern world is full of devices that discourage users from repairing or even understanding them. Many modern products are so complex and delicate that the majority of people are too intimidated to attempt repairing them. Just imagine trying to fix a problem with your flat-screen TV.

In addition, many contemporary products are designed to conceal their messy inner workings with a seamless facade. For instance, if you open the hood of a new German car you won’t see an engine but a plastic case.

Products are even put together in such a way as to discourage their disassembly. For instance, they might come with extra hardware that can only be loosened with uncommon tools.

Part of the reason we’ve become more passive and dependent on other people to fix things is due to these changes. We used to make things; now we buy them. We used to fix things; now we throw them away.

It’s not just that we’re discouraged from making repairs – we might also have the feeling that doing things ourselves is economically wasteful. After all, imagine all the time and effort that would go into knitting an imperfect sweater when you could buy a perfectly good one for a few bucks.

However, the interest in manual work is slowly but surely on the rise. It’s clear that people are growing increasingly discontent with not understanding the products they use and depending on businesses to provide them with everything from food to clothing.

On top of that, the rapidly deteriorating state of the economy is demanding more self-reliance. As a result, we’re seeing people grow their own food, fix things themselves and even raise chickens on the rooftops of New York City.

A good education doesn’t guarantee a decent career anymore.

Most people were raised with the knowledge that earning a college degree was their ticket to a comfortable, well-paying job. Unfortunately, this expectation is being broken for people everyday. That’s because a successful career is increasingly determined by criteria other than educational level.

According to the economist Alan Blinder, the so-called gap between educated and less-educated people is shrinking. Blinder predicts that, in the future, a more obvious distinction will be between people doing jobs that can be executed via the internet versus those that can’t. Only people doing work that requires face-to-face interaction will be able to count on a stable career, such as doctors or other people who provide an in-person service. Because, as Blinder says, “You can’t hammer a nail over the internet.”

The separation of thinking from doing hurts both blue- and white-collar workers.

Even if you’ve never had a factory job, it’s easy to imagine how mind-numbing work on an assembly line could be. After all, spending eight hours a day tightening bolts is a sure route to boredom.

Over the last hundred years or so, a marked division of labor was drawn that took the intellectual component out of many jobs. The first result was the degradation of blue-collar work.

Schools today are less focused on teaching – resulting in a disengaged workforce.

Did you know that manual trades are now looked down upon by most schools? Shop classes have been slashed over the last 20 years, as educators fear that students working with tools and their hands will distract them from their real goal: becoming knowledge workers.

In fact, many schools actively discourage students from choosing a career in the trades, instead urging them to focus on becoming knowledge workers. Although the latter is more likely to be the route to a lifetime of job insecurity, educators are still inclined to prepare their students for theoretically oriented jobs.

Knowledge work, cubicle jobs and obnoxious management techniques alienate workers.

After the author earned his master’s in philosophy, he became a knowledge worker, joining a company called Information Access Company where he read academic articles, indexed them and wrote short abstracts that the company sold to libraries. But the author wasn’t happy.

He, like many knowledge workers today, encountered working conditions worse than most manual laborers. That’s because, just like assembly-line workers, many knowledge workers are put under extreme pressure to meet deadlines.

Teamwork is more confining than work in crews.

Humans have been cooperating forever, but the idea of teamwork among knowledge workers dates back to the 1970s. It was during this decade that people began standing up to the idea that one person should dominate their coworkers. The result was teamwork, a tool that empowers all employees to participate in workplace decisions.

Unfortunately, teamwork isn’t as empowering as people claim it is. That’s because the members of a team are judged based on their individual behavior, but in a team of knowledge workers, it’s hard to see the influence of any one individual team member.

Finding a meaningful job pays off big time.

For a lot of people, work is just a means to an end – a way to do all the leisurely activities they would be doing all the time if they weren’t working. For instance, a well-respected financial analyst works grueling hours on Wall Street for months on end so he can finally climb Mount Everest during his two weeks of vacation.

What’s the problem with this lifestyle?

Working with your hands is satisfying and can enhance your sense of self.

Wouldn’t it be exhilarating to work in a think tank where you tackled complex and exciting problems all day, every day? Well, in the author’s experience, it can actually leave you oddly unsatisfied. In fact, he was so unfulfilled working at a think thank that he left to become a motorcycle mechanic, a job he loves.

Why?

Manual work is intellectually engaging and helps build autonomy.

It’s commonly assumed that manual labor is just for those who are better with their hands than their minds. But that’s absolute nonsense. In fact, the trades tax a worker’s brain just as much as your typical knowledge work.

That’s because to excel in a manual trade you have to pay careful attention to the physical world and understand how it functions. For example, by practicing his craft, a carpenter becomes an expert in countless types of wood by observing their resilience through different weather and myriad other changes.

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Worum geht es in Shop Class as Soulcraft ?

Shop Class as Soulcraft (2009) is an eye-opening view into how working with your hands can transform your life. These blinks take a look at the changing nature of work, the value of manual labor and how choosing a trade, as opposed to a profession, might be your ticket to happiness.

Bestes Zitat aus Shop Class as Soulcraft

Does the use of tools answer to some permanent requirement of our nature?

—Matthew B. Crawford

Wer Shop Class as Soulcraft lesen sollte

Academics and students who aren’t sure if a life of theoretical work is for them
Readers who want to learn more about the philosophy and psychology of manual work
Anybody who’s fed up with working in a cubicle and wants a way out

Über den Autor

Matthew B. Crawford is a philosopher and motorcycle mechanic. He earned a Ph.D. in political philosophy and took a job at a Washington D.C. think tank but wasn’t satisfied. So he changed course to open an independent motorcycle repair shop and is still pursuing academia as a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia.

Kategorien mit Shop Class as Soulcraft

Achtsamkeit & Glück Motivation & Inspiration

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