Most of us at the end of our work days may find something amiss amidst the chaos which surrounds our works. The pleasure we get in our routine may only be restricted to the weekends and not to our workdays. Are we being carried away by the abstractions of life much hyped in the so called information and creative economy? What importance are we giving to the works of the electrician or the mechanic and what lessons have we learnt from them? The phony advantages of the white collar jobs are easily exposed in this work of Crawford.
Matthew Crawford quotes from philosophers, sociologists and psychologists and from some interesting studies and experiments to drive home the view of what we understand about the manual trades (blue collar works) is utterly specious. He makes us understand the ‘abstractions’ in which we are buried deep with relation to the contemporary ‘knowledge work’ (white collar jobs). His philosophy digs deep into the deliberation processes associated with an individual, the job he does and the community he lives in. He deals with the idiotic suppression of the manual trades and the similar amplification in status of the clerical cubicle jobs. He gives us an understanding about our jobs in particular and about our lives at large. Once we get into the flow of understanding his views and ideas the book transforms itself into an interesting enlightening source drawing inspirations from our own daily life situations.
The author is also deeply concerned towards students and is worried about the dispositions we are trying to instil in young minds. He tells us not to treat students as ‘brains in a jar’ and tells us to cultivate knowledge instead of trying to produce credentials in the learner. His book shows us the value of real knowledge and how it needs to be procured.
Two very important questions on which the book is about are
1. What advice should one give to a young person with regard to education, college and job?
2. Why a career in manual trades should be given equal importance to pursue?
Outwardly the book may seem as if to dwell ONLY with the manual trades and their superiority with relation to the cubicle jobs. Of course, the book is a strong case presented in support of the manual trades, but what for?, ultimately the pattern of jobs are discussed in detail to give the students a clearer picture of what awaits them and their choices. The final conclusions to be drawn refer only to these two queries. Crawford answers these questions by digging into the sustaining reasons behind his own personal life and also by explaining the events why thinking and doing are the same and need not/cannot be separated, why man desires to be the master of his own stuff, why there are a lot of contradictions for the cubicle professional life, how a manual trade requires thinking as good as doing and finally how pleasurable a trade can get akin to leisure or work with full engagement.
Crawford’s philosophy leads us into a thoughtful finale regarding what advice a youth can be given regarding education and what is a college for. If the student is capable of sitting in the school for 17 years and wants academic achievements to pursue his dream job (ex:- if the persons aim is to become a teacher/professor {in India} maybe an M.A or B.Ed is required, if he wants to do research maybe a further three years of schooling is required after his graduation), he has to go through the schooling processes, no doubt there is no argument regarding this. But if a student wants to become a mechanic or an electrician there is no need for him to endure further schooling after 10th or 10+2 for he can attend a short course in his desired field and then attain expertise by gathering skill and knowledge by experience. There is no need for higher education in this case and this will definitely work for him.
What if the same person who wants to become a mechanic is pushed into college and higher education? At the end of his collegiate education (which he goes through in frustration) the person may be further compelled to sit in a cubicle all throughout his life (which he goes through in frustrated frustration) as now he has a degree to carry and live up to! Maybe he will wear a clean white shirt and a matching tie and join a BPO or something similar and earn less than a mechanic too!
Crawford argues that our society has created a trail for every individual to pursue without considering individual preferences. Universal knowledge and choices overrule individual knowledge and predilections. The society we live in has created a false world with ‘abstractions’ in which somebody daring and positive is treated as an unconventional eccentric. Crawford rightly calls his book a ‘cultural polemic’ and starts from our education system and annihilates the myths our society has towards what is called a good education.
Crawford also argues that in sharp contrast with the blue collar worker’s job the knowledge worker’s cubicle job at the end of the day is filled ‘with layers of abstractions’ as the knowledge worker doesn’t know if his work for the day was of any use to others, he had nothing to do with authority nor command but only with obedience to rules and regulations, he doesn’t have a community to associate his work with, he doesn’t know the character/personality of his consumers he is dealing with, he cannot discuss or encourage individual preferences as they are treated as obstacles to progress of the ‘team’, if ever there is a peer group he doesn’t get any regards from his peers as his own expertise is unrecognised, respect in a cubicle is for indebted discipline and not for individual sovereignty, remuneration he gets paid is for toiling to do somebody else’s work and not for cultivating his own passions, he is more concerned with results and profits than how it is achieved, focus is on getting things done and labour cost with no importance given to the larger gestalt, he lives in a narcissistic utopian world where creativity and innovation are just ‘unleashed’ potentials from ‘bizarre mavericks’ rather than mastery of a work through long practice, he works in a setup where ‘extraordinary human ingenuity’ is ‘being used to eliminate the need for human ingenuity’, where idiocy and the capability to do nothing are treated as a idyllic virtue, etc., etc. The list is endless.
The author also deals in detail why the manual trades are seen as low prestige jobs, simply because they are dirty and because of the false assumption that they are stupid. And if the important question is to earn a living why are talented and poor students forced through the routines of higher education to end up in earning academic credentials which in turn lead to a cubicle job, which is in all ways an advanced stupidity! The job may be white collared but not without neck deep dissatisfaction filled with ‘layers of abstractions’.
Strongly but rightly, Crawford diverges from the ‘middle class discipline’ to disapprove of encouraging college and higher education as a further extension of schooling. As discussed, Crawford worries about the talented and creative students who are not willing to sit in a school for 17 years and later on end up in cubicle jobs to sit there for all their lives. (In the Indian scenario sadly, a large group of students may not be able to go through their schooling simply because of their economic status). He wants the youth and their parents to bury the unintelligent attitude shown towards the blue collar jobs and embrace them to find true satisfaction in their professions.
Crawford quotes from 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.” This passage struck me the most. At the end of the day’s work what will you answer if somebody asks you, what have you accomplished today? The ‘knowledge worker’s answer will be nonspecific, vague and obscure unlike the mechanics ‘the car is now running’ or the electricians ‘and there is light’. The manual traders work is there for everyone to see, feel, utilise and experience. Aren’t the works of manual trades real? By this Crawford precisely identifies what was amiss among our work lives, the aptitude in a human ‘to be of use’ to other humans.
A hard to put down book concerned with the essence of job and life, wonderfully researched and executed to drive home a disregarded fundamental point.
Excellent review.
ReplyDeleteMost of the book is right out of Crawford's own experience. But the way he has projected it to relate to the most fundamental and 'critical' issues with his philosophy is what made me admire him much. To me, is book is right at the gap and the disconnect between 'what I want to do' and 'what I have been doing'?
At the same time the fundamental philosophy -'shop class as soul craft' defines the way of life. It is out of all the external impacts of job, career, industry, unemployment, poverty and the economic depression. His philosophy is right out of his experiences (which are practical and time tested, the information-knowledge 'divide' and the separation of 'thinking' and 'doing'.
This very much becomes a strong case for making Vocational Education a part of General Education. It gives scope for people to chose their livelihoods at the right age; there by reducing the major problems the country - Poverty.
Thanks for your review. I thoroughly enjoyed reading and more importantly it reinforced my understanding about Crawford's philosophy.
Your reflection upon the profound issues raised by Crawford is thrilling indeed.
ReplyDeleteNow you have an idea why I call the book the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad of CIVIL.
The false dichotomy between doing and thinking is brilliantly captured by Crawford. What he does best is to demonstrate that doing to serve others gives a deep satisfaction that is missing in the lives of vast numbers who are employed in the so called knowledge economy. The conceit of knowledge workers is insufferable because a shoe maker is rooted in thinking and knowledge.
Of course, India is cursed for the past three-and-a-half- millennia by the jati system of hierarchy and inequality that underpins the segregation of thinking and doing worlds. Maybe, after Crawford, Indians will begin to value doing as much as thinking. All we need to ask is: where has our emphasis on thinking gotten us? The answer is painfully self-evident.
Your review and comment bring a very nice perspective on the book. As a surgeon you both think and do very much like skilled craftspersons. To that extent you are blessed. As you know blessed people do not go to heaven because they are already in it.
Bravo!
I like the words "The society we live in has created a false world with ‘abstractions’ in which somebody daring and positive is treated as an unconventional eccentric."
ReplyDeleteYour review makes a complelling case to read and digest the book.....Thanks!!!