Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work

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Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work

by Matthew B. Crawford

3.61 · rating details · 1,827 ratings · 538 reviews

A philosopher / mechanic destroys the pretensions of the high- prestige workplace and makes an irresistible case for working with one's hands

Shop Class as Soulcraft brings alive an experience that was once quite common, but now seems to be receding from society-the experience of making and fixing things with our hands. Those of us who sit in an office often feel a lack of...more

Hardcover, 241 pages

Published May 28th 2009 by Penguin Press HC, The

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Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 4,050)

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Nov 22, 2010

Ken-ichi rated it

Recommends it for: people who work

Shelves: philosophy, learning

I’m always wondering why I work (aside from that whole food and shelter thing), so books that try to answer that question draw my attention. While said attention was utterly wasted on Alain de Botton’s The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, it reaped rich rewards from Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft, a thoughtful, synthetic, opinionated exploration of manual labor.

Crawford argues that society undervalues working with your hands, and that physically manipulating the world demands as m...more

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Aug 18, 2009

Mary rated it

Shelves: craftyness, nonfiction, the-good-life, old-paper-friends

With each word of this book, I want to jump up and yell, "Huzzah!"
I found myself frequently laying the book down and staring out the window, contemplating how wonderful it is to work with one's hands, and more importantly, to learn from another human being, to learn things that cannot be manualized or codified.
I am reminded of CS Lewis' essay "Good Work and Good Works" in which he says that the only jobs that are worth doing are the things that people would do f...more

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Jul 14, 2011

Ben rated it

Shelves: favorites

I highly recommend this to anyone who's ever questioned the utility of their college or graduate degree. While I am proud and happy that I have a B.A., I can't say that I think it is what will get me too far in life, and is pretty definitely not indicative of what I really enjoy in life. I've been working in carpentry/landscaping/maintenance more or less since graduating college in May 2009, and I've never felt more challenged and fulfilled than when I do a good job framing a building or siding ...more

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Jun 06, 2010

J rated it

I grew up in a working class family. Throughout my childhood, Dad always had me working at his side completing various project and side-jobs. He saw the beauty in his children being to work with their hands and believed it was the best hedge against starving to death. He had a strong work ethic and loved to tinker around his shop. He also drew great satisfaction in seeing a job come to completion and admired ingenuity over wealth. There was a certain beauty attached to something that came out of...more

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Aug 10, 2011

Stephen Wong added it

A very important work if you can relate to shop class, which I can, as well as electricity and tinkering with mechanics. But not just that: If you ever read philosophically or went into business or have an MBA or worked with code or someone else's or beheld monstrous infrastructure that will eat you, you're in for an eye de-wooling. Heh!

Why is the book important? On many levels it speaks of excellence, autonomy, humility, knowledge, art, work, ethics, education and the broad spectrum of ideas an...more

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Jan 25, 2012

Zach rated it

I'd summarize this book as "Manual work is intellectually stimulating." The writing is a bit thick (the author has a PhD and writes like he has to prove it,) but the book has a thorough philosophy on the nature of manual labor and mastering one's craft.

Personally, I thought it was interesting that his old job consisted of summarizing articles from academic journals. At one point, I would have described that as kind of a dream job: I would get to learn, write, and distill ...moreI'd summarize this book as "Manual work is intellectually stimulating." The writing is a bit thick (the author has a PhD and writes like he has to prove it,) but the book has a thorough philosophy on the nature of manual labor and mastering one's craft.

Personally, I thought it was interesting that his old job consisted of summarizing articles from academic journals. At one point, I would have described that as kind of a dream job: I would get to learn, write, and distill information from a very high level. But his work was ultimately an assembly line job in which he was judged by the arbitrary criteria of number of articles summarized.

In my own experience, corporate office work is routinized to a fault. A procedure must be in place to do anything, certain metrics must be measured to deem a process "acceptable." Some of that is necessary; I sure as hell wouldn't go to a machine shop to buy an artisan pacemaker. Those procedures protect the customer (you know you're getting a pacemaker like all the others) and the worker (you followed instructions and the pacemaker failed, therefore it isn't your personal fault that this patient is dead.)

But, that leaves little room for real innovation, which is what the book gets at. Corporate work makes the assumption that every aspect of a job can be documented (measure the tolerance of the valve on a vacuum pump motor and replace when at X inches) whereas the reality is that learned nuance is necessary makes a job inherently valuable (I replaced the vacuum pump because it sounded "off.") I get the feeling that apprenticeship and increased clout of vocational schools would go a long way to teaching "real" skills and reinstating a pride in manual work. Will the intellectual class become disillusioned with office work and yearn for mechanical skills? Who knows.

The book raised a lot of questions about the nature of my work and hobbies. What am I doing professionally that's irreplaceable? Is there a real, physical aspect of my work, or is it all mental abstraction? What hobbies do I have that have a real, personal touch? Are those skills useful in a community? Could I pass those on to my kids?(less)

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Oct 19, 2011

Tom rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: commentary, non-fiction, philosophy

Shop class as soul craft: an inquiry into the value of work

This book will inevitably, and judging by the title invites comparison to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Racing: An Inquiry into Values. It has been years since I read Pirsig’s book

Crawfords’ book is full of good insights and an excellent critique of abstract knowledge. Immersed in the ins and outs of motorcycle repair and occasionally electrical installations (both trades in which he either was or is currently engage...more

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Oct 04, 2011

Mark rated it

Part spiritual exploration, part philosophical manifesto, this book explores some of the implications of our modern, specialized, corporatized, situation regarding careers. The author laments the mono-cultural assumption that everyone must attend university and then find their way as a "knowledge" worker exercising "creativity" in the new knowledge based economy. Crawford laments the passing of "crafts" and those who practiced them. He asserts that most employmen...morePart spiritual exploration, part philosophical manifesto, this book explores some of the implications of our modern, specialized, corporatized, situation regarding careers. The author laments the mono-cultural assumption that everyone must attend university and then find their way as a "knowledge" worker exercising "creativity" in the new knowledge based economy. Crawford laments the passing of "crafts" and those who practiced them. He asserts that most employment in the modern economy is mindless and does not offer the spiritual connection to work that trades and crafts once did. One compelling example was motorcycle and auto mechanics. Modern machines aren't designed to be repaired but to be diagnosed electronically with the appropriate sub-system to be replaced identified to the technician. The common motorcycle or car owner no longer has a relationship with the repair of the vehicle like used to be the case. Also, he contends that modern owner's manuals and repair manuals are obviously written not by experienced mechanics but, by technical writers who probably don't know the first thing about the actual repair of the systems they're writing about.

Crawford asserts that there is value in working with our hands, especially when that work engages our minds and problem solving faculties fully. Beware the society In which most of us are engaged in the abstract most of the time. Our very moral development seems to be hampered when we lose our tactile relationships with our tools, homes, vehicles, and other material aspects of or lives.

This book challenged my thinking on the knowledge based economy and the near universally accepted idea that we all should seek to work within it. So long as we live in the physical world in buildings that need to be built, repaired, and maintained and move about in vehicles that require similar physical interaction and eat food that.... You get the point... We will require trades and craftspeople who work with their hands in ways that challenge their creativity and problem solving skills. We need to recognize the real value to human well being this type of personal work adds. We should also work towards bringing such aspects to many of our mundane modern economy jobs that have been automated, decision- matrixed, compartmentalized, engineered for efficiency, and otherwise rendered brainless, mindless, and frustrating to our intrinsic need to engage our own creativity, knowledge, and skill in accomplishing.

Please excuse me, I think I'll go change the oil in my car now!(less)

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Sep 28, 2011

Jamie Laing rated it

This book is fantastic. As a former carpenter, who at the risk of sounding self-congratulatory thought myself a craftsman, I found his writing to open up a deep sense of kinship. This is a man who cares deeply about his work and his society. As someone who now works extensively with technology and computers, I found his mild technophobia a little misplaced but highly likeable. I see no difference between working with physical objects and working with bits and bytes, but that's my personal fe...more

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Jul 31, 2011

Michael rated it

Shelves: other-non-fiction

While the content of the book justified, in my mind, a five star rating, the unnecessarily difficult to decipher writing brought this book down a notch. Crawford has an advanced degree from the University of Chicago, but by flaunting his mastery of the English language, he makes his book seem elitist and inaccessible. That being said, Crawford's book about the importance of learning by doing and working with one's hands was a breath of fresh air. In era of increasing emphasis on abstract work...more

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May 16, 2011

Mac rated it

It just so happened that I was reading this book as Mike Rowe, who is somehow now the flag-carrier for manual labor, testified before congress regarding “vocational education” programs in high schools. In my high school, there were students and teachers (mostly the latter) who referred to this part of the building, which had its own wing, as “the prole hallway,” and as the kind of guy who as an adult spends a lot of time on a web site called “Goodreads,” I wasn’t exactly encouraged to go over t...moreIt just so happened that I was reading this book as Mike Rowe, who is somehow now the flag-carrier for manual labor, testified before congress regarding “vocational education” programs in high schools. In my high school, there were students and teachers (mostly the latter) who referred to this part of the building, which had its own wing, as “the prole hallway,” and as the kind of guy who as an adult spends a lot of time on a web site called “Goodreads,” I wasn’t exactly encouraged to go over there. I took a typing and early MS-Office class as my vocational education requirement, and I use those skills even now.

I wish, however, that people like Rowe and Matthew B. Crawford had a little more say in the educational system, but as Crawford points out early in this book, that kind of education costs a lot of money, and as technology has advanced, this kind of learning isn’t the kind people want to emphasize in young people – every politician who talks about education wants students to learn “Math and Science” at every turn, and to be ever-ready to use those computer skills in the suburban office that he/she will one day work in.

Crawford’s diagnosis of this scenario is rather spot on, and his rebuttal – that not only is “blue-collar” work potentially more rewarding financially than office drudgery, but also spiritually – is something I’ve been learning for myself, and a lesson I only wish I could have learned 20 years ago. It was particularly depressing to read this as I participated in the drudgery of office work that Crawford describes, but it was still an enjoyable read.

This book is not perfect, certainly. For one, it ignores the idea that the moment one turns a passion into a way to make a living, it ceases to be a passion. I know of many hobbyist mechanics who, once they go into business fixing cars or motorcycles, begin to hate the sight of what they once truly enjoyed. Crawford himself, by trade an electrician, find the philosophical pleasures he writes about in rebuilding vintage motorcycles, not wiring houses. He touches on this in the book, very slightly, with examples of rich office-working types who go on extreme vacations to “recharge,” but doesn’t mention any need for the craftsman to ever recharge in the same way. While the rebuilding of an engine or the building of a new piece of furniture may be rewarding in a very primal and fundamental way, for the person who makes her living by it, it’s still a job, and a hard one at that. You cut yourself, you hurt yourself, you stand in uncomfortable poses for hours at a time and your muscles tense up – it’s not always fun. Rewarding work can become drudgery, too, and Crawford idealizes the skilled trades a little too much as he defends them.

There is also a slightly reactionary tone to some of the conclusions that Crawford reaches as he writes, one that isn’t necessarily following from his arguments. The danger in writing a book like this comes from a few directions, but one of them is certainly to write a trite, flag-waving, hippie-bashing, woman-hating diatribe about the good ol’ days when men were men and everyone knew their place – for the most part, Crawford avoids this, but that kind of blue-collar jingoism can creep up into moments when he begins to approach generalizations about large swaths of people (I should say I know nothing of Crawford’s biography other than what he tells in the book, and have no idea of his beliefs on any political, social, or economic matters). The book is best at describing a one-on-one interaction of human and non-human, in which the human changes the non-human into something of the human’s design. Addressing the manual and intellectual energy at work in that interaction seems to me to be enough; the sociology of the construction site and value of ownership that are briefly touched upon aren’t necessarily relevant, nor are they well enough explored to support their being here.

The biggest problem with this book, however, is that on some level I already knew everything in it. Crawford’s background in philosophy makes the book’s arguments very sound, and the ideas at work here are very complex, but it’s difficult to capture in words the kind of feelings he’s talking about. A significant portion of this book is trying to explain, in philosophical terms, the pleasure of being able to say “I made that,” and it may be that this is a pleasure that needs to be felt rather than described.

So I’m not sure that Crawford is going to change anyone’s mind, necessarily. For better or worse, students will be pressured to go to college, and Mercedes will continue to build cars where the owner cannot check the oil. The bourgeoisie and the proletariat may see themselves driven further and further apart, with the added problem that as once-durable goods become more and more disposable, the tradesmen Crawford writes about aren’t relied upon to fix anything. It would be nice if schools would put back the prole hallways and start taking their vocational education programs more seriously, if only to create more well-rounded, capable individuals, but as budgets are cut and curricula are standardized, that seems less and less likely.

Unfortunately, Crawford may simply be preaching to the converted. Hopefully there is a person out there who picks up this book and decides to learn a little more about her car’s engine, or signs up for a woodworking class, but it’s more likely that anyone who reads this will already be somewhat industrially inclined. In that case it will be more of a reinforcement of previously unarticulated feelings, but it will also be a handy retort to anyone who looks at a grease-covered workbench full of carburetor parts and asks “why would anyone want to deal with that?”

“Read this,” the bench-owner can say.
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Apr 01, 2011

James rated it

Great book. I sought this book because the reviews spoke to my current situation, frustration in my corporate job. His main premise is that we can find meaning – more meaning – in a manual trade job than in the modern cubicle farm, even though college graduates have convinced themselves that that same corporate job is the ticket to happiness and success. Along the way he makes comments about various subjects on philosophy, the modern world and motorcycles. I’m so glad he touched on Karl Marx...more

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Feb 26, 2011

Brian rated it

What a disappointment this book was .....

I cannot imagine that anyone who ever took a shop class in high school could possibly have enjoyed this book. It was so full of over-analytical philosophizing by a Ph.D. in Philosophy who decided to quit the "think tank" rat race of academia to run a shop doing motor cycling repair. I applaud him for knowing what he really wanted to do and then actually doing it. And even though he lists his reasons for writing the book in the next ...more

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Feb 09, 2011

Jonathan Thompson rated it

I really felt the ideas that Matthew Crawford ruminated on in this book touched on a growing wave of sentiment amongst the younger, college-educated, cubicle-dwelling, working class of this country. I found myself agreeing with much of it and saddened by some of the inescapable realities of modern capitalism. At the same time, the author comes off as being a bit self righteous about skilled labor and particularly the trades that he continuously references such as carpentry and motorcycle/auto re...more

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Nov 23, 2010

Matt rated it

A philosopher-mechanic explores the value of work by peppering in quotes of famous philosophers and the joys of being a mechanic, as opposed to being stuck in an office on the brink of an existential crisis. I liked it as a whole, as it was effective in making me question my relationship to the various types of work I've had. I tend to agree with him that the office-based work life can feel disconnected from reality at times, and therefore unfulfilling, but he risks over-generalizing. I also had...moreA philosopher-mechanic explores the value of work by peppering in quotes of famous philosophers and the joys of being a mechanic, as opposed to being stuck in an office on the brink of an existential crisis. I liked it as a whole, as it was effective in making me question my relationship to the various types of work I've had. I tend to agree with him that the office-based work life can feel disconnected from reality at times, and therefore unfulfilling, but he risks over-generalizing. I also had a hard time getting into the excerpts on the life of a mechanic and the joys of riding a motorcycle, but that's probably just because I have no experience with either.

There's numerous times however where the author appears to be cherry-picking examples without full consideration. For example, he cites research that the more children are praised, the more risk averse they become in order to maintain that image of themselves that has been granted. Fair enough, but he doesn't bother to mention the benefits of positive reinforcement. It's pretty clear that praise should be moderated with suggestions for improvement, but he fails to make this point.

While I try to avoid being too politically correct, his overly masculine style was hard to swallow at times. For example, he would largely refer to 'man' throughout, which on its own can be alright if consistent, but will occasionally throw in 'and women' in parentheses. Then again, I don't run in mechanic circles, so maybe I've become too overly sensitive to this stuff due to many years of office-based work.

Some excerpts...

"We often hear of the need for an 'upskilling' of the workforce, to keep up with technological change. I find the more pertinent issue to be: What sort of personality does one need to have, as a 21st century mechanic, to tolerate the layers of electronic bullshit that get piled on top of machines?" (p.7)

"The meta-work of trafficking in the surplus skimmed from other people's work suddenly appears as what it is, and it becomes possible once again to think the thought, 'Let me make myself useful.'" (p.8)

"The egalitarian worry that has always attended tracking students into 'college prep' and 'vocational ed' is overlaid with another: the fear that acquiring a specific skill set means that one's life is determined. In college, by contrast, many students don't learn anything of particular application; college is the ticket to an open future. Craftsmanship entails learning to do one thing really well, while the ideal of the new economy is to be able to learn new things, celebrating potential rather than achievement." (p.19)

"Any discipline that deals with an authoritative, independent reality requires honesty and humility. I believe this is especially so of the stochastic arts that fix things, such as doctoring and wrenching, in which we are not the makes of the things we tend." (p.100)

"Going into business is good therapy for the feeling that there is something arbitrary and idiosyncratic in the your grasp of the world, and therefore that your actions within it are unjustified." (p.124)

"There is a pride of accomplishment in the performance of whole tasks that can be held in the mind all at once, and contemplated as whole once finished. In most work that transpires in large organizations, one's work is meaningless taken by itself. The individual feels that, alone, he is without any effect. His education prepares him for this; it is an education for working in a large organization, and he has difficulty imagining how he might earn a living otherwise. This predisposes him to be deferential to the authority exercised in the organization (however tinged with irony this deference may be), since the organization is that which gives meaning to his work." (p.156)

"The lover of excellence is prone to being drawn out of himself, erotically almost, in a way that the universalist egalitarian is not. The latter's empathy, projected from afar and without discrimination, is more principled than attentive." (p.202)(less)

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Jul 15, 2010

Chris Griger rated it

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I really liked the idea behind this book (or at least what I thought the idea would be from the book cover) - which defended jobs that require real, measurable work over the "information" or "knowledge" work that is so common today. My initial impression was that this could even be targeted towards the high-school student deciding what career to pursue - and after reading a number of technical books, I was looking forward to some lighter reading for a vacation.
However,...more

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Jul 05, 2010

Suzanne rated it

This started out as an essay in a literary magazine and probably should have stayed that way. He seemed to add a lot of extraneous bits to fill the pages. Aside from that, it was certainly well-written. The author received both his master's and PhD from the University of Chicago.

I didn't know there would be so much about motorocycles or I probably wouldn't have chosen it for my bookgroup's July book. I thought he got a little strident in his arguments. Rather than making the poi...more

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Jun 24, 2010

Tony rated it

The author leaves his Ph.D. thinking job in a think tank to start a motorcycle repair shop. He notes that when Henry Ford was hiring for his assembly lines, he would have to hire 900 me"n for a hundred positions because the work was so demeaning. Dealer mechanics will fix your bike by following a rule book (like the help desk for your computer problems). A small shop can fix your bike based on experience-based tacit knowledge. The small shop enhances an ethical personal relationship with th...more

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Jun 19, 2010

Paul Aslanian rated it

Mark Anema, lent me this book after one of our Saturday morning Chataquas. For you old guys that book reminded me of a very popular book--Small is Beautiful--written about 1970 which became a cult book. Soulcraft, is written by a guy with an incredibly unusual background. He lived with his mother and sister in communes from the age of 8 through 15 never going to school. When he was 14 he became an apprentice electrician which he completed. He became a car nut hanging around "speed shop...moreMark Anema, lent me this book after one of our Saturday morning Chataquas. For you old guys that book reminded me of a very popular book--Small is Beautiful--written about 1970 which became a cult book. Soulcraft, is written by a guy with an incredibly unusual background. He lived with his mother and sister in communes from the age of 8 through 15 never going to school. When he was 14 he became an apprentice electrician which he completed. He became a car nut hanging around "speed shops" souping up his VW bug. His dad was a phyasist who operated in the clouds and only played with ideas. Somehow he managed to get into UC Santa Barbara from which he graduated in Physics but he was exposed to Philosophy in his senior year which he says "clarified everything for me"

For the next few years he wired houses and enrolled in classes to learn Greek--which he calls the language of Philosophy. Eventually, he earns an MA in Philosophy from the University of Chicago (UofC). Then he decides to enter the white collar world as an abstracter for a scientific journal--abstracting 28 articles a day--that was the flat rate. He lasted a year and hated just about everything about that life. So, like so many, he decided to get PhD in Political Philosophy again from Chicago. He then degree in hand goes to work for a public policy think tank in DC where he soon figured out that the Board had a conclusion in mind and wanted him to gin up the evidence to support the conclusion they desired. He stayed at the think tank 6 months then quit and opened a mototcycle repair and restoration shop in Richmond VA. (while working on his PhD and the year after while still on the tit at Chicago, he rebuilt his Honda 360. He found this work so much more fulfilling than the academic world that he continued to play with bikes.)

So with that background he writes this book that traces the work in the factory since the assembly line to today and what it has done to the nature of manual work and then does the same in the white collar world which since the computer has done much the same to this work. The worker of either collar being quite removed from the final product and the work being less individual and more "team". He builds a case that when the work is done by the team, again one is not individually seeing a product. His often used comparator is work in the trades, essentially construction trades where each worker is doing something which can be judged and good or bad work with a rather objective measure--for the carpenter, the wall is straight, plumb, and the cap is level--yes or no. His claim that is a better work world than the fuzzy one of so many today.

Both Soulcraft and Small is Beautiful do/did a nice job of critically evaluating the modern office/factory floor. S is B is more preaching about how things should change. A small group assembles the entire car. How about paying $85K for a Honda? Soulcraft, provides the critical analysis, but does not sell a solution to make each and all of us a master craftsman. I liked the book better than I thought I might when I was halfway through it. I think quite of few of you would enjoy the book.

We leave on our canoe trip two months from today. I would love for us to glom onto a book for camp fire discussions. I nominate Soulcraft as that book, but think it over, perhaps you have a better recommendation. Let's make a decision by July 1. Let me know.

Best,
PJA

PS I never know if these things get to you guys. If so, please let me know.(less)

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Jun 07, 2010

Karen rated it

The only reasons that I didn't give this book a higher rating are because the organization seemed pretty sporadic to me and because he seemed to be directing his words toward people who are already involved in the trades, which strikes me as preaching to the choir.

However, I believe that what he says is very important and I would suggest this book to any school administration that is considering eliminating electives in favor of improving their students' standardized test scores. ...more

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May 29, 2010

Scott rated it

Recommends it for: philosophy majors, thinkers

Shelves: own

I wanted more motorcycle mechanic and less philosopher - but instead I think I got about 80% philosopher to 20% mechanic. This is directly opposite of the image I had conjured up while viewing that gorgeous book cover at the airport bookshop.

I agree with everything he writes about the downward trend of the American workplace, overemphasis on "credentials" in education, the downside of 100% college attendance, "teamwork" instead of real management, etc, etc...but ...more

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May 26, 2010

Kiri rated it

This book delivers a strong message extolling the virtues of "trade" work, that is, work done with the hands, such as plumbing or carpentry or medicine or servicing cars (or motorcycles). It has a compelling message about how work that seeks to solve problems, and must operate within the constraints of the physical world, therefore demands a rich attention to the world, and the submission of your ego or self to something external -- providing continual lessons in humility and potentia...more

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Apr 22, 2010

Deb rated it

One of those books I ordered from the library after seeing the author highlighted in one of those mini-spots on a Book TV, http://www.booktv.org/ , (weekend fare at C-SPAN2, how I love you) during a book fair.

Sounded intriguing: higher education is not necessarily for everyone, and that learning a trade is not for the less-than-smart set.

Th author is one of those brainy people who is also quite handy, and who also had an unconventional childhood -- the effect is tantalizi...more

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Feb 21, 2010

Pejman Yousefzadeh rated it

Shelves: already-read

As mentioned in my previous book review, I entered this year having to do two reviews for books that I read in 2009. This is the second one. Thank Heavens I am finally caught up.

Matthew Crawford is a smart guy and a talented writer. His book is a fascinating and unorthodox analysis of how we ought to regard the nature of work. As Crawford notes–and as anyone knows–traditionally, people with desk jobs are perceived as doing “brain work,” while people engaged in mechanical labor are be...moreAs mentioned in my previous book review, I entered this year having to do two reviews for books that I read in 2009. This is the second one. Thank Heavens I am finally caught up.

Matthew Crawford is a smart guy and a talented writer. His book is a fascinating and unorthodox analysis of how we ought to regard the nature of work. As Crawford notes–and as anyone knows–traditionally, people with desk jobs are perceived as doing “brain work,” while people engaged in mechanical labor are believed to be engaged in mind-numbing labor that does not require too much–if any–thinking. Of course, in many instances, the reverse is true; as Crawford recounts, despite the fact that he was once employed by a DC think tank after getting his PhD from the University of Chicago, he has to use his brain more as a motorcycle repair wizard than he ever did as a think tanker. The common belief is that working at a think tank–especially as a newly minted PhD–is the more intellectually stimulating job, but in recounting his life experience, Crawford shows why this is not necessarily so.

He takes the point further by stating that although we consider a four-year college to be the expected next stop for students out of high school, the fact is that some high school students may not be cut out for the traditional four-year college program, and that instead, they ought to try their hands at community colleges, or trade schools. Crawford asks us to imagine whether we, or our kids would be genuinely happy at four-year colleges, or whether happiness would be found in learning a trade instead. On that basis, and on the basis of gauging the skill sets of high school graduates, he encourages a choice between the two stations. He fights against the negative stereotype associated with working with one’s hands, and fixing things, by reminding us that being involved in a trade can be tremendously intellectually challenging and satisfying. He also tells us that it can lead to very secure employment; in the Internet age, when jobs are outsourced overseas, Crawford reminds us that “you can’t hammer a nail over the Internet.”

This last point is a good one, but Crawford may have underestimated the degree to which trades are vulnerable to economic forces. This recession has hurt tradesmen just as much as it has hurt white collar workers; there are plenty of people holding off on making repairs, since they want to save money, and a BBC report I heard some months back featured the owner of a plumbing company in Los Angeles who stated that his business was surviving on savings, and that because of the economic downturn, more customers were trying to engage in do-it-yourself fixes for plumbing problems. Moreover, it bears repeating that the dangers of outsourcing are wildly overstated, and that nowadays, more jobs are actually being insourced into the United States.

If one enjoys learning a trade, can make a good living with it, and would do better working with one’s hands than laboring in a lab, or a library, then by all means, Matthew Crawford’s advice should be followed. By challenging our traditional conceptions of work, Crawford makes a valuable contribution. But in some respects, his thesis deserves challenging, and his arguments fall short.(less)

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Feb 01, 2010

John rated it

The most intriguing and interesting chapter, chapter six, is entitled "The Contradictions of the Cubicle." With a cycnicism similar but different from that found in the TV series, "The Office," this book is a more sober overview of professional life. And chapter six addresses the value of work with considerations to the value and goals of a college education -- considered in light of what is necessary to succeed in professional life, i.e. occupations which require advanced...moreThe most intriguing and interesting chapter, chapter six, is entitled "The Contradictions of the Cubicle." With a cycnicism similar but different from that found in the TV series, "The Office," this book is a more sober overview of professional life. And chapter six addresses the value of work with considerations to the value and goals of a college education -- considered in light of what is necessary to succeed in professional life, i.e. occupations which require advanced degrees.

Interesting as it is, chapter six is a foil. The author, not surprisingly, is fond of jobs that require working with your hands or perhaps more so, jobs which must be done locally. The writings style is thoughtful and carefully footnoted if not also a bit dry, occasionally impenetrable and meticulously considered.

end/ (3.5 starts)

some quotes I found interesting:

p. 7 -- We often hear of the need for an "upskilling" of the workforce, to keep up with technological change. I find the more pertinent issue to be: What sort of personality does one need to have, as a twenty-first-century mechanic, to put up with the layers of electronic bullshit that get piled on top of machines.

This quote is a musing upon the existence of a Mercedes sold without a dipstick making the driver completely dependent on "idiot lights" and the services of mechanics. For anyone who has ever change oil this insight is self-evident and unassailable.

p. 197 -- My point, finally, isn't to recommend motorcycling in particular, nor to recommend the life of the mechanic. It is rather to suggest that if we follow the traces of our own actions to their source, they intimate some understanding of the good life.

p. 209 -- It remains for others, better versed in public policy and shrewder about its intended consequences, to suggest ways in which the space for entrepreneurship can be protected. I would like to recommend a progressive-republican approach to the problem, which would be at once prickly and aspiring. Let us say that republicanism is a tribunal spirit that looks with active hostility on whatever erodes the stature of man. Progressivism entertains visions of a better world. A progressive-republican disposition would take its bearings from our shared potential to realize what is best in the human condition, and regard the conditions for its realization as a common weal that is not to be vandalized with impunity.(less)

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Jan 29, 2010

Cynthia rated it

This book was a fascinating look at work for me.

The author has a PhD from Univ. of Chicago, yet a brief disillusionary stint in post-doc academia led him back to working as a mechanic as he had enjoyed doing since his teens. The book is about the shift in work in our culture. In the past people would work with their hands. You'd have tangible results in their daily output - here is the widget I made today. Today's industrialized workplace has one person is a tiny cog in a giant whee...moreThis book was a fascinating look at work for me.

The author has a PhD from Univ. of Chicago, yet a brief disillusionary stint in post-doc academia led him back to working as a mechanic as he had enjoyed doing since his teens. The book is about the shift in work in our culture. In the past people would work with their hands. You'd have tangible results in their daily output - here is the widget I made today. Today's industrialized workplace has one person is a tiny cog in a giant wheel with without actual physical output from work that you are connected with. Computerization has done a ton to remove us from our output, and created many a job where people have very data/spreadsheet/no tangible anything jobs.

The past was filled with craftsmen. People were experts at the very physical making or doing a thing, knew it from front to back, could make independent decisions because they were so entwined with their materials that there was no "process" that dictated their life. Artisans. Their knowledge of their materials dictated decision making. Industry has taken that away from us. Now we are all about process, our small place in a process. Perhaps actual thinking goes out the window for the sake of some larger process we have been prescribed. Of course, there are still trades and people who work with their hands every day. Socially we have been taught to aspire to white collar work, college degrees. The argument is - is that better, and why? There are tons of people who have white collar jobs who are glorified clerks, not ever making a decision. I've written checks to plumbers, electricians, mechanics - they make a nice living. If we are to aspire to a thing, why is it so much more aspirational to work in a cube than working with one's hands?

He goes into corporate culture - why managers are taught to be more concerned with everyone's emotional state and job satisfaction than actual productivity. (Oh, I have felt that pain personally...) What is corporate culture anyway? A non-entity that is given form by it's people's attitudes. Fascinating once you step back from it. (I may also be somewhat susceptible to this fascination - working for a corporation that is legendary for it's culture. Culture shmulture, I say.)
It really comes down to how we are evolving as in relation to work.

This book can be esoteric at times. I rarely find myself re-reading paragraphs for comprehension but I did do so here. He gets into motorcycle mechanics to a certain degree, but it's never to the level where you can't get what he's saying as a neophyte. I straddle the line of corporate drone and artisan in my work - that may be why this interests me so. The book is well written and a very unique take on contemporary work attitudes and evolution. (less)

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Jan 29, 2010

Heath rated it

I'd probably have given this book 5 stars if Crawford didn't come across as such a macho prick (the reason I say he's a macho prick is summed up well by this NY Times book review and this one in the New Yorker).

It's unfortunate that Crawford allows his tough guy persona to seep onto the page, because the book is very compelling otherwise. It does an excellent job of explaining why office work is so demeaning and unfulfilling (hint: it's often planned to be that way), despite the fa...more

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Jan 11, 2010

Andrew rated it

Shelves: dunredalready

This book very nearly stirred something deep within my soul...very nearly. I felt the feathery fingertips of eternal nuance tickling the bottom of my spiritual gullet from time to time, but I never quite coughed up the pearl of wisdom I was hoping to find.

The book is a well-thought-out treatise and investigation into the value and ultimate worth of manual labor - the trades and the crafts, as placed in opposition to, and yet paralleled with, the life of the knowledge worker.

...moreThis book very nearly stirred something deep within my soul...very nearly. I felt the feathery fingertips of eternal nuance tickling the bottom of my spiritual gullet from time to time, but I never quite coughed up the pearl of wisdom I was hoping to find.

The book is a well-thought-out treatise and investigation into the value and ultimate worth of manual labor - the trades and the crafts, as placed in opposition to, and yet paralleled with, the life of the knowledge worker.

I love the similarities Crawford draws between the plight of the assembly line worker in early 20th century and the knowledge worker of the late 20th century. Here I am, heeding my parents requests to attend college so I can "get a good job", and damned if I come to realize that the "good jobs" are just as mindless and soul-numbing as assembly line work.

But at least I have some initials to put after my name. Wait, Crawford stealthily slips gasoline into that warm cup of coffee as well...

I really do agree with Crawford's assessment of the status of the American workforce and the ever-increasing trend of corporate American management towards stripping the workers of all free-thought and coercing us (cunningly, slyly, under the guise of taking medicine that will cure our ills) into becoming numb monkeys who bang on typewriters all day long. In some very dark moments over the past few weeks, I've realized that I am not only a typewriter monkey, but am actively training new recruits to unzip their brains and join in the fun..

I don't want to be a typewriter monkey! But damn it, I can already smell the bananas on my breath. Once I've tasted the banana, will I have the courage to turn away? THIS is the question that currently haunts me - I can see the insidious plot that's unfurling in front of me...the question is, do I value my individuality and my God-given being enough to jump off the tracks before the subway of inevitability comes along and turns me into a dull, compliant smudge? Jump, monkey, jump!

I have bananas on my breath! And a 401(k) buoyed by Chiquita! Serenity now! God strike me down for the capitalist bastard I am!

I offer this not in mockery - please don't misinterpret my simian candor - but as a metaphor for the inextricable predicament I (nay, I and millions of my higher-educated brethren and sistren) find myself in.

And yet, I found myself slipping away from the precipice of bananadom when he returned again and again to his own analogies of motorcycles and repair. I'm a guy - I desperately want to be enthralled by such talk - but the juxtaposition distracted me at times, and my pea brain couldn't swing along his revolutionary vines far enough to hurl myself to the next approaching vine in between his diversions back to bike shop talk.

In short, I was really close to pulling a Tom Cruise and jumping up and down on the nearest couch like a madman while reading this book. I was so close! But I just barely missed the vine. Perhaps the concepts and thoughts laid out by Crawford will continue to ooze into my psyche as I digest the book, and I will find myself soon bouncing up and down with fists thrust skyward, denouncing the taste of bananas forevermore.

His well-placed but unglamorous grain of sand hath been laid in my belly...here's hoping for the pearl and not a banana belch...

(less)

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Dec 31, 2009

Bob Nichols rated it

Crawford is old school in a good way. He's critical of contemporary education and its support of the modern-day knowledge economy. The author, a Ph.D. in political philosophy from the University of Chicago, began his career in the "knowledge arts" but quickly realized that this line of work was inherently unfulfilling. This is how he ended up as the owner and operator of a motor cycle repair shop. While he uses his hands, Crawford makes the case that the repair of motorcycles is a ...moreCrawford is old school in a good way. He's critical of contemporary education and its support of the modern-day knowledge economy. The author, a Ph.D. in political philosophy from the University of Chicago, began his career in the "knowledge arts" but quickly realized that this line of work was inherently unfulfilling. This is how he ended up as the owner and operator of a motor cycle repair shop. While he uses his hands, Crawford makes the case that the repair of motorcycles is a full intellectual challenge. Unlike work in the knowledge economy, his time produces a tangible product: A motorcycle that runs.

His experiences at the shop forms the bases for this book. In making his arguments, Crawford pulls in various strains of Aristotelian (excellence, virtue) and Marxian (alienated vs. non-alienated labor) thought. But these arguments seem forced and not so effective. Crawford is really hammering home several important themes: (1) manual work in the "useful arts" produces tangible product that demands excellence - a product that works; (2) that the standard of excellence is self-enforcing (a bike that runs; intellectual spinning won't cut it), and (3) our education and economic systems do not acknowledge this as honorable work but, instead, put it down and thereby perpetuate and foster hierarchical class divisions that are neither good for individuals or society.

Crawford's book also has significant philosophical overtones. To get a motorcycle off and running requires that the mechanic not impose his views on the bike but to look at the problem from the bike's perspective. The problem - how to fix the bike - forces the self to de-center (become "unself") and to accommodate itself to the reality at hand. This is excellence and virtue of the highest order as it is good for those outside the self because there is accommodation, and it is good for the self because there is fulfillment in solving a problem. Interestingly, his view that we must adjust to the realities of the external world (in this case, what it takes to get a bike moving again) has broader, Taoist implications: the good is accommodation to the requirements of the world; it does not impose itself on that world. Crawford notes that this type of lesson stands in contrast to Pirsig's ("Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance") inept mechanics who messed up his bike because they imposed a pre-formed notion of what was wrong without taking the time to figure out the real problem.

Crawford's book ends a bit flat. He aspires for a progressive transformation for what "is best in the human condition." But here he's a realist and understands that if social transformation is unlikely, at least one can focus on one's own sense of excellence in one's own corner of the world. Overall, it's a good book that challenges conventional wisdom and makes the reader question more seriously what lies before us, educationally and economically. (less)

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Dec 18, 2009

Adam rated it

Shelves: recent-enthusiasms, worldview

This is a remarkable examination of work in its many troubled contemporary forms, an indispensable read for anyone who has his or her eyes open today and knows the challenges of searching for a job that provides a sense that it is unquestionably worth doing. Crawford's prose is robust, concise, crystalline, and reads like the best college lecture you ever attended--a polished blend of academic insight, refreshing common sense, and grounding anecdote. He makes several apt references to sources ...more

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About Matthew B. Crawford

Matthew B. Crawford is currently a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. He also runs a (very) small business in Richmond, Virginia.

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“When Jessica DuLong describes her work in the engine room of the John J. Harvey, you can practically feel the throb of the boat’s mighty diesels. This is someone who has paid some dues, and it shows in the details. "My River Chronicles" explores the dignity of work, offering an account of what made this country thrive, and might yet again: men and women who aren’t content to stand around with their hands in their pockets. The book reeks of penetrating oil which may be just what is needed to get our economy, and our culture, moving again.” — 2 people liked it

“I did not even look at the scoreboard when my routine was done in 1976. My teammates started pointing because there was this uproar" (Nadia Comaneci). These remarks highlight an important feature of those practices that entail skilled and active engagement: one's attention is focused on standards intrinsic to the practice, rather than external goods that may be won through the practice, typically money or recognition. Can this distinction between internal and external goods inform our understanding of work?” — 1 person liked it

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