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

by Matthew B. Crawford

craftsmanship has been said to consist simply in the desire to do something well, for its own sake.

It seems to require that the user of a machine have something at stake, an interest of the sort that arises through bodily immersion in some hard reality, the kind that kicks back.

A thing requires practice while a device invites consumption. Things constitute commanding reality, devices procure disposable reality.