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

by Matthew B. Crawford

Constantly seeking self-affirmation, the narcissist views everything as an extension of his will, and therefore has only a tenuous grasp on the world of objects as something independent. He is prone to magical thinking and delusions of omnipotence.7 A repairman, on the other hand, puts himself in the service of others, and fixes the things they depend on. His relationship to objects enacts a more solid sort of command, based on real understanding. For this very reason, his work also chastens the easy fantasy of mastery that permeates modern culture. The repairman has to begin each job by getting outside his own head and noticing things; he has to look carefully and listen to the ailing machine.

It seems to be our liberal political instincts that push us in this direction of centralizing authority; we distrust authority in the hands of individuals. With its reverence for neutral process, liberalism is, by design, a politics of irresponsibility. This begins with the best of intentions—securing our liberties against the abuse of power—but has become a kind of monster that feeds on individual agency, especially for those who work in the public sector.

The truth, of course, is that creativity is a by-product of mastery of the sort that is cultivated through long practice.

It points to a paradox in our experience of agency: to be master of your own stuff entails also being mastered by it.

The stereo as a device contrasts with the instrument as a thing. A thing, in the sense in which I want to use the term, has an intelligible and accessible character and calls forth skilled and active human engagement. A thing requires practice while a device invites consumption. Things constitute commanding reality, devices procure disposable reality.

the problem is not “instrumental rationality,” it is rather that we have come to live in a world that precisely does not elicit our instrumentality, the embodied kind that is original to us.

Fixing things may be a cure for narcissism.

7 I believe the mechanical arts have a special significance for our time because they cultivate not creativity, but the less glamorous virtue of attentiveness. Things need fixing and tending no less than creating.

The truth does not reveal itself to idle spectators.

When the point of education becomes the production of credentials rather than the cultivation of knowledge, it forfeits the motive recognized by Aristotle: “All human beings by nature desire to know.” Students become intellectually disengaged.

Where there is real work being done, the order of things isn’t quite so fragile.

“knowing that,” as opposed to “knowing how.” This corresponds roughly to universal knowledge versus the kind that comes from individual experience.

It is now the capitalist who says, “Workers of the world, unite!,”

an external reward can affect one’s interpretation of one’s own motivation,

There may be something to be said, then, for having gifted students learn a trade, if only in the summers, so that their egos will be repeatedly crushed before they go on to run the country.

A humane economy would be one in which the possibility of achieving such satisfaction is not foreclosed ahead of time for most people.

But we have failed utterly to prevent the concentration of economic power, or take account of how such concentration damages the conditions under which full human flourishing becomes possible (it is never guaranteed).