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Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work |  | Author: Matthew B. Crawford
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
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Rating:  142 reviews
Sales Rank: 12184
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.9
ISBN: 1594202230
Dewey Decimal Number: 331
EAN: 9781594202230
ASIN: 1594202230
Publication Date: May 28, 2009
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Product Description
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 connection to the material world, a sense of loss, and find it difficult to say exactly what we do all day. For anyone who felt hustled off to college, then to the cubicle, against their own inclinations and natural bents, Shop Class as Soulcraft seeks to restore the honor of the manual trades as a life worth choosing.
On both economic and psychological grounds, Crawford questions the educational imperative of turning everyone into a "knowledge worker," based on a misguided separation of thinking from doing, the work of the hand from that of the mind. Crawford shows us how such a partition, which began a century ago with the assembly line, degrades work for those on both sides of the divide.
But Crawford offers good news as well: the manual trades are very different from the assembly line, and from dumbed-down white collar work as well. They require careful thinking and are punctuated by moments of genuine pleasure. Based on his own experience as an electrician and mechanic, Crawford makes a case for the intrinsic satisfactions and cognitive challenges of manual work. The work of builders and mechanics is secure; it cannot be outsourced, and it cannot be made obsolete. Such work ties us to the local communities in which we live, and instills the pride that comes from doing work that is genuinely useful. A wholly original debut, Shop Class as Soulcraft offers a passionate call for self-reliance and a moving reflection on how we can live concretely in an ever more abstract world.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 142
 Radical, Timely, Moving. May 28, 2009
David McCune (Tacoma, WA)
244 out of 258 found this review helpful
This could easily be the most important book a parent or young adult reads this year.
Matt Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft touched a chord with me. Both his life and his book are a rebuke to the assumptions which govern modern ideas about work, economics, self-worth, and happiness. Crawford would seem to have lived the American Dream right into his twenties. He finished his formal education (which, to judge by the breadth of references to literature and philosophy in the book, wasn't shabby) and was quickly hired by a Washington "think tank". Any young, aggressive climber would recognize this as a coveted place from which to launch of career. But where others would see a rapid ascent up the social pyramid, Crawford sensed emptiness. He left to work in a motorcycle repair shop, where he got his hands dirty, fixed bikes, and used his brain. Where others might see "mere" manual labor, he learned the value of a tangible skill. He now shares with readers his thoughts on this value, how it is vanishing from modern society, and the implications for us as a people.
Crawford traces the evolution of shop class, its intended and unintended consequences, and its subsequent rapid retreat from our schools. He lays out the historical transition from individual craftsman to interchangeable piece of a human assembly line during the industrial revolution. Much more frighteningly, he reviews how the same approach is well underway in the "white collar" information economy. Whether one has lived the absurdities of cubicle farms first hand or only through Dilbert, it is not hard to see how the modern, homogenized college prep education and liberal arts degree leaves a modern worker predisposed to try to fit as a cog in a modern information assembly line. Crawford taps a fundamental part of the psyche as he reminds us of the inherent pride in being able to say "I fix bikes" when asked what he does for a living. Does a country really need every high school student to strive to attend college? Crawford makes the case that for many this will not only be a waste of time and money, but will ultimately land them in careers in which they have trouble seeing the value of what they do. Too many will, in the words my son once used to describe my job, "type on the computer and answer the phone".
This advice may be coming at a perfect time. Although he claims it is not his goal to discuss the economics of working with one's hands, Crawford still makes a compelling case. As anyone who has called tech support can vouch, it is easy to transfer information economy jobs overseas. Helping someone deal with computer software can be done from India or the Philippines, but you can't hammer a nail over the internet. Crawford builds his case with anecdote, WSJ articles, and quotes from professors of economics. We may all make jokes about droopy overalls and plumber's crack, but there's a good chance that that plumber has better job prospects than many in the graduating college class of 2009. Plumbing may not be totally recession-proof, but there will always be a demand for a person who can fix a plugged drain.
Still, the best parts of the book are where Crawford talks about what working with the hands can do for a person's mind and soul. When he describes the satisfaction of hearing the roar of a motorcycle leaving his shop, knowing that it arrived in the bed of a truck, it is clearly heartfelt. His desire to share that experience with others is palpable. Well, maybe that not exactly it. More the desire to say "there is another path" to the members of our society, in particular those about to shuffle off to college because that's simple what one does after high school. To them I would say: read his book, and consider how your brain might be engaged by the thoughtful application of experience and labor in a trade. Decide if the potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars of college and years of debt really return enough value to your life to make college worthwhile.
For the rest of us, now past that decision point, consider Crawford's thoughts on freedom and specialization. Maybe it _does_ make financial sense to contract out our projects and repairs, but does that necessarily make it wrong to try to fix things ourselves? Are we truly free if so much of the technology we depend on is beyond our ability to repair it? Perhaps Crawford has a point, that there is more to work than simple money and time. Maybe dirty hands will be good for our souls.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
-Robert A. Heinlein
A great book with so many useful lessons. June 27, 2009
Christopher M. Reynolds (Arizona)
34 out of 35 found this review helpful
It's hard to put into words the message I got from this book. As a college graduate with dual degrees in economics and engineering who spends most of his day in a cubicle, pushing paper and feeling my soul drain out of my body, this book put into words a lot of the feelings and internal conflicts I struggle with daily. About a year ago, I grew tired of not working with my hands and using my creativity so I enrolled in a machinist training program at a local community college to satisfy my needs. I got so much out of working with my hands, it was almost therapy for me. The author writes about how much we can gain from working with our hands, stimulating creativity, problem solving, and a real connection with a tangible result from our work. Think of how many days you've spent at the office, making conference calls, sending emails and filling out spreadsheets, only to go home and wonder "What did I really do today? What is the proof of my work today?" Reading this book puts a lot into perspective and extolls the virtue of skilled trades, and the author urges a well-deserved re-examination of the skilled trades as a rewarding career option.
"you can't hammer a nail over the Internet" October 25, 2009
Chris Gray (Colorado)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
"Today, in our schools, the manual trades are given little honor. 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." (19)
"Occupations based on universal...knowledge are more prestigious, but they are also the kind that face competition from the whole world as book learning becomes more widely disseminated in the global economy. Practical know-how, on the other hand, is always tied to the experience of a particular person. It can't be downloaded, it can only be lived." (162)
These two quotes pretty much sum up the focus of this book, that we have lost value and appreciation for craftsmanship and hands on work in this country in favor of a ridiculous belief that somehow the only work that is to be valued is work that is performed "intellectually" in a shirt and tie. Crawford left a political think tank to start his own motorcycle repair shop and this book is his reflections on how our country has come to view work, the values and unstated labels we place on "white collar" vs. "blue collar" work, and how our schools and government are partly to blame for our unrealistic beliefs that everyone needs to go to college to have a "good life." As someone who lost more then $20,000 a year in a "blue collar" job to happily go into the "white collar" teaching profession, only to specialize in teaching a majority of future "blue collar" kids, I have a passionate interest in this debate. I have and will continue to advocate for a revision of these destructive and condescending educational beliefs. Crawford believes, and I agree, that we have turned our schools into "square holes" with no room for our "round" non-college bound kids to fit into by eliminating trade oriented classes such as wood and auto shop in favor of more (less expensive) college prep classes. Crawford reflects on the Catch-22 of addressing or changing this situation by stating:
...any high school principal who doesn't claim as his goal "one hundred percent college attendance" is likely to be accused of harboring "low expectations" and run out of town by indigent parents. This indignation is hard to strand against, since it carries all the moral weight of egalitarianism. Yet it is also snobbish, since it evidently regards the trades as something "low" (32).
I deal with kids everyday in my high school intervention classes that exhibit what happens when years of passive aggressively telling kids through our educational actions that their interests and their skill sets are not as "good" or "valuable" to our community as those of the college bound kids. My kids repeatedly tell me that high school has absolutely no purpose or use for them and looking at what they are up against I can sympathize with their frustrations. When students believe this about school it only results in negative self images and frustration which then, over time, turns into behavior and truancy issues as these "round kids" struggle with being forced into our school's "square holes."
I wish school boards and administrators would take the time to read and think about the issues that a book like this raises so we can begin to give the trade and non-four year college track kids the respect and dignity they deserve, and more importantly, are entitled to. After all, these are going to be the only truly secure professions in our growing global economy. As Princeton economist Alan Binder states in the book, "you can't hammer a nail over the Internet" (34).
A Professional Perspective February 17, 2010
Alan Kendall (Atlanta, GA, United States)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
I connected with this book in several ways. First, while in Junior High (remember when it was called that) in the 60s I was told by my guidance counselor I couldn't take Shop II because I was on a college prep track and Shop 2 was for those kids who would be blue collar workers. The bias of those comments stuck with me all these years. Second, there is an option pursued by myself and many of my close friends. While I was a white collar worker my entire professional career my hobby was restoring and maintaining cars. I needed the satisfaction of that work so took it on as a hobby and developed mechanical proficiency many mechanical skills including engine and gearbox rebuilding. After reading this book I realized many of my close friends have the same approach. A teacher who built his own house. A doctor who hand builds kayaks. A CPA who welds, restores and works on cars. Somehow we all value working with our hands and while we don't do it to pay the bills we all do it to satisfy our souls to great success. Crawford explains why we all feel this way. All of these friends have now read the book and enjoyed it. Crawford nailed it.
A Return to Common Sense! June 6, 2009
Loyd E. Eskildson (Phoenix, AZ.)
16 out of 19 found this review helpful
Working with one's mind instead of one's hands has been considered "better" for as long as I can remember - increasingly so in recent years. Crawford's "Shop Class as Soulcraft" will hopefully help eliminate this prejudice.
Crawford identifies two problems with this thinking. The first is that being able to fix things allows one some control over their life, instead of having to turn to a repair shop when eg. a "low oil pressure light" comes on in one's car. The second is that today's average worker is mired in an ill-defined world where it is often not possible to evaluate the quality of one's work, or to derive a sense of pride. Worse yet, he/she is often required to do a task incorrectly, to suit corporate biases - eg. employment in a "think tank." Worst of all, is being placed into a white-collar situation (managing, writing abstracts) without any area-specific knowledge, and being required to act guided only by a standard management outline. A third, not mentioned by Crawford, is that on-site working with one's hands is probably the occupation most protected from outsourcing. And a fourth is that it bypasses the increasingly exorbitant expenses of going to college.
Crawford doesn't bring these insights down purely from an ivory-towered abstract academic world - he himself owns a motorcycle repair shop and has worked on an assembly-line and as a VW mechanic. He clearly enjoys being his own boss and the mental challenge of diagnosing motorcycle problems and selecting the best repair strategy. On the other hand, it is a bit too easy to see the book as an apology for the career choices he has made, rather than a tested thesis. (P.S.: This reviewer has sympathy for Crawford's conclusions, having worked as a college instructor, middle/upper manager in a sea of back-stabbing and political correctness, and a cross-country truck-driver.)
Showing reviews 1-5 of 142
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