Because I have recently moved in with a group of filthy hippies, I have recently had the opportunity to read a number of fascinating books written by overeducated douchebags who possess a fascination with motorcycles (Specifically, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Shop Class as Soulcraft). Don’t take this as an indictment - as an overeducated douchebag, one of my favorite things in the world is pontificating on obscure subject matter, and I enjoyed these books, pretentious though they were.
As such, I wanted to present some ideas on the subject. The great thing about having a blog that no one reads is that I can post as many pages of self-indulgent crap as I want. So there.
I talk a lot about the future here. It is a subject of great interest to me. But often, it is largely theoretical. Today I’d like to talk about something a little closer to home. To sum up, in a completely dishonest oversimplification, the author of Shop Class as Soulcraft discusses the value of manual labor, of traditional trades, such as plumbing, carpentry, auto repair, etc. The problem, as presented, is that our society has been training a generation of “information workers” without actual tangible skills. In theory, the economists and pedagogues say, the future of work takes place in virtual and theoretical spaces.
They weren’t wrong to think so, but they were dumbasses for not realizing that those jobs would migrate overseas as soon as someone realized the same function could performed by an Indian cog-drone in a sweat office in Mumbai for half as much. And yes, while everything physical that we need can be created and shipped in from China, such things cannot be maintained by overseas workers, no matter how much we would love that to be the case. If your car breaks down, you can’t just ship it to China. Though that would be cool.
The point that the author is trying to make, is that there is real tangible value in many “blue-collar” jobs, and not the luddite, reductionist, “simpler time” bullshit that so many people are fond of. A person who can see the products of their labor is more likely to be satisfied with and even happy with their job. What the fuck does a creative consultant do, and do they even feel like they’ve earned their wage?
There’s no need to rehash the argument. It’s smart, interesting, and flies in the face of common wisdom. I would like to address a different point, something that sprang from these discussions and others. While there are many things that can be pointed to as the problem with modern society, I would like to point to one in particular:
Specialization. The hallmark of an advanced society is specialization. As food gathering becomes less imperative, man hours are able to be directed toward increasingly specialized tasks. This phenomenon becomes more pointed with automation, industrialization and computation. There is no secret that our society is radically compartmentalized. A biochemist shares practically no experience with a motorcycle mechanic.
I believe this is a problem. Part of this is because the cutting edge of science - which bears heavily on the functioning of our society - is so far removed from the average person as to be magical in nature. It is difficult for a democratic society to function when so much of human experience is inaccesible to the majority. This also creates schisms between not only classes, but areas of study. With specialization, we form insular communities that work inward, rather than outward. Scientists lack the humanizing touch of poets and artists, and artists lack the technical prowess of the scientific community. This schismatic rift exists in dozens of pairing across society.
I don’t propose any particular solution, but I do believe that we have lost sight of one of the things that makes us as humans so great: diversification. Some of our finest scientists and artists were polymaths, renaissance men who were artists, natural philosphers and athletes: Da Vinci, Newton, Jefferson, etc. It is possible that specialization drives society forward more powerfully, but at the cost of the individual, and at the risk of myopic devastation.
Liberal arts colleges attempt (in theory) to remedy this, by teaching cross-disciplinary classes and encouraging diverse pursuits, but even in these institutions that most resemble a renaissance university, insularity and separation still persist. What we wish as a culture we must cultivate in ourselves, and if we wish to be a full, healthy and well-developed culture, we must be full, healthy and well-developed people. Artists taking chemistry, writers fixing motorcycles, scientists writing poetry. Interdisciplinary pursuits do not weaken a person’s intellect and drive - they strengthen it.
Or that’s how it seems to me, wasted off my ass at eleven o’clock on a wednesday.
