"Nice Work If You Can Get It," my review of Matthew B. Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work , appears in this weekend's edition of The National (Abu Dhabi). For the record, I wrote this review well before the controversies of the past week.
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, appears in this weekend's edition of The National (Abu Dhabi). For the record, I wrote this review well before the controversies of the past week. Comments
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- This blog is written by Caleb Crain. There's an email address for me at the top of my bio page. For older posts on this blog, please check the online archives. A selection of the blog's posts, spanning six years, has also been collected as a book, titled The Wreck of the Henry Clay.
“Because assembly-line work demanded little of a worker other than submissive patience, it did not focus his attention and felt meaningless in the moment.”
I hated thinking about how much this applies to contemporary office work, but I really loved this review, Caleb--so thoughtful and elegant.
Posted by: Liz | Friday, 03 July 2009 at 05:59 AM
Great review! Which controversies were those?
Posted by: Steve | Friday, 03 July 2009 at 05:22 PM
A better review than the piece about The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work ... which shows a deep misunderstanding of the British attitudes towards work, eccentricity, and humor ... to state that 'Either geeking out is shameful or it isn't' is a purely American perspective, the cultural hegemony behind the unquestioned assumption that motivations and values are the same across these two cultures is disappointing.
Posted by: Jane Wong | Saturday, 04 July 2009 at 08:39 AM
Excellent review. A small objection: when you say "Ph.D.s", it is important to remember that a quite large percentage of Ph.D.s are in the sciences - and these often involve experimental (hands-on) and intellectual work.
At their best, these jobs really do live up to Crawford's hopes. Which is exactly why I have been unable to convince myself to do something less engaging for more money...
Posted by: Mark | Tuesday, 14 July 2009 at 04:39 PM
Mark: Good point! I think I was wearing my humanities-PhD blinders, in that sentence.
Posted by: Caleb Crain | Tuesday, 14 July 2009 at 06:56 PM