About this title: In this wise and often funny book, a philosopher/mechanic systematically destroys the pretensions of the high-prestige workplace and makes an irresistible case for working with one's hands.
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Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Date Published: 5-28-09
ISBN-13:9781594202230ISBN:1594202230
Description: FINE. Superb, crisp, clean, unread hardcover with light shelfwear to the dust jacket and a remainder mark to one edge-NICE! 0.95 lbs. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Penguin Press
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9781594202230ISBN:1594202230
Description: Fine in fine dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 246 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9781594202230ISBN:1594202230
Description: New. Items ship once payments have cleared. Media mail 5-8 days Priority 2-3 days and international orders may be subject to customs clearance procedures which can cause delays. Seasonal delays can occur in postal system. International Orders which cannot ship first class or in priority flat rate will be charged additional postage. All items ship within 24 hours of receiving payment. read more
Binding: Spoken Word MP3-CD
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Date Published: 2009-05-28
ISBN-13:9781441800107ISBN:1441800107
Description: NEW. Spoken Word MP3-CD. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9781441800107. read more
Binding: MP3 CD
Publisher: Brilliance Audio on MP3-CD
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9781441800107ISBN:1441800107
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Penguin Pr
Date Published: 2009-05-28
ISBN-13:9781594202230ISBN:1594202230
Description: NEW. Hardcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9781594202230. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Penguin Press
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9781594202230ISBN:1594202230
Description: New. No dust jacket as issued. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 246 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
"Interesting book on the nature of work and self-reliance that ranges over philosophy, cognitive psychology, management theory, and the author's experience as the owner of a motorcycle repair shop with a Ph.D. in political philosophy.
I liked the connections made between the conversion of blue-collar expertise into assembly line rules and systems by such companies as Ford to the conversion of white-collar expertise into the "knowledge management" of today; both leading to job dissatisfaction and a management perception of an interchangeable workforce. Also liked the idea of some occupations such as motorcycle repair and medicine requiring a mindfulness, a dropping of ego and preconceptions in order to truly see problems; the benefit of something difficult and outside yourself in this age of user-centered experience.
But the book is less convincing when it talks uncritically about a blue-collar environment that is presented as a freer, more satisfying workplace where excellence rises to the top. He describes apprenticeships where newcomers are afforded a lower status, until they can prove themselves, and then rise in status over time by their merits. Actually, I think that in these Darwinian environments, the bullies sometimes win.
The author speaks of about a trip to India when he was unable to recognize the humanity of the people until he saw an aspect of himself in them; some electricians setting up wire (he has experience as an electrician). For all his railing at the self-absorption of the public because of consumerism, the author seems to have a difficulty getting out his own skin. The author's notion of a freer workplace (where you can tell dirty jokes and the "order of things is not quite so fragile") seems less about individualism than an escape from the complexity of a modern and increasingly diverse society."
"I was intrigued enough by Matthew Crawford's essay in the NYT magazine to read his entire book, which is called Shop Class as Soulcraft. Imagine an extended meditation, by someone with a Ph.D. who has extensively studied the ancient Greek philosophers, about the meaning of happiness as it relates to finding a satisfying job in the modern world. He has a snappy writing style that might remind you of Michael Kinsley or Sam Harris. There are two groups of people who might want to read the whole book instead of the excerpt linked above: people who aren't sure what to do with their lives and people who enjoy mastering skills.
Crawford's discussion skids all over the place and occasionally the book reads like an extended apology for his weird career trajectory. But it feels as though he has pinpointed something elementally true about modern office work and the way it can deprive you of a sense of accomplishment and stability. He identifies the trades (auto repair, plumbing, etc.) as a place where a certain kind of satisfying mastery can be experienced--the feeling of having tried your skill against something unyielding and outside yourself until you have achieved objectively measurable results. While I am not mechanically inclined, he gives other examples that are exactly the kind of thing that I find worthwhile: learning a language or musical instrument, trying to ice-skate, and so forth. These are activities at which it is possible to fail--in fact, you are almost guaranteed to fail at first.
The author isn't trying to convince you to become a motorcycle mechanic, like he is, or to reform the education system to raise a new generation of globalization-bucking plumbers. It's thought-provoking and occasionally irritation-provoking. I think it struck a nerve with me because Crawford's point is an elaborate version of one I often try to make. Sometimes leaving a seemingly exciting environment (think tank/literary publishing) for one that seems humble by contrast (workshop/library) makes a lot of sense.
Very interesting, but you can get a lot of the point just from reading the NYT excerpt."
In general terms, any book which can be summarized as "A treatise on the moral an intellectual virtues of this practice, which I happen to participate" is worthy of some skepticism, but when the subtext might further read "Justifying my life decisions" then you know you're in trouble. This book jumps into this category with both feet.
I won't say there are no good ideas in here - the thesis that there is much value to be found in "real" work is one I wholeheartedly support - but this book is mostly wasted space. There is material for a REALLY good essay in here that has been spun out and unnecessarily padded to make an entire book.
It is the very quality of this thesis which renders the book so maddening. Every time he comes within sight of a topic that might take the book outside the narrow sphere of justifying his own choices, the matter is touched on briefly, then discarded in favor of the author's experiences, which are interesting, but offer little in the way of real insight.
As the author presented his thesis I was full of excitement - this could spill into discussion of the resurgence of maker culture, the growth of open source, the hacker ethos and so many other vibrant modern movements that celebrate this idea of making and working with real things. Sadly, it was not to be, and these experiences are apparently limited solely to the author and those whose work he understands and participates in.
In places, they even work against him. One of the brighter points of the text is a dissection of corporate team-building, which is promptly undercut by his tales of his own white collar experience, presented as typical. If you had a college degree and were making 23k a year in Silicon Valley in the 90's, you were not a white collar worker, you were a rube - you could have made more working at Taco Bell. The kind of place that treated workers that way would naturally be exactly the worst kind of environment, and while I'm sorry the author ended up in that situation, he's extrapolated a lot from it.
All this might be forgivable if this was a primarily biographical text, but it's not. It's a polemic, and not a very good one. Elements of biography are used well, but then they are used as launching points for rants supporting the author's pet political, social and philosophical ideals.
The best thing I can say about this book is that it very successfully refactors a lot of The Communist Manifesto into modern terminology. That sounds facetious, I know - comparing the author's works with Marx seems like an idea out of left field - but it's an almost inescapable conclusion in parts. The author's own citations of Marx and his supporters suggest this may be intentional (it would be more troubling if it was not) but the disdain for intellectuals coupled with the strong emphasis of the strong moral virtues of the worker (a specific sort of worker, in fact) make the comparison inescapable.
A number of reviews also left me with the impression that there would be some treatment of the role and value of vocational education. This is simply not the case, which is intensely disappointing. This seems to be one of those books that makes a great summary and is frequently reviewed on the strength of that summary, rather than the far weaker book it represents."
"Crawford has a strong, important message, and I totally buy it: many of the manual trades offer more job satisfaction and mental stimulation than what college graduates are offered in the "knowledge" careers, which are often little more than stressful, unchallenging, cubicle work. He's not only right, but he's making a very important point. But the book only comes alive when Crawford talks about his experiences in stultifying cubicle jobs or rewarding manual trades like his current motorcycle repair business.
Unfortunately, he spends probably half the book quoting dull, academic treatises, and lapses into academic-speak during those passages, for pages at a time. (Random example: "The market ideal of Choice by an autonomous self seems to act as a kind of narcotic that makes the displacing of embodied agency go smoothly, or precludes the development of such agency by providing easier saisfactions." How's that again?) I wish it had been less Heidegger and Aristotle and more Robert Pirsig and Malcolm Gladwell. And the book would have more engaging at half the length."
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