CraigHMake Year 12 compulsory? - Forget it
October 7th 2006 09:46
This suggestion is based on the assumption that intellectual endeavours and white collar work is inherently superior to manual labour and that the size of your pay-packet is the only measure of the desirability of your job.
However, neither of these assumptions is true. Society is a cooperative enterprise and it needs people to fulfil every role, whether the hue of their collars be white, blue or any gradation on between. We need to overcome our bias against certain professions and recognise the dignity to be found in doing any necessary job well.
This irrational bias struck me when chatting to a female colleague at work who is immensely proud of her hair. She has it done on a weekly basis. In our conversation she was bemoaning the fact that her daughter was thinking of going to TAFE to study ... you guessed it ... hairdressing. My colleague was horrified. It's bizarre that we all need manual labourers and yet we don't want our daughters to become hairdressers or our sons to become plumbers - that's for someone else!
Roger Scruton put it this way when he writes against the modern educational fad of boosting self esteem.
The office cleaner who conscientiously does her job is rewarded with the friendship of the workers whom she benefits. It does not matter that her social position is a humble one; for by occupying it rightly she earns a place in society as honourable as any other. This is what George Herbert had in mind in those lines made famous by the Victorian hymn:
A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine:
Who sweep a room as for Thy laws
Makes that and th' action fine.
It follows that a society can be hierarchically ordered without being oppressive. For every station has its duties, the performance of which is both an end in itself and a passport to social affection. And through education, ambition and hard work you can change your station, to arrive at the place that matches your achievements and which, through performing its duties, you possess as your own.Makes drudgery divine:
Who sweep a room as for Thy laws
Makes that and th' action fine.
Matthew B. Crawford has also written eloquently on the subject of manual work and the benefits to be derived from it. In his essay Shop Class as Soulcraft he argues that manual work is one of the true sources of satisfaction and that many of the ills which plague modern society derive from the fact that so manly young people lack any practical skills whatsoever. Crawford is eminently qualified to contribute to this discussion as he is both postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia and he ran his own motorcycle repair shop for may years.
* Image courtesy of www.sxc.hu
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