Go Forth, Read This, and Be Better For It

I think I’ve found the book I’ll be picking up for my summer vacation to the mountains. Let’s start with an introductory handshake from this NY Times article based on the upcoming book.

When we praise people who do work that is straightforwardly useful, the praise often betrays an assumption that they had no other options. We idealize them as the salt of the earth and emphasize the sacrifice for others their work may entail. Such sacrifice does indeed occur — the hazards faced by a lineman restoring power during a storm come to mind. But what if such work answers as well to a basic human need of the one who does it? I take this to be the suggestion of Marge Piercy’s poem “To Be of Use,” which concludes with the lines “the pitcher longs for water to carry/and a person for work that is real.” Beneath our gratitude for the lineman may rest envy.

Who wrote this? Well, here’s a taste of his background.

After finishing a Ph.D. in political philosophy at the University of Chicago in 2000, I managed to stay on with a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at the university’s Committee on Social Thought. The academic job market was utterly bleak.

I finished reading that and was immediately struck with one thought. “Oh. My. God. Could you HAVE a more useless education?”

This man went on to be a motorcycle mechanic and an author. Read what he has to say about the trades and how those from the ivy towers regard them. You’ll profit from it.