WHAT WE'RE READING // SHOP CLASS AS SOULCRAFT

I picked up this book while on vacation in Oregon a few weeks back and have since been desperately trying to define what it is exactly I can do. Written by Matthew Crawford, a political philosopher from the University of Chicago, who, after several years working in a Washington 'think tank' decided to quit his high paying knowledge job and open Shockoe Moto, an independent motorcycle repair shop just outside of Richmond, Virginia. In Shop Class as Soulcraft, Crawford looks at the degradation of skilled labor, the loss, or lack of, shop classes in modern American high schools and the negative effect that this will have on the future of America's labor force.

While he does not glamorize manual labor, he does point to the value of working with ones hands, and looks at the importance of not creating, as would a craftsman, but maintaining and repairing things. A book that may cause you to reevaluate your lifestyle and look at what it is exactly you are capable of doing, i.e. repairing that broken refrigerator or replacing the brakes on your daily driver, Shop Class as Soulcraft will reminding you that there is value in those abilities, and that while the cost-benefit ratio may be skewed toward cost, the benefit comes when your refrigerator operates as it should, and your labor is justified by feelings of independence and self reliance, not by how much money you saved... // [comment]