Response to; The Case for Working With Your Hands by Matthew B. Crawford

The Purpose of a Societal Shift Toward Higher Education 

In a New York Times article titled “The Case for Working With Your Hands,” Matthew B. Crawford claims that our society looks down upon those who choose manual labor as a profession. As Crawford puts it “Because the work is dirty, many people assume it is also stupid.” (Crawford, 4) He further claims that as a result of the negative perspective people bear towards manual laborers, many young students find themselves being pressured into going to college “against their own inclinations and natural bents,” (Crawford, 2) This pressure is part of a general vision of the new workforce becoming “knowledge workers,” (Crawford, 1) - a supposed higher sort of occupations. After graduating, the students inevitably find themselves working in a cubicle and more often than not having a miserable time of it. Crawford provides no evidence or base for these claims. They all seem to stem solely from his subjective views and experience. I am not of the opinion that manual laborers are looked down upon by our society, and I think that there are multiple reasons why higher education has become more popular in recent years. I believe this popularity to be attributed much more to the benefits of being educated - than to a supposed collective adverse attitude toward manual labor. 

As mentioned, Crawford’s reasoning for many going to college is largely based on the assumption that “working with your hands” is looked down upon. I would posit that the driving force of the recent transition toward higher education is twofold. On an individual level, there are fewer people required to work in fields and farms in order to sustain our agriculture. Similarly, there are fewer people occupied with the production of clothing. Many products that once required lots of manual labor in order to produce have now been mostly mechanized. This practically leaves us with a void and an opportunity to pursue other, perhaps more sophisticated professions - the kind of professions that require higher education and licensing. Additionally, if we examine the shift towards college education from a broader perspective, I think that it is not a surprising phenomenon at all. As we developed as a species one thing has become and more apparent; knowledge and wisdom are unbelievably powerful and worth investing in. A common factor found in all past successful and flourishing empires was their willingness to study and explore. Libraries and study halls were accessible to all who desired to absorb and contribute to the information available in that era. All in all, societies with a higher emphasis on education were and still are much better off.  “Knowledge is power,” and even more so in a time coined by many as the “Information Age.” Hence, once higher education became a more accessible and practical option, more people gravitate towards it.

I was taught that in any and every honest work, there is dignity and value. No matter what the work entails, the workers deserve our respect and appreciation. I believe that most people share the same attitude and view. This is why I reject the idea that kids being sent to college has anything to do with a concern of “what will the neighbors say,” or as Crawford puts it: being “viewed as eccentric, if not destructive.” (Crawford, 3) This is also why I maintain that machines taking over much of physical labor, and aspiring towards being the most developed society, have much more to do with why we encourage and decide to pursue higher education.   

You may say that the societal shift toward college education being a necessity - is clearly very much connected to how people view different professions. People naturally want to be able to tell others that their son is a doctor or has graduated with such and such a degree… On the other side, parents can often feel uncomfortable having to say “yeah, my son works for the sanitation department, etc.” For fear of having to say the latter, they may easily pressure their son to get a college education even if he is not academically inclined. Though I would concede that such situations do occur, and perhaps even to a substantial number of kids; the vast majority of parents do not think or act this way. I think we can assume that in general parents care much more about their children's wellbeing, than about how others will perceive them or their child. It is only a very selfish parent that would push a child in the wrong direction just for personal gain.

In conclusion, both working with your hands and your head are important and necessary. People should be encouraged to pursue the kinds of work that best suits them. And while those who are inclined to work their hands should not be discouraged for any reason from doing so, every additional person we have in the “gaining knowledge” field, indeed makes us all the more powerful as individuals, and society at large. We should, therefore, encourage “working with your head” just the same, thereby ensuring a brighter future for generations to come.