The Beauty of Manual Labor
Written by Casey Gregg
There is a hierarchy that comes with classical liberal education, an important tenet that declares certain aspects of the human person, by nature, more proximate to true knowledge. The soul resides at the top of the ladder, and somewhere down around the very bottom rung is manual labor. We have all read our Aristotle, and had our Platonic dualism debunked, yet there remains a residual discomfort with using our hands, as though the thought alone coats us in the grime of an ordinary, unfulfilled life.
Of course, in reality, we all fall back on working with our hands, not just as a mode of necessity but one of joy. Such work is a refreshing counter-part to the strains of intellectual labor. What Hillsdale girl hasn’t returned from a long day of studying to a gleefully-planned night of baking? What Hillsdale guy hasn’t yearned for a set of tools now and again, if for no other purpose than satisfying the urge to nail some boards together? Even the most intellectual among us slip into the gratifying world of manual labor now and again when we think no one is looking: the little plant potted in our windowsill, an urgent bout of spring cleaning, the freeing delight of spreading paint on canvas. There is something to this refuge in the physical that cannot be ignored.
Yet this “refuge” mentality threatens to relegate the value of manual labor to some kind of palate-cleansing act between intellectual endeavors; and many of us feel guilty of an innate betrayal at the thought of devoting an entire life to manual labor (as opposed to sprinkling it like salt where our intellectual life gets bland). If we are looking down the road to a future of carpentry or massage therapy or culinary arts, we may feel the tug of our intellectual guilt ratting us out for our slackening commitment to the pursuit of true knowledge.
Yet for a moment, take a “truth hierarchy” chill pill and give Heidegger your ear (he deserves it, poor fellow—how often are we excited to give him center stage?). In his work Being and Time, he suggests that “The nearest kind of association is not mere perceptual cognition, but, rather, a handling, using, and taking care of things which has its own kind of ‘knowledge’.” The implication is that working with one’s hands not only rivals intellectualism, but even completes knowledge in a way that mere “cognition” cannot.
The story of Matthew Crawford brings a compelling application to Heidegger’s argument. After graduating from the University of Chicago with a PhD in political philosophy and beginning a promising career at a Washington think tank, Crawford quit his job after only four months and opened a shop for motorcycle maintenance and repair, where he has worked ever since. In his book Shop Class as Soulcraft, he tells of the fulfillment he finds in his work “compared to other jobs that were officially recognized as “knowledge work.” Perhaps most surprisingly,” he says, “I often find manual work more engaging intellectually.” After referencing the above Heidegger quote, Crawford goes on to articulate a similar assertion:
“We take a very partial view of knowledge when we regard it as the sort of thing that can be gotten while suspended aloft in a basket. This is to separate knowing from doing…The things we know best are the ones we contend with in some realm of regular practice…If thinking is bound up with action, then the task of getting an adequate grasp on the world, intellectually, depends on our doing stuff in it.”
It seems significant that nowhere in his book does Crawford suggest that intellectual knowledge is not worth attaining, nor does he disparage his own education. Rather, he finds manual labor an appropriate completion of years of study, a fitting next step that furthers his love of knowledge instead of betraying it.
The beauty of physical work, and the way it draws us closer to reality and to knowledge, is a topic we too often neglect at Hillsdale and an element we too often omit from our framework of Truth, education, and the fulfilled life. As we prepare to enter a world inarguably more physical than our intellectual nirvana, and as we interact with the vast majority of humanity making a living with their hands, it is crucial to seriously consider the beauties and virtues of manual labor. Furthermore, each of us is heading, however reluctantly, into a life far more practical than our liberally educated youth is probably comfortable with; chances are, we’ll all be spending a lot more time changing diapers, grading papers, washing dishes, and fixing broken appliances than we’ll spend secluded in a corner with our favorite bit of philosophy. Perhaps rather than disappointment, this transition holds a truth of its own that is deeply connected to our longing for a fulfilled life. How this revelation fits with the call of the soul to high things—well, there’s a tension worth mulling over. Go ponder it while you nail some boards together.