Okay, now I’ve read the article and I have to tell the author of this book two things:

1–Being skilled at manual labor does not necessarily guarantee you a job in the domestic labor market forever. Just ask factory workers of the last century who lost their jobs to automated processes and robots. But I guess those poor slobs were working for corporations, so they don’t count.

2–Get over your penis. You’ll feel a whole lot better. … Read More

Best bits from the article, maybe:

“His chief criticism of Chicken McNuggets is that they are insufficiently delicious. (Has he tried them with the hot-mustard sauce?)”

“In other words, his work is “useful” only insofar as it enables men to ride motorcycles—an activity that might fairly be described as useless. ”

And Ezra, there’s Monocle again!!

Why do things have to be either or? Perhaps folks who do manual labor feel that they have to react to years of getting a bad rap. But there are lots of us in this world who can look at a bigger picture and see the value in many kinds of work (and everything else) across a wide spectrum. These sorts of aspects of life don’t have to be compartmentalized so much, with some parts having lesser or greater value attached.

And that’s just in reaction to what you’ve written. Now I’m going to have to find a little chunk of time to read that essay.

Good thing you clarified the post title. At first I thought maybe it was from the book.