Opinion > April 24, 2008

By R.P. Oates | Guest columnist

Do you know what to do if your filler float goes kaput? If the only thing that was wrong with your car was a shorted out spark plug, would you know how to change it? I can’t recall if I’ve soldered anything before.

I think to myself about these questions at times because it seems that we are slowly becoming a generation that doesn’t have the first idea about the crafts of the skilled laborer, which we take for granted on a daily basis. Abstract knowledge is significant in that it can provide theory to predict outcomes, but knowledge of hand gives rise to tangible things that provide the conveniences the modern human necessitates. So what happens to us if we write-off a class of people that get you to work on time, sweep floors or provide security while you sleep?

Most experience their first brush with this situation as impressionable freshmen in high-school. Everything all of a sudden becomes some standard you’re constantly measuring yourself to. This standardized test determines if you get into this class. This test ensues as a result of this decision, etc. This seems to create a situation in which one is constantly forging out a future without regard to a niche that may need to be filled or a present to take care of.

The primary focus then becomes the ends rather than the means to get there. We are constantly bombarded by a future and getting nostalgic about things before they are even occurring. There is a strong “push” for you to attend college as soon as you set foot in a classroom nowadays. Guidance counselors across the nation prodded you with their questions like “How do you expect to make it nowadays without a college education?” With this push, I think that we are subconsciously beginning to form an image in our mind that knowledge is monetary. Knowledge for the sake of knowing is almost frowned upon. Knowledge for knowledge’s sake means that you may not make a lot of money doing what you love to do, even though you spent extra years becoming specialized in a given area.

We are, however, fed this assumption before college that increased specialization yields increased monetary status. There are people that are highly specialized yet are jobless. For instance, I met a cab driver in Chicago who got his PhD in high-energy physics who said he began driving cabs to make ends meet.

Blue-collar work now has a second-class feel to it. Skills that once were regarded as valuable to society are now looked at as if they’re second-rate. People who earn their livings day in and day out doing manual labor, fixing leaky pipes and shuttling people to get to work find honor in their jobs while we ignore the fact that what they do is equally as, or maybe more, important than being in an institution of “higher” learning. For example, a person can go to school to be a highly-trained, top-notch auto mechanic. After being trained, they can be well-compensated for their services. That person can buy stock in their own happiness by providing someone the mobility they need to carry out their daily routine.

There may be more honor in building someone’s home rather than trying to pass tests to build egos.

In a multi-faceted society it would seem that we have a need to attach an appreciation to the people that are the framework of such a culture. The idea of taking honor in your means and not the ends could be emphasized at an earlier age.

The means provided from the elements at hand are a justification within themselves. This notion of “the working class” having a second-class feel is by no means new. In the old days, there were the servants and the served. The servants were treated as second-class citizens.

It may be our duty as citizens to recognize this relic of an idea and transcend its parochial nature. Imagine a place where, instead of being treated as you would treat others, you served others how you expected to be served.

R.P. Oates is a chemistry graduate student living in Winston-Salem.