Making Things Work
9th June 2009
Francis Fukuyama likes Shop Class as Soulcraft.
“Shop Class as Soulcraft” is a beautiful little book about human excellence and the way it is undervalued in contemporary America.
Matthew B. Crawford, who owns and operates a motorcycle repair shop in Richmond, Va., and serves as a fellow at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, notes that all across the United States, high school shop classes teaching mechanical arts like welding, woodworking or carpentry are closing down, to free up funds for computer labs.
Question: Were Crawford not a fellow at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advance Studies in Culture — were his claim to fame merely owning and operating a motorcycle repair shop — would Professor Fukuyama be as smitten with what Crawford has to say? I suspect that he would not.