I hiked about three or four miles down a bike path converted from an abandoned rail spur this afternoon, with the object of visiting my next door neighbor. I could have visited him by walking the thirty plus feet from my front door to his, but today I wanted him to exercise his professional skills on my head. My neighbor is a barber. Ambling along, I got to thinking about middle class matters once again. Though this time, my inspiration was less Aristotle and more Dagwood.

In my last offering here, I drew attention to ambiguities in the definition of Middle Class, ably outlined in Wikipedia. One of the kind café denizens brought up the fact that Middle Class has as often been used as an epithet as it has an encomium, while another added the observation that Middle Class may have replaced "Working Class" in our vocabularies, at least to some degree. That reminded me of one of the observations in the Wikipedia piece...round and round the brain does go:

It is the nature of their work and lack of influence that leads some to come to the conclusion that most Americans are working class. The majority of workers are not paid to share their thoughts and ideas as much as professionals. They are commonly closely supervised and do not enjoy a great deal of independence in their jobs. They are also not commonly paid to think and their thoughts are not often sought by their employer organizations or clients, which leads to a lack of influence.

I wasn’t entirely happy with this: professionals, after all, work. How would I parse the idea "Working Class?" More particularly, could I parse it in a way which didn’t create a hierarchy? I settled on a division of the working class into two subsets: the articulate working class and the dexterous working class. The first manipulates symbols, the second, objects. Both express ideas through the kinds of manipulation they do. Into the first class would fall persons like myself, a manipulator of words. Into the second, my barber, a manipulator of scissors, clippers, and hair. Aside from suggesting that he take a little off the top, I cannot instruct him in his trade, and anyone who would trust me within clipping distance of his scalp is quite unwise. It is far more likely that I would walk four miles to get a good haircut than he would walk four miles to get a lecture on Emerson. Which of us is the most socially valuable? Depends on how shaggy you are or what you think you might need to know about Emerson, I think.

Perhaps a better example might be my plumber, who is also a former student of mine. I must quickly say that he was a plumber before he was my student, as well as after, and he didn’t become my student to escape the rigors of plumbing. I teach, from time to time, in a Historic Preservation Program, and it takes special skills to retrofit old structures with new utilities. He wanted to be a historic plumber. I asked him what was the difference. "$75.00 an hour", was his reply. My plumber is a dexterous worker. He makes more than I do. I’m articulate, kinda-sorta, and that distinction gives me a social cachet and perhaps a little more influence than his dexterity gives him. <boast> My son the doctor</boast>. <boast> My daughter the lawyer </boast> <boast???>My child the plumber </boast???>. I’m not so sure. We’ve been culturally conditioned to place "articulate" professions over "dexterous" ones for at least 100 years. Nineteenth Century popular art Universally depicted gentlemen and ladies on their suburban or country estates fully attired: the men in hats, coats, ties, and vests. It would never do to be mistaken for one of the hired help.

I go on and on about this because I have a sensitivity to it. I come from dexterous roots. My relatives of my grandparents’ generations were maids, cooks, tailors, and the like. Half my cousins are dexterous...retired now, they worked as farmers and school custodians. A couple of them were really can’t be categorized by this scheme. What would one call someone who took a degree in forestry and spent his working life stocking pheasants in rural Minnesota? I like dextrous people, and I envy them their dexterity. Like Dagwood, putting me near wrenches, saws, or other hand tools is courting disaster. I hang around the custodial staff at the education factory swapping yarns almost as often as I hang around my articulate colleagues. More people marry outside their religious affiliation and race than outside their social class. Class Action seeks to find ways to bridge "classism" and I think this is crucial if a better politics is to spring out of today’s shambles.

My thesis, such as it is, is that articulate workers claim the right to speak for the dexterous workers without speaking to them, first. I see that sort of thing around the café on occasion...especially in situations where issues of unions come up. Some would have it that unions are for the dexterous. The articulate don’t need them. Not too many weeks past, an extended discussion about net roots/ grass roots developed in the context of the work of Saul Alinsky. I don’t know if any persons reading this took part in that one or not.

I wonder how many carpenters, masons, plumbers, health care workers other than doctors, masseurs, chefs, barbers (or hair stylists) hang around the café? Would they feel comfortable here? Would we make them feel at home? Of would those of us among the articulate commandeer the center and give them tables behind the potted palms in the corners? Two of my 19^th century heroes were certainly articulate without patronizing the dexterous. Lots of them were, actually, but this essay has already gone on longer than is good for it. But let me at least point to William Morris, (fair warning, the page linked plays some neo-medieval midi files at you, and they aren’t what I would call high art) who was both dexterous and articulate. The great designer (and not quite so great poet) was a social radical because he felt that the consumption driven machine economy of his day was destroying working men and women. His How I Became a Socialist is worth reading. The American Arts and Crafts Movement sought to restore honor to workers and craftsmanship and personalization and idiosyncrasy to made objects. Not practical, perhaps, but the work of Gustav Stickley and the Roycrofters at least tried to say to the culture that making things was as important as thinking things was.

Let me wrap this up with a little Emerson and a little Morris. The first of this some lines from his Ode to William H. Channing.

Though loth to grieve
The evil time's sole patriot,
I cannot leave
My buried thought
For the priest's cant,
Or statesman's rant.

If I refuse
My study for their politique,
Which at the best is trick,
The angry muse
Puts confusion in my brain.

But who is he that prates
Of the culture of mankind,
Of better arts and life?

***

The horseman serves the horse,
The neat-herd serves the neat,
The merchant serves the purse,
The eater serves his meat;
'Tis the day of the chattel,
Web to weave, and corn to grind,
Things are in the saddle,
And ride mankind.

There are two laws discrete
Not reconciled,
Law for man, and law for thing;
The last builds town and fleet,
But it runs wild,
And doth the man unking.

And, from Morris’ Chants for Socialists,

DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN

Come, comrades, come, your glasses clink;
Up with your hands a health to drink,
The health of all that workers be,
In every land, on every sea.
And he that will this health deny,

Down among the dead men, down among the dead men,
Down, down, down, down,
Down among the dead men let him lie!

Well done! now drink another toast,
And pledge the gath'ring of the host,
The people armed in brain and hand,
To claim their rights in every land.
And he that will this health deny,

Down among the dead men, down among the dead men,
Down, down, down, down,
Down among the dead men let him lie!

What they share is a recognition that societies which elevate the thing made above the maker thereof are degraded societies.

aMike

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