Have We Lost Respect for Hard Work?
Deborah Meier continues her conversation with Harry Boyte. To read their full exchange, please visit here.
Dear Harry and friends,
Yes, indeed, it's been a gradual but long term process—the disrespect for "ordinary" work. In my promotion of "play" I had forgotten that "work" is almost as alien an ideal as play these days.
We've grown accustomed to idealizing wealth—money for money's sake. Corporate and entertainment world values dominate the imagination of too many Americans. All means are legit if they serve the goddess of gold.
Instead of recoiling in horror over the fact that "just 62 people own as much wealth as the 3.5 billion people in the bottom half of the world's income" (according to Oxfam), we admire those 62.
That includes white working-class youths who ought to be up in arms about it. The disrespect for white working-class people is closely linked to the devaluation of manual work, which Mike Rose writes about in The Mind at Work.
This devaluation includes too many Black youngsters too.
I suggested to some seniors at the old Central Park East Secondary School (CPESS) that they could get a paid internship in masonry which would lead, in just a few years, to a very well-paid job, perhaps better than anything a four-year BA would offer. Ditto for an apprenticeship in antique repair being subsidized by Lloyd's and other insurance and auction houses. A "merely" decent job had lost its allure.
The presence of a respected and mighty labor movement had added something that's hard to Have We Lost Respect for Hard Work? - Bridging Differences - Education Week:
