{"id":10369,"date":"2017-07-10T11:34:21","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T18:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=10369"},"modified":"2017-07-10T11:34:21","modified_gmt":"2017-07-10T18:34:21","slug":"as-physical-jobs-decline-something-is-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/as-physical-jobs-decline-something-is-lost\/","title":{"rendered":"As physical jobs decline, something is lost"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"trb_ar_h\">\n<div class=\"trb_ar_hl\">\n<p><span class=\"trb_ar_hl_k\">Op-Ed <\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"trb_ar_hl_t\">By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ <em>Los Angeles Times<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"trb_ar_main\">\n<div class=\"trb_ar_la\">\n<aside class=\"trb_em\" data-content-id=\"94041013\" data-content-size=\"leadart\" data-content-type=\"image\" data-content-slug=\"la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\" data-content-subtype=\"photo\" data-role=\"sc_item imgsize_ratiosizecontainer\" data-state=\"\">\n<div class=\"trb_em_m\">\n<figure class=\"trb_em_ic_figure\" data-role=\"imgsize_item\"><img class=\"trb_em_ic_img\" title=\"Fisherman\" sizes=\"(min-width: 1260px) 750px, (min-width: 1060px) calc(100vw - 559px), (min-width: 840px) calc(100vw - 419px), (min-width: 800px) 800px, 100.1vw\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/350\/350x197 350w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/400\/400x225 400w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/450\/450x253 450w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/500\/500x281 500w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/550\/550x309 550w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/600\/600x338 600w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/650\/650x366 650w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/700\/700x394 700w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/750\/750x422 750w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/800\/800x450 800w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/850\/850x478 850w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/900\/900x506 900w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/950\/950x534 950w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/1000\/1000x563 1000w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/1050\/1050x591 1050w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/1100\/1100x619 1100w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/1150\/1150x647 1150w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/1200\/1200x675 1200w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/1400\/1400x788 1400w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/1600\/1600x900 1600w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/1800\/1800x1013 1800w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/2000\/2000x1125 2000w, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\/2048\/2048x1152 2048w\" alt=\"Fisherman\" width=\"318\" height=\"179\" data-baseurl=\"http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596002e3\/turbine\/la-1499464415-13beoeh571-snap-image\" data-c-nd=\"2048x1152\" data-role=\"imgsize_srcsetdisplayitem\" \/><\/figure>\n<div class=\"trb_em_r\" data-role=\"lightbox_metadata\">\n<h6 class=\"trb_embed_related_credit_and_caption\">Scotty Breneman fillets a yellowfin tuna at Dory Fisherman&#8217;s Market in Newport Beach, Calif. on July 25, 2015. (Los Angeles Times)<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"trb_ar_page\" data-role=\"pagination_page\" data-content-page=\"1\">\n<p>As jobs that require physical work decline thanks to technological advances, life superficially appears to get better. Cheap cellphones, video games, the Internet, social media and labor-saving appliances all make things easier and suggest that even more and better benefits are on the horizon. Formerly backbreaking industries, from the growing of almonds to the building of cars, are increasingly mechanized, using fewer but more skilled operators.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone who has spot-welded or harvested almonds with a mallet and canvas has no regrets in seeing the disappearance of such rote drudgery. Consumers benefit in the from of cheaper prices. But as we continue on this trajectory, initiated in the Industrial Revolution, is something lost? Something only poorly approximated by greater leisure time, non-muscular jobs and contrived physical exercise in air-conditioned gyms?<\/p>\n<p>Talk long enough to the most accomplished academics, lawyers and CEOs \u2014 who also tend to be the most conscientious about biking, jogging and weightlifting (obesity being an epidemic of the poor and lower middle classes) \u2014 and more often than not, they will brag about a long-ago college summer job waiting tables or repairing hiking trails. They might praise the granite-counter installer who redid their kitchen, or offer an anecdote about the time they helped the tree-trimmer haul limbs from the backyard out to the trailer at the curb. There seems a human instinct to want to do physical work.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"trb_em\" data-content-id=\"94040714\" data-content-size=\"large\" data-content-type=\"pullquote\" data-content-slug=\"la-1499462791-e0xgo0cxk1-snap-quote\" data-content-subtype=\"pullquote\" data-role=\"sc_item\" data-state=\"\"><span class=\"trb_em_pq_t\">Working outdoors, often alone, with one\u2019s hands encourages a tragic acceptance of nature and its limitations.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"trb_em_pq_sh\" data-role=\"sc_information sc_container\" data-sc-c=\"pullquote\" data-sc-url=\"\/opinion\/op-ed\/la-oe-hanson-physical-labor-20170709-story.html\" data-sc-ti=\"As physical jobs decline, something is lost\" data-sc-th=\"http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-596105f9\/turbine\/la-oe-hanson-physical-labor-20170709\" data-sc-desc=\"Working outdoors, often alone, with one\u2019s hands encourages a tragic acceptance of nature and its limitations.\" data-sc-sl=\"la-1499462791-e0xgo0cxk1-snap-quote\" data-sc-cont=\"pullquote\" data-sc-nn=\"Los Angeles Times\" data-sc-contid=\"94040714\"><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The proliferation of hard-work reality-television programming reflects this apparent need, if only vicariously. Indeed, the more we have become immobile and urbanized, the more we tune in to watch reality television\u2019s assorted truckers, loggers, farmers, fishermen, drillers and rail engineers. In a society that supposedly despises menial jobs, the television ratings for such programs suggest that lots of Americans enjoy watching people of action who work with their hands.<!--more--><\/p>\n<aside class=\"trb_ar_sponsoredmod trb_barker_mediaconductor\" data-adloader-networktype=\"mediaconductor\" data-role=\"delayload_item\" data-screen-size=\"desktop\" data-withinviewport-options=\"bottomOffset=100\" data-load-method=\"trb.vendor.mediaconductor.init\" data-load-type=\"method\" data-vendor-mc=\"\" data-mediaconductor-processed=\"true\">\n<div class=\"tlod\">\n<div id=\"tl_outer\" class=\"ArticleSub\">\n<section class=\"trb_barker_polar_section\"><\/section>\n<div id=\"tl_inner\">\n<div>Physical work, in its eleventh hour within a rapidly changing Western culture, still intrigues us in part because it remains the foundation for 21st century complexity. Investors may know the oil trade better than oil drillers, but buying and selling based on intimate knowledge of Indonesian politics or the nature of the American automobile market are still predicated on someone\u2019s knowing how to feed down steel casing to follow the drill bit. If there is no one to pump oil, there is nothing to sell. Selling plums to Japan is not the same as pruning a plum tree. Both aspects of the oil and plum industries are critical to their success, but the commercial tasks are cerebral and secondary, the physical ones elemental and primary.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Before any of us can teach, write or speculate, we must first have food, shelter and safety. And for a bit longer, at least, that will require some people to cut grapes and nail two-by-sixes. No apps or 3-D printers exist to produce brown rice for the tables of Silver Lake and the Upper West Side. The almond farmer outside my window uses a computerized machine for seemingly every task \u2014 irrigating, cultivating and harvesting. But this morning, two men are cutting out diseased limbs in the orchard, selecting their cuts with the help of an Echo chainsaw, whose basic tenets of portability, gasoline power source, and chain running on a guided frame have a 100-year pedigree.<\/p>\n<p>It is astonishing, the degree to which a high-tech, post-modern society still depends on low-tech, pre-modern labor, whether that is a teen in constant motion for eight hours as a barista at Starbucks or a mechanic on his back underneath a Lexus, searching to find a short that popped up in a computerized code on his tablet.<\/p>\n<p>Physical work, moreover, has an intrinsic satisfaction in that it is real, in the primordial sense that nonphysical work is not. The head of the Federal Reserve may be more important to our general welfare than the city road crew patching asphalt roads, but there remains something wondrous in transforming material conditions through the hands, an act that can be seen and felt rather than just spoken or written about. Changing the physical landscape, either by building or destroying something previously constructed or altering it, lends a sense of confidence that the human body can still manifest one\u2019s ideas by concrete action.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"trb_ar_sponsoredmod\" data-adloader-networktype=\"yieldmo\" data-v-ymid=\"ym_1606464552242100545\" data-role=\"delayload_item\" data-withinviewport-options=\"bottomOffset=100\" data-load-method=\"trb.vendor.yieldmo.init\" data-load-type=\"method\">\n<div id=\"ym_1606464552242100545\" class=\"ym ym_scroll\" data-id=\"ym_1\">\u00a0Physical labor also promotes human versatility: Those who do not do it, or who do not know how to do it, become divorced from \u2014 and, at the same time, dependent on \u2014 laborers, in psychological as well as concrete ways. Lawyers, accountants and journalists living in houses with yards and driving cars to work thus count on a supporting infrastructure of electricians, landscapers and mechanics. Without them, life grinds to a halt, unless one has rudimentary knowledge of such tasks \u2014 or the time and willingness to learn them.<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>In that context, physical labor can provide independence, at least in a limited sense of not being entirely reliant on a host of hired workers. By the same token, working with one\u2019s hands, however temporarily, gives some approximation of what physical labor is and what those who do it might be like.<\/p>\n<p>Especially valuable in muscular work is some appreciation of the tragic view of the world. For the last four decades, I have split my time between teaching classics and writing, and working on a farm. I cannot say that either world is nobler than the other. But I did learn that farm laborers complained much less about their own often-unenviable lots than did academics about their comparatively enviable compensation and generous time off. Working outdoors, often alone, with one\u2019s hands encourages a tragic acceptance of nature and its limitations. Talking and writing indoors with like kind promote a more therapeutic sense that life can be changed through discourse and argument.<\/p>\n<p>It follows logically that I learned more from teaching undergraduates at Cal State Fresno than from students at Stanford \u2014 not because they knew Greek and Latin better (most did not) but because they often worked 20 hours or more per week at minimum-wage jobs and thus had a far wider range of experience with (and empathy for) characters and events found in Aristophanes, Euripides and Hesiod in the pre-modern world of the Greeks.<\/p>\n<p>In his final play, \u201cBacchae,\u201d the Athenian playwright Euripides explored the nature of wisdom and who possesses it. After a frenzy of killing and destruction, he seems to conclude that neither the rational and conventional King Pentheus (\u201cYou\u2019ve got a quick tongue and seem intelligent, but your words don\u2019t make any sense at all\u201d) nor the ecstatic emotion of the divine Dionysus and his bacchants (\u201cAngry gods should not act just like humans\u201d) were models for emulation. Best, instead, is the day-by-day life without pretense: \u201cThe hopes of countless men are infinite in number. Some make men rich; some come to nothing. So I consider that man blessed who lives a happy existence day by day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/opinion\/op-ed\/la-oe-hanson-physical-labor-20170709-story.html\">http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/opinion\/op-ed\/la-oe-hanson-physical-labor-20170709-story.html<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"trb_ar_page\" data-role=\"pagination_page\" data-content-page=\"2\" data-state=\"pagination_viewed\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Op-Ed By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Los Angeles Times Scotty Breneman fillets a yellowfin tuna at Dory Fisherman&#8217;s Market in Newport Beach, Calif. on July 25, 2015. (Los Angeles Times) As jobs that require physical work decline thanks to technological advances, life superficially appears to get better. Cheap cellphones, video games, the Internet, social media [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1120,1114,1100,247,92,216,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2Hf","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12543,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/victor-davis-hanson-was-there-an-ancient-cancel-culture\/","url_meta":{"origin":10369,"position":0},"title":"Victor Davis Hanson: Was there an Ancient Cancel Culture?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 3, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Listen to the Classical Wisdom Speaks featuring Victor Davis Hanson here","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13744,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-classicist-democratic-policy-and-culture\/","url_meta":{"origin":10369,"position":1},"title":"The Classicist: Democratic Policy and Culture","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 16, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Art19 and Just the News https:\/\/art19.com\/shows\/the-victor-davis-hanson-show\/episodes\/0e3f6626-8bc5-489b-a995-0b52cee00346","rel":"","context":"With 13 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 13 comments","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-classicist-democratic-policy-and-culture\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11549,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/victor-davis-hanson-on-contemporary-american-society\/","url_meta":{"origin":10369,"position":2},"title":"Victor Davis Hanson On Contemporary American Society","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 3, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Hoover Institution Traditional values, whether manifested in public policy or contemporary culture, are besieged in today\u2019s America but can still be found in the right places, says\u00a0Victor Davis Hanson. 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The coordinated effort to destroy Brett\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Supreme Court&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Supreme Court","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/supreme-court\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12783,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/is-the-wisdom-of-homer-immune-to-cancel-culture\/","url_meta":{"origin":10369,"position":4},"title":"Is the Wisdom of Homer Immune to Cancel Culture?","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 8, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ The Patriot Post Amid the current hysteria of toppling statues and renaming things, we keep mindlessly expanding the cancel culture. We are now seeing efforts to ban classics of Western and American literature. These hallowed texts are suddenly being declared racist or sexist by preening moralists.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12598,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/victor-davis-hanson-the-cowards-of-cancel-culture\/","url_meta":{"origin":10369,"position":5},"title":"Victor Davis Hanson: The cowards of &#8216;cancel culture&#8217;","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 1, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ The Hill Each generation deals with its own manifestations of age-old mob frenzies, bullying and public shaming. Salem, Mass., had its witch trials in the 1690s. The 1950s endured its McCarthyism. And we now are enduring our \u201ccancel culture.\u201d\u00a0 But 21st-century public shaming reaches not thousands\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10369"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10370,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10369\/revisions\/10370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}