Shop Class as Soulcraft

In the penultimate chapter of his inquiry into the meaning and value of work, Crawford tackles the concept of true knowledge and how, and even where, it arises. He begins by focusing on firefighters, who often seem to instinctively know when to leave a burning building. If forced to define how they know, many firefighters call this a “sixth sense.” Crawford believes this knowledge deserves more credit than it currently gets in postindustrial society. He notes that this tacit or instinctual knowledge is what governs work in the trades as well.

As Crawford opines: “The current educational regime is based on a certain view about what kind of knowledge is important: ‘knowing that’ as opposed to ‘know how’” (161). It is “knowing how” that matters to mechanics, as Crawford demonstrates via an anecdote involving his former shop mate, Tommy. At his new place of employment, Pro Class Cycles, Tommy is forced to answer to the intellectual technology that tells him when there is a problem with an engine. As Crawford states, “computerized diagnostics don’t so much replace the mechanic’s judgment as add another layer to the work” (173). Tommy has to make sense of faulty computerized diagnostics and figure out what ambiguous readings are supposedly telling him.