Crawford has a doctorate in political philosophy, took a think tank job, lasted five months, and quit to open a motorcycle repair shop. His argument is that we’ve built an economy that separates thinking from doing and calls that progress, and that the knowledge work sold as creative is often more scripted and less accountable than fixing a bike. A wrench either works or it doesn’t. He’s good on why schools cut shop class and what that did, and better on the specific pleasure of diagnosing a fault in an old Honda when the manual is wrong and nobody can tell you the answer.
Shop Class as Soulcraft