>As I said in an earlier post, dear kel, not all labor is dignified,
>especially the wage slavery you describe with true feeling. I've done plenty
>of that sort of work and know how draining, degrading and meaningless it is.
>I'm happy to be in a position to take blue-collar gigs that I can take pride
>in, that help my family to eat, sleep warmly, etc. But I never forget or
>overlook the mind-drilling menial tasks that many -- most -- people must
>perform to survive.
>
>DP
well snit says: quit wearing it as a badge of honor that it no less arrogant dick swinging than is tossing about the words "hegemony" and "orthogonal". i completely understand where you are coming from. following years of work that ranged from factory works, mowing lawns, bringing in hay, waiting tables, mopping floors, scrubbing fish scales off counters and walls, to catering 50-100lbs trays and buckets full of food to feed thousands, i spent three years doing coursework. when that three years was up, it coincided with moving into a big ole rental house and i spent the entire summer painting, scrubbing, sanding, cleaning and, my fave, refinishing a victrola i'd found in the attic. i loved it all, interspersed with hours lounging around flipping through good housekeeping to remind me of my 'roots'. :)
but the difference that catherine and i have been pointing out is that some people, you, pursue that work and do so as a choice. others have less of a choice.
when we first moved here, my then fiance wanted to do hard labor work after spending several months unemployed. initially, he'd planned on getting a job with the big music outfit down here, thoroughbred music, which would have been office type working compared to the truck driving/delivery work he'd done before. so, he took a job doing landscaping for $7/hr. he could have done many other kinds of work for the same pay. he *chose* that, to some extent. as did his black co-workers who, when i asked, told me that they'd rather do that sort of work than flipping burgers or driving for a rental car company, etc. they, too, had some sort of *choice*. they chose something "manly" (and i, myself, enjoyed the side benefits of the sixpack :)
but, it's not the backbreakingness of the labor, but the fact that it is, as wojtek says, organized, as is our society more generally, to remove all sense of autonomy. in this case, these men couldn't h ave so easily swung from noble intellectual work to noble bodily work. to do so, would mean going to college. to do that would mean overcoming years of humiliation associated with not having that degree, lowering yourself to the humiliation of attending college again (and perhaps recalling the years of mindnumbing drills from h.s.).
and, as compared with other forms of work, it was my observation that, while landscaping work is back-breaking, particularly in this heat, it was rewarding for them in the sense that they could sometimes feel like they had knowledge that yer average Jack & Irene Scotchenwater didn't have: *reasons* for proceding with your work the way you did. (e.g., one mows the lawn in a particular way because it is aesthetically more pleasing or better for the grass; one prunes during this season and not that, etc) So, there were some rewards in the sense that they felt they had insider (shopfloor) knowledge that others didn't and they believed, in some sense, others respected this knowledge because a aesthetically pleasing lawn or grounds was "appreciated". Compare that to b. Ehrenreich's article about maids, about the routinization of their labor, about the complete lack of appreciation for that work.
i find myself someplace between "workerism" and anti-work, in so far as i think as the early marx did about labor. it's wrong to glorify work, but i see no reason to shun work as something that can only be degrading. and, i would never think that bodily labor is somehow better than intellectual labor, they work together, as you note. if you've ever worked in a factory, you'll know that the work can be just as exhausting as any work, as is childcare or waitressing or cashiering. but factory work is often mindnumbing because of the incessant pounding rhythms, the constant whir and clank of machinery, the stench of chemicals, oil, grease, paint, dye, and small fibers floating in the air. the mind-body relation of which you speak disappears.