At the risk of sounding like a Maosit crazy, let me tell a story about a guy I knew in my dept at Cambridge, Hist & Phil of Science. He was a historian of maths, Chinese, and had been sent to Cambs--this was in 1980--as sort of an apology for having had life life and career ruined in the Cultural Revolution, where he had been sent to the countryside. This man was as apolitical as you could be; he was really only interested in mathematics. He was not, in particular, a Communist or a member, even for show, of the Chinese CP. I attempted to commiserate with him, but failed.
"It was really a very good thing," he told me. "We intellectuals had no idea how the people live. We would not have had any idea if they had not sent us." Turned out, he was sent to a remote village where he spent a half year getting in the way of the farmers, for whom he was just a useless mouth to feed and no help at all in the fields. Then it turned out that, as the farmers were illiterate and and innumerate, they could not correctly calculate how to divide to the seed or determine the volume of watwer necessary for irrigation or that sort of thing. Well of course, he could do this, and taught them, and after a while he became a part of the village. When the CR was over, they gave him a big send off with a thank you, gifts; the works. He was a hit.
"Of course they were very harsh," he said, meaning the Red Guards and the Communists, "very incorrect, and I would not want those days back. But I think it was a good thing that I was sent to the countryside. I was able to be of use to the people and to learn how they lived." Naturally his experience was better than many people's in those days.
So, anyway; I am not sure how this bears on the joining of mental and manual labor. My friend was a failure as manual laborer. (though it wasn't exactly that; the thing was; he didn't know how to farm; he lacked the skill.) But he helped the farmers be better farmers with the application of his mental labor. So draw what moral you will from the story.
--jks _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com