> that matter. Why should looking at the world from the underside of an
> automobile make you wiser than someone who reads, writes, and talks
> for a living?
"Wiser" (or superior in any other way)? Definitely not. But I do suspect physical labor nevertheless has some sort of inherent (if intangible) value.
At the Leon Trotsky Museum in Mexico City you can see the chicken coop he maintained, apparently quite passionately. The placards suggest Trotsky attached a lot of significance to caring for his chickens and that he regarded it as more than a hobby that happened to suit him personally.
Argument from authority aside, criticizing alienated (physical) labor without ever having, e.g., worked on an assembly line does seem a little odd. The summer I spent before college sanding metal filing cabinets all day certainly left an impression on me, and I'm better off for it.
I spent a good part of this weekend scraping, glazing and painting my windows. It wasn't a blast by any stretch of the imagination, but it was still satisfying in a qualitatively different way from the satisfaction that comes from finishing an intellectual project like a paper. So, far from being "superfluous," physical labor seems like a prerequisite to a sort of well-roundedness.
-WD