The non-manual work skills are not necessarily more difficult to acquire than manual skills, but their are carefully guarded by the system of credentials, certifications, and status. A paramedic or a paralegal can perform most tasks performed by a doctor or a lawyer, but they cannot legitimately practice those skills due to legal and regulatory restrictions. No such restrictions exist for manual skills - as virtually no institutional barriers to their practicing exist.
In short, the skills whose control by the workman is institutionally protected are seen as "higher," more difficult and more more important than those that are not.
Wojtek
On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 5:55 PM, Chuck Grimes <cagrimes42 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Even manual labor that is dismissed as "unskilled" actually takes a
> great deal of coordination. "Unskilled" labor mostly is highly skilled
> labor that is dismissed as unskilled simply because it is done by
> workers with little leverage. But when crackdowns on imigrants drove
> out farm workers or slaughterhouse employees, one of the reasons
> owners could not easily find American replacements was not only the
> low wages and horrible working conditions, but the fact that the
> skills required for these jobs are not easy to learn. It takes about
> five years to learn to be a skilled farm worker, the same amount of
> time it takes most people to get their "four-year" degree these days.
>
> Gar Lipow
>
> -------------
>
> How cool is that? I've worked most of my working days as manual labor in
> some form or other and tried to make the above case for years and got mostly
> dubious looks.
>
> Anyway, Gar's note on handwriting problems was fascinating too. A good
> teacher should have spotted your difficulties within a few weeks.
>
> I never denied computer's were not a great advantage. I spend hours on them.
> But for slow thinking and working I use notes like I did in class. I always
> keep a notebook and pen around, even or especially with the computer
>
> Another point to make is that cursive is a minor art form that was
> considered a high valued trade. Most of the early print fonts and bookmaking
> depended on these arts and they go back to antiquity and the codex. Here's
> painting from Pompii:
>
> http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak//courses/735/book/horiz-tablets-paintings.jpg
>
> They are using a stylis and waxed tablets. So it might help early education
> to use that history as a way to motivate kids to learn it. Then maybe not.
> Who cares about history?
>
> (BTW were did God and Moses learn to read and write?...nevermind.)
>
> Here is an image of the Aleppo Codex in high resolution. Use the magnifier
> to see how good the old guys were:
>
> http://aleppocodex.org/images/x4/1.jpg
>
> AN, ``I wish I had kept up my italics, though.''
>
> It's always there. It takes a couple of hours of practice to get it back. I
> had to practice architectural lettering last year so I could finish a shop
> floor plan. Then there were the fractional scales and inked lines for
> finished work. I still had my old Staedtler technical pen set. All dying
> arts thanks to CAD. Beyond writing and language is a domain of thinking and
> drawing in space.
>
> CG
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-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."
