On the value of low-skill, low-wage labor

Believe it or not, there's a lot to recommend about John Derbyshire's column today at National Review. It's ostensibly about how Obama Administration policies are drying up the number of unpaid summer internships for teenagers, but it drifts into a meditation on how -- even in these recession days -- American elites don't seem to value manual labor the way they once did. The whole thing should be read, even if you don't agree with everything. But some of Derbyshire's anecdotes rang true for me.

I have noticed that if, among 30-something colleagues, I mention one of my own school or college summer jobs — factory or construction work, dishwashing, retail sales, bartending — my colleagues will look amused, and a bit baffled. How come a guy as well-educated as Derb was shoveling concrete? Boy, he’s a real eccentric! No, I’m not. Those experiences were perfectly normal for a person of my generation. They’re just not normal any more, not for children of the American middle and upper classes.

Well, I don’t suppose anybody ever did drudge work if better options were available. Until recently, though, a great many people reconciled themselves to it: as a means to support a family, as a pathway to as much independence as their abilities would permit, and even as something in which satisfactions might be found. Remember Luke in The Thorn Birds boasting of his prowess as a sheep-shearer and sugarcane-cutter?

Nor was physical labor always thought shameful. In the older American ideal, which is now as dead as the one-room schoolhouse, physical labor was held to have a dignity to it. Even elites believed their youngsters would benefit from a taste of it. Calvin Coolidge put his 15-year-old son to work in the tobacco fields of Hatfield, Mass., as a vacation job. (When the lad happened to mention who he was, one of his co-workers said: “Gee, if the president was my father, I wouldn’t be working here.” Cal Jr.: “You would, if your father were my father.” For a comparison with the “conservative” sensibility of our own time, recall Karl Rove’s remark: “I don’t want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes.” Good heavens, Karl, of course you don’t: The poor lad might break a fingernail.)

Now Derbyshire, because he's Derbyshire, uses all this to build a case against letting immigrants into the United States to do low-wage low-skill work. I'm not entirely on board with that, but I don't think that lessens the power of these observations.

A few years ago, I became convinced that one of the problems with journalism -- and I know, there are many -- is that there are few practitioners left who have ever done anything besides journalism. The went to J-school, got an internship, got a job at a newspaper and never ever worked or had much life experience that didn't involve the business. And that opinion was confirmed in the person of Mike Shields -- probably the best of a string of great editors I've worked for. He was -- is -- a hell of a journalist, but before he got into the business he'd worked in the Navy, construction and truck-driving. (Probably more, but I'm working from memory.) He had some college under his belt, but I think he got his actual degree somewhat later in life. I don't think it's a coincidence that he had a gift for shmoozing lots of "regular folks" on his beats: farmer-legislators from western Kansas, cops hanging out at the bar, that kind of thing. He could relate to working stiffs better than the average reporter because, unlike most of them, he had been a working stiff.

That said: There's a danger in romanticizing the "dignity" of low-skill, low-wage labor too much. As noted before: I'm between full-time gigs right now. I've taken on a part-time job at a nearby coffee shop here in Philadelphia. Before I started it, I think it's fair to say I'd romanticized the idea in my head: I'll work as a barista, and have plenty of headspace left over to pursue other income and creative endeavours. But it's not like that. It's harder work than I'd realized, for one thing. And I come home from most shifts with with sore feet and an aching back. There are benefits: We're not as poor as we might be. And I've gotten to know my neighborhood much better in the last two months than I did in the nearly two years previous. What's more: It doesn't seem very "low skill" to me -- there's a million small things to know and do to keep the shop running smoothly. But: It's hard work. For pay that won't, on its own, sustain my family. I do it now because it's the right thing to do, but there's not much that's ennobling about it. That's ok. The value of work isn't and can't always about self-fulfillment. It's about survival, first.

Matt Labash, Justin Krebs and "living liberally"

Because he's Matt Labash, the new Weekly Standard cover story in which he attempts "living liberally" -- as defined by Justin Krebs' new book, "538 Ways to Live Work and Play Like a Liberal" -- is at least moderately entertaining until it stretches into tedium. In a bit of stunt journalism, Labash attempts to "live liberally" for 10 days, exploring the ways that Krebs' book contains contradictions and/or reaches into the furthest corners of your life.

Get it? It's comically tiresome to live every single aspect of your life through the prism of politics.

Which, no kidding. If you haven't given up somewhere by page 12 or so, though, it seems to me the real story comes when Labash puts down the book and goes to a "Drinking Liberally" meetup to hang out with some real liberals.

The group arrives one by one—about a dozen in all. I haven’t told them in advance I was coming, so when I break the news that I’m a reporter for a conservative magazine and pull my tape recorder out, I expect them to tell me to get bent. But they generously welcome me. One of the group leaders, Michelle Elliot, a software engineer, even tells me that her life-partner works for Firedoglake. But if she thinks I’m a douche-nozzle, she keeps it to herself, as we tuck in for a completely agreeable evening of interrogation and polite sparring.

I chide them a bit for convening at a corporatist chain restaurant, even if Ruby Tuesdays does have an impressive salad bar, with all manner of fresh ingredients and a stunning array of croutons. They give me the business for drinking too liberally after I order a third Maker’s (child’s play, I assure them, I’m a professional journalist after all), suggesting I might be the first member of their group that they have to drive home.

Because of my machine-gun questioning, we cover the waterfront, everything from their thoughts on BP to whether to avoid Wal-Mart to whether it’s okay to meet at chain restaurants to the evils of Ann Coulter and Meghan McCain’s political viability (one gay-activist type mentions her as being one of the only Republicans he likes, though hearing the words “Meghan’s platform” nearly makes me do a spit-take).

It’s a pleasant conversation. I lapse back into my conservative nature as a result of a liberal intake of my liberal whiskey, but there are no hostilities. Nobody changes anybody’s mind. It’s not life or death. It bears little resemblance to television screech-matches, which as one of my drinking mates, Aaron Oesterle, says, “is not about discussion, it’s about finding everybody who agrees with me, and shouting the loudest.” We encounter each other as individuals, leaving room for complexities and ambiguities, instead of assuming a mere set of prefab conclusions. Oesterle, who works at a space-related consultancy, says, “It’s easy to assume large-scale. But when you engage one-on-one, it’s more difficult to make assumptions on a smaller scale.”

Another of my drinking companions, Claiborn Booker, recasts F. Scott Fitzgerald’s notion that the rich are different than you and me. “So are the very political,” he says. “They have a different sort of calculus that goes on in their minds, and as a result, we see some of that manifesting itself in the polarization of political debate.”

The group tells me that they often don’t discuss politics very much at their political gatherings. “Most of us live in the middle muddle,” Booker says. “We have certain tendencies in some directions. But we’re by and large caring people, have a kindly disposition toward our fellow sufferers, so we want socially to have kindness or gentleness be a part of our character. But at the same time, we want to make sure that we get to keep what we earn and we want to have a strong defense. So finding that right balance is a perennial problem.”

After making a night of it, I like these people.

Once Labash puts away the books, in other words, he finds that the liberals he sets out to mock aren't too different from, well, everybody else: Trying to live a life informed by values and running up against the contradictions, ambiguities, nuance and even obstacles that real life imposes upon us all. That means, of course, that there are as many ways to "live liberally" as there are, well, actual liberals. Putting that at the front of an interminably long story -- instead of at the end -- wouldn't be quite as sexy or as stereotype-confirming to the Weekly Standard's readership.

More on marriage: Josh Rosenau

Science blogger -- and fellow former Lawrencian -- Josh Rosenau takes note of my marriage post, and adds his own two cents:

Let's talk about my grandmother. Her husband died in his fifties, before I was born. Quite some time later, well after menopause, she remarried, and the man she married was the only grandfather on that side of the family that I ever knew. Both had adult children from previous marriages, and some of their grandchildren attended the wedding. They knew they wouldn't have children of their own, but that didn't change their desire to marry. Again, if conservatives cannot understand why senior citizens choose to marry and stay married past menopause… well, I'm still glad I'm not marrying a conservative.

When people make this argument that marriage is about procreation, it insults the memory of my grandmother and grandfather, people who could not have legally married if this standard were applied consistently. It insults people who are infertile for any reason, including voluntary sterilization, congenital conditions, or side effects of other medical treatments. And it insults anyone who takes marriage seriously – as an institution focused on bringing together loving couples and recognizing the special ties that they've formed.

Victor Davis Hanson: Conservatives are destroying capitalism

National Review's Victor Davis Hanson reports his frustration with a business-owning friend who won't buy equipment or expand his business. It deserves quoting at length:

I asked a businessman two weeks ago why he said that he was neither hiring nor buying new equipment. He started in on “rising taxes.”

“But wait,” I interrupted. I pointed out that income-tax hikes haven’t taken effect. The old FICA income caps are also still applicable. Health-care surcharges haven’t hit us yet.

He countered with “regulations” and “bailouts.” I said, “Come on, get specific.” He offered up “cap and trade” and “the Chrysler creditors.” I parried with more demands that he tell me exactly how the federal government has suddenly curbed his profit margins, or how his electric bill had gone up since January 2009, or whether he had lost money on any investment because the government had violated a contract.

Exasperated, he talked now instead of more cosmic issues — the astronomical borrowing, the staggering national debt, and the new protectionism. I pressed again, “But aren’t interest rates historically low? Inflation is almost non-existent, isn’t it? New products are still comparatively cheap? Rents and new business property are at bargain-basement prices?”

This give-and-take went on for ten minutes; but you get the picture. Private enterprise is wary, hesitant, even frightened, but nevertheless hard pressed to demonstrate in concrete fashion how Obama has quite ruined them in just 18 months.

So why are a lot of cash-solvent financial firms, banks, and manufacturing companies not hiring, not expanding, and not buying new operating equipment as they did in past bottoming-out recessions?

In a word, fear. Remember that capitalism is in large part psychologically driven. Confidence, optimism, and a sense of calm about the future foster risk and investment, while worry, pessimism, and a sense of foreboding ensure timidity and stasis.

Barack Obama — who is mostly a creature of the university and the dependable government payroll — does not seem to grasp that fact.

Hanson goes on to say that Obama has created a climate of fear through the hiring of appointees -- like Van Jones -- with radical pasts, or through insufficient worship of free markets. But if there really is a climate of fear in the business community, who really has created it?

Conservatives, that's who.

They've devoted considerable time and resources to proclaiming the Obama Administration an era of "socialism" and "tyranny" -- even though, as Hanson admits, the actual rules and taxes on business right now should be encouraging growth and expansion. The country has been force-fed a diet of Glenn Beck and Tea Parties over the last 18 months, all of them making the case against Democratic policies in the most dire terms possible. Is it any wonder that some people actually take it seriously?

I don't think Victor Davis Hanson or other conservatives should refrain from criticizing Obama in order to revive the economy. But I do think a constant stream of hyperbole can have consequences. Hanson's column, though, shows how Republicans all-too-easily win: They get to create a climate of fear -- and blame it on the victim. It's cynical stuff, and in this case -- if Hanson is to be believed -- it has demonstrable harm.

Marriage is about kids. And nothing else.

National Review blasts last week's federal court ruling knocking down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The editors offer up -- once again -- a familiar argument for traditional marriage that, while much-debated the last few years, always is very bracing to me.

The actual motive for having governments recognize the union of a man and a woman (and only such a union) as a marriage is to encourage, in a gentle and non-coercive way, the formation and maintenance of a stable environment in which children can naturally come to be. If heterosexual coupling did not regularly produce children there would be no reason for the institution of marriage to exist, let alone for governments to recognize it.

What a depressingly -- implausibly -- narrow view of marriage.

No doubt, children are a common byproduct of heterosexual marriage. That's certainly been the case in my marriage, and I'm glad of it. But the pairing instinct -- one that predated any government recognition of the "institution" of marriage -- far exceeds simple propigation of the species. People, as a general rule, want company. They want sex, they want economic partnerships, they want somebody to hang out with.

To reduce marriage to merely a mechanism of natural child-creation -- as National Review and other conservatives regularly do, because it's pretty much the one thing that heterosexual marriage offers that same-sex partnerships can't -- is, when you think about it, a surprisingly Darwinian argument coming from a movement that is largely theology-minded. It aggressively ignores that humans are social, spiritual creatures and that they express those characteristics, often but not exclusively, through marriage. The conservative case against same-sex marriage reduces the "institution" to simple biology. It's a point of view that reduces humanity to the level of beasts, with a bureaucracy.

The Yankees are about to acquire CLIFF LEE!?!?!

Cliff Lee Who Cares Catch - Watch today’s top amazing videos here

One of the best things about the Phillies' run to the World Series last year was the performance of pitcher Cliff Lee. And he cemented his place in my heart with a pair of catches -- one amazing, one amusing (see above)-- in a sterling Game One performance against the Yankees.

And I was very disappointed when the Phillies traded Lee away. I understood, but I was disappointed.

Now there's news that the Yankees themselves are about to acquire Cliff Lee from the Seattle Mariners. I already hate the Yankees. And the Phillies don't look like they're making another postseason run this year. But still: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

UPDATE: He went to the Rangers. I can live with that.

Why is Andrew Klavan proud of his sexism?

This Andrew Klavan blog post, I think, expresses a certain kind of conservative mindset about as succinctly as possible. To sum it up: the dangerous sexism of the Muslim world makes the sexism of American-Christian conservatives charming, benign and even desirable.

Let's break it down.

I am a sexist. I believe men and women are inherently different and that it’s therefore appropriate to treat them differently. I continue to open doors for women, curb my occasionally profane tongue around them and stand when they leave the table. Feminists have occasionally berated me for this, believing such manners display a patriarchal and protective attitude toward them.

I'm not going to begrudge Klavan's door-opening for women. But.

Even if one accepted, broadly, that "men" and "women" were different, that in no way accounts for all the millions of individuals who might not fit those norms and who deserve to be treated on the basis of their own individual qualities instead of consigned to a broader group. Sexism is just lazy. In Klavan's hands, we can see pretty quickly, it's lazy and smug.

And in any case, it's a pretty short trip from "men and women are inherently different" to "men and women are unequal, and thus men deserve to have the power." Which leads us to...

They’re right: a protective patriarch is exactly the kind of patriarch I am.

Um, that's swell? Let's move on -- this sentence will be important in later context.

Compare our Muslim friends. In his book What Went Wrong, Bernard Lewis reports that a Turkish visitor to Vienna in 1665 was flabbergasted by the “extraordinary spectacle” of the emperor tipping his hat to a lady. He speculated this bizarre behavior might derive from Christian respect for the Virgin Mary. Maybe so. It's certainly true that the local rules of politeness bear within them the deepest attitudes of the culture. Which is something to consider in light of the imminent stoning of Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani in Iran, an Islamic horror story which inspires in me the very impolite desire to slug somebody, preferably with a clawhammer.

I'm glad that Klavan -- along with many of his fellow conservatives -- is so angry about the the imminent stoning in Iran. Let's get to the final statement, though.

I can’t help thinking that when feminists attack gentlemanly manners (and the Christianity behind them) they are threatening the very wellspring of their most basic rights.

And there we have it: My sexism is ok, because I'm not going to kill you! Be grateful, women!

Maybe that's unfair. But let me rebut Klavan in a manner I think conservatives will understand: I'll use the Cold War as an analogy.

Everybody agrees that the Soviet Union was a horrible, awful place: No personal or economic freedom, millions of people died because of Joseph Stalin's cruelty and tyranny. But the Soviet Union was also powerful, if despised. After World War II, the United States helped create the system of "social democracy" in Western Europe -- a hybrid of capitalism with a very, very thick social safety net -- in order to keep Soviet-style socialism from being too tempting to the masses and preserving a rough balance of power between superpowers.

Now: Stalin-era Soviet Union was about exploiting the people. Social democracies were about, for lack of a better word, comforting them. These days, though, there's lots of folks who see the social democracy of Western Europe -- with its high taxes, heavy regulations and monthlong vacations for workers -- as a way station to tyranny. Sure the people of Western Europe are and were more free than citizens of the old Soviet Union. But that's not free enough for many of today's American conservatives.

So it is with sexism. The choice isn't really between an Iran-style tyranny that kills its women or a "protective patriarchy" that uses less overtly coercive methods to still keep women in their place. The alternative is to recognize women as full human beings, possessing the same rights as all of us -- not "granted" to them by dudes -- and worthy of respect as a result.

(Hat tip: Julie Ponzi)