The Merits of Manual Labor

Christopher Sacca, a top tech investor notable for his role in starting Twitter, Uber, Instagram, Twilio, and Kickstarter, stated that “American computer science grads often have very little exposure to the human condition. They’ve rarely had manual labor or service jobs. They grow up in a bubble of privilege lulled into thinking this country is a true meritocracy.” The problem isn’t just limited to computer science majors, it’s endemic to our nation’s universities. 

Tom Knight, an editor at The Review, touched on this bubble in an earlier article on this year’s admissions scandal: “For every student helped by Rick Singer, there are 10 students shepherded by well-meaning parents into the legal equivalent, the juggernaut of private education, enrichment, and college counseling that begins in some American households before preschool. The resulting product is marketable, intelligent, hard-working, eminently qualified, and generally bereft of any unique life perspectives.” Dartmouth, in recent years, has worked hard to diversify the set of racial perspectives present on campus. In its quest for racial diversity, Dartmouth seems to have forgotten about the more pressing problem of economic diversity. As reported in the New York Times, the number of students from the top 0.1-percent of the population (4.5% of students) at Dartmouth is nearly double the quantity of students from the bottom 20-percent (2.6%), with nearly 60% of students coming from the top 10-percent. Dartmouth, in terms of median parent income, is surpassed only by Brown University (though Dartmouth is home to the largest share of students from the top one percent). Looking beyond economic statistics, though I cannot say this with absolute certainty, students at top colleges overwhelmingly come from supportive families who value academics as a pathway to future prosperity and financial security. Many, many families do not share this perspective or are not able to provide it. The students at Dartmouth College are, suffice it to say, privileged when compared to the national average in a myriad of ways.

Wealth, however, isn’t at the heart of the problem that Sacca highlights. Most college graduates lack any meaningful experience. Economics and government may be the two most popular majors at Dartmouth, but studying these disciplines is fruitless without a wide perspective on the ways individuals from different backgrounds live their lives. Student internships at the college are focused around the fields of finance (specifically investment banking or trading), consulting, law and government, and some sort of research work or medical shadowing. These fields cover somewhere in the ballpark of 7-million American jobs. The people that work these jobs represent a fairly homogenous group of Americans: most are at least upper-middle class, with nearly all of them coming from middle-class or above backgrounds. Their childhoods were similar to that of most Dartmouth students—generally free from serious financial woes, educated parents who instilled a strong focus on academics, safe schools and time for extracurricular. As stated earlier, privilege in and of itself is not a problem, merely a descriptor.

“For every student helped by Rick Singer, there are 10 students shepherded by well-meaning parents into the legal equivalent, the juggernaut of private education, enrichment, and college counseling that begins in some American households before preschool. The resulting product is marketable, intelligent, hard-working, eminently qualified, and generally bereft of any unique life perspectives.”

Tom Knight

Whereas I personally believe that many of my peers at Dartmouth might have worked service jobs or at least know and have interacted with others in the service industry, far fewer of them have interacted closely with manual laborers and a far smaller proportion have actually worked manual labor jobs. Most students seem to forget that nearly 33-million Americans work in manual labor jobs, dwarfing the 7-million jobs in the lucrative fields Dartmouth students clamor over. For reference, 33 million Americans is more people than the population of every state except California, with a population of 40 million. Texas (29 million), Florida (22 million), and New York (20 million) are relatively small by comparison, especially when considering that 33 million does not include the children and spouses of these workers. The number of workers is likely higher, given that it (1) leaves out self-employed individuals, which make up around 9 million jobs and (2) is unable to account for workers off-the-books, which constitute a significant proportion of manual laborers. 

Students at top colleges are supposed to be leaders of future generations. Good leaders must understand the people they are trying to help to some minimal degree. With so many Dartmouth students blind to the basic workings of such a huge section of the population, how are we supposed to make any significant future impact?

Though nothing can fully replace another human being’s experience, it doesn’t hurt to walk a few steps in their shoes. I argue that, if they have not done so already, college students should work in a manual labor job. It will give them a glimpse into the unique lives of a huge part of the nation’s population, which they can hopefully reflect on when making policy arguments or suggesting business ideas, in addition to personal self-improvement and increased tolerance.

I worked on a shellfish farm on an island in the Long Island Sound. Days were spent in the baking heat pulling hundreds of sharp nets full of oysters, weighing up to a hundred pounds each when soaked, from a metal skiff; tying nets under a plastic tarp in soaking thunderstorms; and, more or less, doing whatever other miscellaneous tasks needed to be done. What I thought was back-breaking work was mundane to my fellow workers. Injuries and infections were common and ignored. No one got special treatment for being injured. The work had to be done or else you were not getting paid—moreover, seeing a physician was expensive. No counseling centers, no human resources, no accessibility services. If you cut up your leg and twisted your ankle slipping through a flupsy, you’d find a way to work without using your leg. Though healthcare does need to be reformed in this country, such an un-coddled way of life can be good once in a while to teach grit, something rarely found in most universities. While I applaud efforts to make education accessible to any who which to learn, it does not hurt to be able to confidently tough it out on your own when needed.

On a farm, it doesn’t matter where you come from or who you are, what matters is whether you can get the job done and lend a helping hand where it’s needed. Manual labor, despite stereotypes, can teach a far healthier version of tolerance than the toxic racial-Olympics present on college campuses. People simply do not care for histories of oppression or micro-aggressions. When your back is absolutely killing you less than two-thirds through the work day, help from anyone is a god-send. Rain Dove, a gender non-conforming model, said: “I grew up having to do manual labor because people always told me that I was an ugly girl. I’ve never had the permission to be myself except for when I’m doing manual labor. Because in manual labor, it’s about, ‘Can you pick this up, can you move this here,’ and I could.”

No counseling centers, no human resources, no accessibility services. If you cut up your leg and twisted your ankle slipping through a flupsy, you’d find a way to work without using your leg

Though I worked on a farm dedicated to sustainability, many of my coworkers frankly did not care. They worked there to provide for themselves. Many of them lived paycheck-to-paycheck. They don’t necessarily have the want or luxury to pursue ostensibly “world-changing” careers in social justice and policy analysis. They have families to feed, and they work not for passion, but to provide. Not everyone gets the luxury to choose careers that they deem societally meaningful. Far more real and pressing concerns await them.

Working on the farm made me a more understanding person. Hopefully, it will do the same to anyone else who pursues similarly taxing endeavors. Perhaps more important than teaching people personal lessons in independence and grit is giving students new, important perspectives. As stated before, most top students do not have much experience with the lives of manual laborers, despite the huge chunk of the population they constitute. Let’s now observe what happens when a privileged individual does not learn these lessons.

In the lead-up to the 2016 election, much press-focus was given to West Virginia, one of the coal capitols of America, considered by many educated people to be a backwards place. The late Anthony Bourdain, on his show Parts Unknown introduced the episode on West Virginia by saying, “To think about, much less empathize with someone who comes from five generations of coal miners… is to our enduring shame, unthinkable. Why can’t these coal miners get retrained? Maybe put up solar panels for a living? Why would these conservative, deeply religious people vote for a thrice-married billionaire, New Yorker?”

Many Americans were shocked and confused when many poor, rural communities came out strongly in support of Donald Trump, perhaps the perfect caricature of someone raised with a silver spoon in his mouth. How could they be so blind as to vote for him, over Democratic candidates who ostensibly appeal to lower-class voters?

The importance of environmental conservation is one of my deepest convictions. Most Dartmouth College students seem to think that the climate change debate pits valiant, concerned scientists on one end and greedy politicians—pockets stuffed to the brim with cash and controlled by billionaire puppeteers—on the other, with no in between. The reality of the situation is that many of these “antiquated and harmful” industries form the lifeblood and culture of the communities that have been built around them. 

Many towns in West Virginia live and breathe coal. These towns were some of the original “boom towns,” quickly sprouting up in the middle of nowhere, attracting hordes of men looking to provide for their families in whatever way they could. Children look up to their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers and see a proud tradition of coal miners who sacrificed life, limb, and lung to power our nation’s ascent to greatness. Imagine the insult felt upon hearing a rich, privileged, highly-educated presidential candidate say with such conviction and arrogance that she’s “gonna put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business”, with no thought given to the way that it will impact yourself, your family, and practically everyone you know. Not everybody gets to pick their dream job, in fact, almost no one does. Few people have the option to go study political science at Wellesley and then law at Yale. When you’ve worked yourself to the bone to provide bare necessities for your family, sacrificing literal decades of your life for their sustenance, it is hard not to feel resentful of politicians who, in your mind, have never worked an honest day in their life yammering on about needing to shut down historic mines and factories that all your relatives have passed through for expensive, lofty, and abstract initiatives whose benefits will never reach anyone you care about.

Obviously, one experience in a single manual labor job cannot even come close to replacing a lifetime—and sometimes multiple lifetimes—of labor. The most one can hope for is that experience can open one’s eyes to different viewpoints, and therefore, different considerations. Hillary Clinton’s clear and unambiguous disregard for the people of West Virginia, and the surprised reaction of college students when so many blue collar Americans came out strongly pro-Trump, is just one example of the blind spot many elite students have to the plights of these individuals. If Dartmouth students wish to truly serve others and make a widespread impact, these blind spots must be eliminated.