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As I work on defining the edges and aim of this project, I want to leave these little logs to record my reading and developments in thought, and collect pieces of interesting material for us all to dwell on.
Reading
Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke: I read this for the first time in 2013 as a freshman in college, alongside Rasselas by Samuel Johnson. I didn’t understand it very well at the time but I soldiered through it, and pulled out a few gems here and there. Now, I’m reading it to provide context for reading Vindication of the Rights of Man (and eventually Vindication of the Rights of Women) by Mary Wollstonecraft, who wrote that work in direct response to Burke. I’m revisiting both of these because I am reading…
Blood in the Machine by Brian Merchant: I’m listening to this as an audiobook, and it was here that I learned that Vindication of the Rights of Man was written in response to Burke. This connection was new to me and comparing them for myself has been really interesting so far. As for Blood in the Machine, it’s an incredible book linking our contemporary resistance to AI incursions with the passionate and sometimes violent resistance to cruel industrialization in England during the late 1700s and 1800s by the Luddite movement. The audiobook is excellent, and I’m tempted to buy a hard copy to mark it up so I keep all the facts and figures straight. Brian Merchant also has an EXCEPTIONAL Substack newsletter by the same name as his book. Here are a couple recent articles I loved:
The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple: This audiobook has produced multiple visceral physical responses in me as I’ve listened, but I’m actually taking a hard pause on it because it is so detailed and rich with fact that I’m getting very lost among all the Indian names and places. In the near future I’ll buy a hard copy to mark up so I can keep track of who did what when and how. I’m reading this because last summer, I listened to Karen Hao’s masterful book Empire of AI wherein she compares OpenAI to the British East India Company. It occurred to me that despite having a whole degree in Economics, I knew practically nothing about the EIC and other similar companies (like for example the Dutch or Portuguese trading influences in the Indian and Pacific oceans). The Anarchy delves deep, taking us from the original company offices in London to the throne rooms of the brilliant and doomed Mughal Empire (where was I during history class for my entire education?? never heard of this either until now). Wars, agreements, massacres, rebellions, gold, gold, gold - this is one of those books that operates on a huge scale with lots of historic details, and even though I’m only 1/3 of the way through, it’s already sobering. I think understanding the power of these companies is critical to understanding how to regulate the monster corporations of our own age, so I’m excited to keep reading. Excited is maybe the wrong word - I’m compelled and slightly horrified.
Silk by Araathi Prasad: A Christmas present from my mom that I finally started reading, and it is so good you guys. I feel like I’m hunting for exactly this kind of book every time I go to a bookstore, but so many single-topic natural history books can be, well, a bit one-dimensional. Araathi Prasad truly covered every possible angle of silk, from the silk moth to sea-silk to spiders (supportive shudder), to silk’s uses as clothing, armor, and medicine. She takes us from China to India to England to the Mediterranean to South America to the gunfight at the OK Corral. It’s another deep and broad yet detailed book that stretched and enriched my reading habits. Among the dozens of different characters in the story was Thomas Wardle who worked closely to develop dyes in England with none other than…
William Morris by Anna Mason: All roads have been leading to Morris for me lately - he pops up in almost every conversation about craftsmanship, resistance to industrial cruelty, and the impact of art and design. As I spend time with ideas about meaningful work, his spirit hovers over my shoulder. I feel like I’m having these thoughts and questions because of him, somehow. Morris’ work takes up a huge proportion of my imagination, and I use his patters in my own home in just about every room. Last week I hauled this ENORMOUS book (also a Christmas present) off my shelf to begin reading, and immediately called my best friend to ask if it was okay to (gasp) write in it as I read. She, an author and editor who works in publishing, gave me the green light so I don’t wanna hear any yelling about writing in books from anyone else. This book weighs about 10 lbs so I can only really read it at home propped on the couch, but so far it has only confirmed my suspicion that Morris is going to be a lifelong mentor of mine.
The Lost Art of Dress: The Women Who Once Made America Stylish by Linda Przybyszewski: I bought this on the recommendation of my same publisher friend, and it’s so fascinating to read while Silk and William Morris are fresh in my mind. Morris is mentioned as a huge inspiration for the “Dress Doctors,” women who taught others the high arts of clothing and domestic engineering. I’ve only just started, but this promises to be a book in the same vein as Silk and The Anarchy - a work of huge scope and copious detail that I don’t want to put down. (It helps that I’m desperate for help with my wardrobe and personal style.) So far it’s a testament to the relentless spirit of women who cannot be stopped from innovating, designing, beautifying, and reforming their world.
Ideas
This repost by Lincoln Michael sparked a few half-baked thoughts that I’ll keep turning over until something really useful develops, but for now:
I think Americans do have senses of “class”, but we aren’t a monolith and that sense will look very different in different communities and environments. “Working class” is different in NYC from “working class” in rural Indiana.
I think a lot of Americans define “class” according to levels of agency and the level of “contact” they have with the work they are doing. For example, financially I’m doing splendidly, so financially I may not be classified as “working class,” but I have a high degree of agency in my work and a high degree of “contact” or “tactility” - I’m sailing huge vessels, working directly with equipment, coordinating larger projects with my supervisor on the ship and the unlicensed crew, fixin’ shit, getting dirty and sweaty and bloody and tired, fighting with company folks to bridge gaps in understanding and organize things, and I’m an active member of a very well-run and powerful labor union. So I don’t think of myself first and foremost as “working class” but I do think of myself as “blue collar” even though I’m an officer. I wouldn’t consider an academic grad student who makes less money than I do as a TA and barista to be “working class,” or “blue collar” even if they had progressive socialist values and went to No Kings protests regularly. Not sure why - this is worth interrogating.
Texted all this to my publisher friend and she responded “it is interesting in the context of ‘working class’ to consider what Americans think is more ‘worky’” and she’s right. What do Americans consider more or less “worky” and why? When is a job more or less “worky” and why do we get so het up about our job being more “worky” than others? (I am we, in this situation - I am very proud that my job is more “worky” than most folks’. But is it really??)
Obviously Elon Musk isn’t working class or anything like it. We can all agree on that. I mean honestly.
I absolutely do not believe in a “ruling class.” I think it’s a stupid idea made up by the types of men who make 38-minute-long youtube video essays about the “world order” and use the word “hegemonic” incorrectly. This ain’t England. Simmer down.
I think (and have thought for a while) that trying too hard to divide people up into neat “classes” is counterproductive in a country like the United States. I think there are a lot of jobs and lifestyles that transcend the traditional idea of “class” and mix and match characteristics into entirely new categories. It is also my opinion that those are some of the best and most rewarding jobs to have, and by far the most interesting to talk about. This discussion will be a major part of this project coming up. :)
Thoughts
Yesterday I saw The Devil Wears Prada 2 in theaters for the 2nd time, and took a walk in the rain afterwards. The movie was fun and the fashion was excellent, but my favorite scenes were the ones where the characters reckoned with the forces that wanted to eliminate their work - their meaning - from the world. I related to their anger and frustration.
I love my job but sometimes I struggle with the idea that the world I chose is on thin ice. I’m working so hard to be credentialed, and qualified for my work as a deck officer, and I work hard at the job itself, all the time feeling like the white-collar managers at the companies I work for would eliminate my livelihood in a heartbeat if they could. My government, the autistic megalomaniacal out-of-touch tech boys in Silicon Valley, and bizarre fringe fundamentalist influences in my field of faith all seem oriented against the things I am oriented towards. I want to be a craftsman. I want to be granted enough time to become a craftsman. I am a sailor, an artist, an explorer, a writer, an economist - and sometimes I feel like a frantically beating heart in a world that is dying all around me. I should say, a world that is being killed. And I don’t know what to do.
But I do have one very strong comforting thought - I am absolutely not the first or last person to feel this same way. Turns out there’s a pressing crowd of us, both contemporaries and ancestors. And this Upper Middle Working Class project of mine is my way of beginning a lifelong conversation with all of them.
Hence this amateur, impromptu, intuitive curriculum of reading and research. I’m spending time in these books, and with these people, to find a pattern for how to live as a skilled worker in a world haunted by hollow men.
I need the people who have gone before, and found the narrow, courageous, golden, bloody sweaty tearful, good path through the charred remains of their own worlds. I need Morris, who saw the Industrial Revolution grinding his beloved beautiful England and his beloved brave English into a pulp, and rose up in love and fury, planting relentless, shimmering beauty everywhere he went. I need Wollstonecraft, who saw the hypocrisy of a distant, out-of-touch, wealthy ruling class and penned works promoting a republican, egalitarian world. I need the graceful Dress Doctors, kept from the rewards of society granted to men in their age, who could not be stopped from exercising their craftsmanship and cleverness to empower and equip other women in the science of beauty. I need the silk weavers and scientists who paid attention to the world of the small, and the rare.
They have already invented the wheel. And honestly? I love my job. I’m glad I chose something that orients me the way this job does. I’m grateful I get to beat like a heart. Because this is better. And that’s what everyone in all these books knew, I think - to beat and break in the skilled service of the beautiful for your countrymen is the greatest way to live. Dear God, I want that life.