Blue Collar Brilliance Summary

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The Relationship is at The Heart
The online edition of the Oxford Dictionary defines blue-collar as “of or relating to manual work or workers, particularly in industry. Wikipedia as: “In English-speaking countries, a blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled manufacturing, mining, sanitation, custodian work, oil field, construction, mechanical maintenance, warehousing, firefighting, technical installation and many other types of physical work.” In comparison, “Blue-Collar Brilliance” a short work written by Mark Rose and “The Case for Working with Your Hands” by Matthew B. Crawford share manual labor as a topic and subject of those short works. The authors have …show more content…
A mix up in test scores with a fellow high student who shared the same surname placed Rose in vocational technical training. When the mistake was discovered by one of his English teachers his educational track was changed and with encouragement from his teacher Rose entered college and so began his academic career. The experience left Rose with a desire to improve public education methods to which he devoted several years of his professional life.
Crawford is a person who acts on his principals as was the case when he left a position that conflicted with his ethical standards. So he feels things deeply. He writes his piece from a place of utter frustration. A need to get it out, as if to say that’s how I feel, that is why I’m so frustrated. Here are ten words you’ve never seen before, was he proving to me that he was intelligent or how educated he was? He failed to make me care about him.
In comparison, the works have a similar mission to point out to the reader the virtues of the blue –collar work, and to highlight the intelligence required to produce good work. In contrast, the authors approach their work from two very different places emotionally: Rose from a place of love and fond remembrances of his blue-collar upbringing, Crawford: out of frustration and resentment. Crawford would prefer to spend his time repairing motorcycles, yet he can’t because his intellect won’t be fully appreciated there. Who cares? Not
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