Summary of Chapter 5: Construction and Electrical Wiring (Jasen Maurer)

• Mike Rose starts out with the attitudes of the Ancient Greeks. Plato for instance puts down craftsmen and workmen in his play, The Republic. He calls workmen "warped and maimed" (pg 100) and "incapable of culture" (100). Rose also states that Aristotle said that jobs as such are "ignoble and inimical to goodness" (100). Aristotle even goes as far to say that people of the workmen class should be denied citizenship (100). Rose also adds that Plutarch said that "It does not necessarily follow that if a work is delightful because of its gracefulness, the man who made it is worthy of our serious regard" (101)
•The first few pages are basically about physical labor.
•Rose blames the economic and social structure of today's society for why physical labor is seen as it is.
•Rose says that many intellectual communities take out the possibility that people of blue collared careers have the "full expression of mind" (102).
•As Rose visited schools of construction he noticed a desire to do the job right and not rush things. He explains how workmen check and then recheck their work to make sure it is 100% complete, the way it is supposed to be done.
•Rose explains that the workman's thirst for preciseness is psychologically imprinted into them. Most workmen are perfectionists. (i.e. for electricians they want to do the job perfectly, to make sure there is little to no evidence that they were ever in the house to begin with).