There aren’t many positives to come out of a very noisy 2024 election, but here’s one: There’s growing support to get young people into the trades.
According to MSN, the prior two election cycles included battles over proposals to make a four-year college education free, or at least more affordable, but this year the emphasis is on two-year colleges and the trades. Now that’s a great shift in thinking. I’ve written about this subject many times over the years, as massive college debt has increasingly saddled young people with a huge monthly burden.
As Mike Rowe has long pointed out, high school counselors and parents have long pushed college degrees as the best alternative, but that trend began to shift a good 15 years ago. One Washington Post article shared the stories of young people who, after receiving college diplomas, chose to get into the trades. One 29-year-old fellow in Washington, D.C. — he had a degree from Notre Dame — became an electrician rather than attend law school and suffer in paper-pusher hell.
Around 2010, the Post said that more 20-somethings were forgoing the white-collar world to become plumbers, electricians, mechanics and carpenters — a trend that will benefit us all if it continues, and it should.
Look, this country was designed by people who worked with their hands. Ben Franklin started off as a printer’s apprentice, a messy job. His trade helped him master communication, business management, politics, human nature. George Washington, a farmer, toiled in his gardens to crossbreed the perfect plant. He was forever trying new ways to cultivate and harvest his crops.
Many of our Founders were farmers. They were humbled by the unforgiving realities of nature. Hands-on labor made them sensible and innovative. Their good sense is evident in the practicality of the U.S. Constitution. We have lost touch with such common sense.
The shift happened over many years, of course. Industrialization moved Americans to the cities and, gradually, to paper-pushing jobs in the service industry. Now we’re a country of white-collar snobs with an underdeveloped understanding of how things work. Consider this important white-collar maxim: “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS.”
I’ve seen highly skilled BS-ers establish long white-collar careers without producing anything of any value. Blue-collar workers cannot BS their way through their work. An electrician mixes up the hot wire and ground wire only once. A carpenter is kept honest by his level — he measures twice, cuts once. A plumber’s skill is evident when the water valve is opened and the pipes don’t leak.
Blue collar workers have no choice but to develop horse sense — to develop efficient ways to solve real problems. This common-sense, problem-solving wisdom eventually seeps into our public discourse and eventually demands that real people with real ideas are the people we elect to represent us.
I hope more college-educated folks leave the white-collar world to become skilled laborers. I hope we stop glamorizing careers on Wall Street, the legal profession and many other paper-pushing careers. I hope more people use their hands to produce something of value every day — and use their practical, decision-making skills to resolve other challenges we face.
That’s the only way to build a great republic — or, to paraphrase Ben Franklin, keep one.
Copyright 2024 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. See Purcell’s syndicated column, humor books and funny videos at TomPurcell.com. Email him at Tom@TomPurcell.com.
