Drudgery. Defined by Google as: "tedious, menial and exhausting work." Menial defined as: "A servant, especially a domestic servant; A person who has a subservient nature; Of or relating to work normally performed by a servant; Of or relating to unskilled work" (emphasis mine).
Manual labor is looked upon by most Americans as somehow below us. Many folks think manual labor is degrading, that it is not important work.
I recently searched Google News for the phrase "manual labor." And one of the search results was a news piece about Mexican immigrants. The thing that struck me was actually in a comment someone left. The commenter was lambasting the immigrants in the story because -- according to the commenter -- all they were skilled to do was manual labor and would not be able to get "real" jobs but instead would have to dig ditches and the commenter just didn't want people like that living in his country. I'm paraphrasing since the comment has since been taken off the site and I cannot find it. But I'm dying to ask that commenter what would happen in his world if everyone had "real" jobs and there was no one left to dig ditches?
Perhaps he has in mind a world similar to Isaac Asimov's. "Drudgery" was one of Asmiov's favorite terms. The writer of the "I, Robot" series of books thought that all forms of manual labor were beneath humans and that robots would be invented to do that sort of work to free humans to create art and other such "worthy" endeavors.
This is an unfortunate way of thinking. One that is inculcated in the modern American from birth. Everything and everyone around us is constantly telling us that we are meant for "great" things, "better" things. The television shows and movies we watch. The books we read. The schools we attend. And it is telling us that those of us who perform manual labor for a living are failures.
Our society rests upon the backs of the folks performing manual labor. If it weren't for manual laborers, the folks with "real" jobs would have no cars to drive to their "real" jobs, no oil to put in their cars, no roads to drive their cars on. No buildings to drive to.
If we are to break our addiction to oil then we must quit this way of thinking. We must realize the value of manual labor, and teach it to our children.
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