Far be it from me to question the writings of a professional journalist, but after reading Frederic Hamber’s article in today’s paper, I must disagree with much of what he says. While I agree with his general assertion that Americans should celebrate the human mind, the “spark of genius” that leads to the creation of great things, my quarrel is with his definition of “labor.”
Mr. Hamber defines only those purely physical acts as “work” or “laboring.” By this definition, the creative spark of mankind is merely that, a spark. One minute a man’s mind is blank and then with a flash, ideas pour out of him like water from a faucet. He turns the faucet on and off at will, with no difficulty. And the realizations of these ideas manifest themselves willingly.
Nothing could be further from reality. We owe our cushy spot on the totem of higher thinking to the drudgery of understanding and the indomitable will to create. Humans want to create; as Mr. Hamber says, it is “a metaphysical fact of human nature.” Creation does not simply imply the physical ability to build a magnificent skyscraper, but the plans behind the rendering of such a structure. Countless human hours go into the understanding of the principles and processes by which anything moves from form to function.
The scientific method, which scientists and intellectuals worship daily, promotes labor and toil. If this hypothesis is wrong, perform the experiment again with a different one, change variables, add variables, build prototypes, re-build prototypes, create, destroy and when you have done all that, test the product a thousand times just to be sure. Only when we understand can we truly begin to create, and understanding can be more than half the battle.
Did not Thomas Edison create more than 1,000 variations of the light bulb before he found one that worked? Wouldn’t it seem obvious that the man who first harnessed fire have been burned many times? Even Mr. Hamber himself might have gone though several drafts before publishing his article.
“Blood, sweat and tears” does not always have to be taken so literally. Albert Einstein worked continually on his “General Theory of Relativity” for more than 15 years and never fully completed it. Ask any senior engineering student how much time they spend trying to understand and finish a design project and they will tell you of sweat and tears.
And work itself spawns more work. Would the jack hammer and stream shovel have ever been conceived were it not for the needs of men performing the same duties physically? Look also at the silicon chip, which took decades to create, and which scientists have spent every year since its creation striving to make it smaller, faster…better.
It is not only those in science who toil endlessly. Dancers practice 12 hours a day, trying to perfect their stance and movement. Writers fill page after page only to throw it away and begin a new draft. Financial analysts watch the stock market constantly so they may inform their client when to buy and sell. Even the Founding Fathers would not settle for answering to an overbearing monarchy. All who are committed to something, anything, will labor at it until they can see its fruition. Why else would they have coined the phrase: “labor of love?”
So celebrate labor this Labor Day. Celebrate the toil, the understanding, the blood, the sweat and the tears by which human kind creates. Mr. Hamber should understand that labor does not always come in the physical form. We have all labored at some point, and whether from those labors we produced a silicon chip or a sidewalk, it should be celebrated.
Jacob Clements is a senior environmental engineering major. He may be contacted at [email protected].
