Certain types of work are more valued than others. When someone asks, “What do you do?” the reply is often weighed, sifted, and placed in a subconscious pecking order of value. Many of us have been on the receiving end of this kind of sizing up. Practical work is placed lower on the list of modern society’s values. Work that is paid is valued more highly than work that is unpaid.

The ordering of such values happens, in part, because of the way capitalist economies function. As well as this, there’s the way schools prioritize academic learning over practical skills. As a society, we’d much rather move away from certain forms of work, placing them out of view. If we could, we’d replace more and more of the practical aspects of industry with machines, computers, apps, or artificial intelligence.

But why is work done by humans important? Why does bodily labor matter?