Mental multivitamin: Manual competence

re: "...Political theorists from Aristotle to Thomas Jefferson have questioned the republican virtue of the mechanic, finding him too narrow in his concerns to be moved by the public good. Yet this assessment was made before the full flowering of mass communication and mass conformity, which pose a different set of problems for the republican character..." (from Shop Class as Soulcraft, The New Atlantis, Summer 2006)...