That’s not how Chesterton is using it, though; he’s using it about the myths and stories that justify a profession: doctors talk about saving lives (rather than making money), soldiers talk about saving the country from vicious greedy foreigners (rather than making money), etc. He regards these myths as ennobling in the best sense: adding meaning to life, a raison d’etre, ikigai etc.; you could read his Napoleon of Notting Hill as an illustration of this idea, especially towards the end.
Not quite. The plumber and electrician are necessary for the existence of the city. The DMV clerk is needed only for the enforcement of a licensing scheme—if his office shut down completely the city would go on functioning with little or no change.
There would need to be some sort of alternate mechanism for ensuring that people learn to drive a car safely before driving a car. Presumably that mechanism would involve some replacement job for the former DMV clerk.
Such a mechanism may be desirable, but it isn’t necessary for the existence of cities. There are plenty of third world countries that don’t bother with licensing, and still manage to have major metropolises.
But my point was just that when people talk about ‘trades and crafts on which the existence of the modern city depends’ they generally mean carpenters, plumbers, electricians and other hands-on trades, not clerks and bureaucrats.
Police, judges, and lawyers would be OK in this respect. (I’m not advocating elimination of the DMV, but now that I think about it, it sounds not-too-bad. Court orders to stop repeat offenders from driving sounds like, potentially, a better system than licensing?)
Police, judges, and lawyers would be OK in this respect.
Given their already heavy workload, they’d need to create a separate department just to deal with all the traffic violations. Hmm...
Besides, and perhaps more importantly, I’d rather instill a social expectation that driving requires a certificate, which in turn requires some training, than deal with “repeat offenders” after they’d run someone over because they couldn’t steer properly.
Is it really a modern city without conservatives whining about poor service at the DMV? Although I guess if you got rid of all the clerks service would probably get even worse.
I’d point to myself as a counterexample, I appreciate the DMV sticking it to those externality-creating motorists while I enjoy proper liberal low-emissions modes of transportation.
But as that is not the purpose of the DMV, I find your appreciation only validates complaints. That is, you share the view that the DMV creates some amount of misery of automobile drivers, you just don’t happen to object to that group being that miserable.
Are you serious? Just about every job out there from plumbing and electric line repair, to clerk at the DMV.
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That’s not how Chesterton is using it, though; he’s using it about the myths and stories that justify a profession: doctors talk about saving lives (rather than making money), soldiers talk about saving the country from vicious greedy foreigners (rather than making money), etc. He regards these myths as ennobling in the best sense: adding meaning to life, a raison d’etre, ikigai etc.; you could read his Napoleon of Notting Hill as an illustration of this idea, especially towards the end.
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Not quite. The plumber and electrician are necessary for the existence of the city. The DMV clerk is needed only for the enforcement of a licensing scheme—if his office shut down completely the city would go on functioning with little or no change.
There would need to be some sort of alternate mechanism for ensuring that people learn to drive a car safely before driving a car. Presumably that mechanism would involve some replacement job for the former DMV clerk.
Such a mechanism may be desirable, but it isn’t necessary for the existence of cities. There are plenty of third world countries that don’t bother with licensing, and still manage to have major metropolises.
But my point was just that when people talk about ‘trades and crafts on which the existence of the modern city depends’ they generally mean carpenters, plumbers, electricians and other hands-on trades, not clerks and bureaucrats.
Police, judges, and lawyers would be OK in this respect. (I’m not advocating elimination of the DMV, but now that I think about it, it sounds not-too-bad. Court orders to stop repeat offenders from driving sounds like, potentially, a better system than licensing?)
Given their already heavy workload, they’d need to create a separate department just to deal with all the traffic violations. Hmm...
Besides, and perhaps more importantly, I’d rather instill a social expectation that driving requires a certificate, which in turn requires some training, than deal with “repeat offenders” after they’d run someone over because they couldn’t steer properly.
Is it really a modern city without conservatives whining about poor service at the DMV? Although I guess if you got rid of all the clerks service would probably get even worse.
I would argue that everybody complains about poor service at the DMV.
I’d point to myself as a counterexample, I appreciate the DMV sticking it to those externality-creating motorists while I enjoy proper liberal low-emissions modes of transportation.
But as that is not the purpose of the DMV, I find your appreciation only validates complaints. That is, you share the view that the DMV creates some amount of misery of automobile drivers, you just don’t happen to object to that group being that miserable.