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Luke_A_Somers comments on Rationality Quotes December 2012 - Less Wrong
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Are you serious? Just about every job out there from plumbing and electric line repair, to clerk at the DMV.
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.
If you read "ideal" as status, I'd say the gap between doctors and e.g. plumbers has shrunk some since Chesterton's time.
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.
Yes, that much was clear from the quote. I never said I disagreed, just wanted to spread out the interpretation a bit.