I don't remember ever noticing the word "soulcraft" before today, when I saw it in a David Brooks column. Writing about "the cultural transformation" that could be achieved through the Democrats' $4 trillion in spending, he declared: "Statecraft is soulcraft." I blogged that — with disapproval — here.
But what is "soulcraft"? If "statecraft" makes sense, it must mean the work of the state, so shouldn't "soulcraft" mean the work of the soul? But, in context, it seems to mean the state's work is to work on the soul. I think he's saying that the state ought to engage in massive spending with the aim of shaping the soul of the people who live under the power of the state, and the lack of parallelism in the use of the ending "-craft" is disturbing.
I try to think of other "-craft" words. "Witchcraft" is the work of witches, not the shaping of witches. It's done by witches, not to witches. It fits with "statecraft," not "soulcraft."
In the comments to my post, Lloyd W. Robertson and Peter Spieker independently bring up George Will, and Quaestor writes:
పోస్ట్లు
