The opening essays of Paul Graham’s present a disparate series of ideas and ideologies, indiscriminately interwoven in an unabashed stream-of-consciousness prose. In truth, therein lie too many proposals – most times, stated like self-evident facts – to give his abstract yet deeply personal linked ideals justice. There is much within that I heartily agree with, much that I passionately disagree with, and many contained thoughts that are a product of their time. Either way, there is one thing that is made clear when reading anything of his: Paul Graham thinks very, very highly of himself and his ideas.
Much of his argumentation is stated in such a manner that through his framing of issues and solutions, it comes across most apparently that he starts off typing with the assumption that he is right. It is a fact that he, and his beliefs, are correct. This is a natural byproduct of many opinion pieces, of course, but his writing is littered with conflating his limited worldview with the factual reality of the universe. He will decorate his statements with the precise amount of history or philosophy or even self-reflectual context to appear to introduce nuance, but he will quickly resume his absolutes.
Nevertheless, he makes sure to shield himself of such criticism by creating the goalposts in his Hierarchy of Disagreement, where attacking the tone – an essential component of any argumentative piece – is seen as “lowly”, whereas attacking and proving the contrary idea wrong is “proper”. Once again, we observe his obsession with a black-and-white depiction of reality and an arrogant image of argumentation: there is one underlying truth and anything else is wrong and idiotic. Naturally, it is he who approaches this truth. Therefore, let us scrutinize the content of his ideas and take a page out of his book, as judges.
Here is where the controversial nature of Graham’s comments is a particular thorn in my side: I agree with many of his sentiments. Indeed, the American education system is very flawed, teenagers and children – in their cannibalistic, political machinations – are repeatedly undermined and forced into a bubble by uncaring adults, blind zealotry and senses of moral superiority are antithetical to the pursuit of knowledge, and, importantly, hacking is no different from art. Perhaps, better phrased, it is that in both hacking and art there is a genuine expression of something that can never be articulated or materialized, whilst committing oneself to pure, immeasurable excellence. This is a beautiful sentiment.
Contrary to Levy’s interpretation of the hacker as a visionary tinkerer – an authentic scientist – Graham relies on the practice and mechanisms of the hacker skill to propose that hackers are the opposite of scientists: they’re artists. Both of these are compelling accounts and there are bound to be differences, for Levy was preoccupied with the rise of computation in the latter half of the twentieth century and Graham writes of a time where computation already rules the world. Using his terminology, nerds won in the real world. I believe that though different in concept and specific individuals, Levy and Graham speak of the same purist intent behind discovery. There is a unified picture here, even if they go around very different ways of expressing it. In both texts, hackers remain a force beyond the margins of society or economy, yet are bound by it. The spirit is genuine, and so long it is properly directed wonderful things will sprout. I think Graham is too strict with his delimiters, however: at a fundamental level, science is an art and art is a science. It is where they intersect that these paths of discovery are most interesting, and where hackers lie. I think any realized human, especially one I would hope to become, will take steps towards such a zenith.
Graham’s views were heartfelt and defended the underdog at every turn, respecting the savviness of talent and harshly criticizing the suffocating structure surrounding hackers which inhibit progress. Despite the tone, these are all ideas I concur with. The real problematic reading was the fourth and final one, titled What You Can’t Say. I love any good piece that reframes our times – which, to us, will always seem as the most important or most terrible or most wonderful times – in the grand context of history. Definitely, many things we take for granted will erode with the passage of eras, as they always have, and none of our particular moments are particularly special, other than they happen to specially belong to us. There is much wisdom found in history. Furthermore, I found it fascinating that he viewed morality as relativistic and also understood its tie to spatiotemporal existence, something I too believe to the agony of many theists out there. Nevertheless, the conclusions he drew out, and especially the manner in which he did are worrying to say the least and morbid at worst.
The entire point of realizing these truths about morality is to humble oneself and build something in the service of others in the process. He, not unlike a child learning to curse, self-indulgently sought out incendiary beliefs in a test of free speech and critical thinking. The essay is written in such a way that one can easily tell that this experiment is not about taking a fundamentalist approach that, with maximal skepticism, will propose to intellectually reevaluate one’s beliefs, creating a truthful set of beliefs to lead your life. Instead, it was dangerously probing at the most essential social norms and almost hinting at something much worse. I am a moral relativist too, but I do not think basic human rights ought to be doubted, to name an example. Some lines exist for a reason. That’s not what he claims, of course, but as a philosopher he ought to know where such lines of argumentation lead.