It feels like you could write a perfectly symmetrical article—just as convincing—in the opposite direction. We've been telling people "math is hard" for years a

It feels like you could write a perfectly symmetrical article—just as convincing—in the opposite direction. We've been telling people "math is hard" for years and look where that's gotten us. People seem do a better job of learning abstract algebra if you trick them into not thinking it's difficult and arcane. I'm not saying that one view or the other is right. Rather, I'm just saying that it's not obvious which is better or even how much it matters. Posts like this—which basically do say "it's obvious that..." and little more—aren't contributing anything substantial.