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Did you come in looking for a fight? Daniel clearly stated that he thought the argument was a good one, but it's too easy to take the extreme from the headline
by endersshadow 14y ago
Did you come in looking for a fight? Daniel clearly stated that he thought the argument was a good one, but it's too easy to take the extreme from the headline (or miss the point of the essay entirely), and say that being "weird" is good in and of itself. It's not, clearly. What he's saying is, find your passion and damn the social torpedoes, because it'll all work out in the end.
Daniel's point was that being "weird" for the sake of it is not really the point of the essay. He was not creating any type of straw man. You read it too fast or not at all if you think he was.
- dclowd9901 14y ago"But I'd be careful not to take this argument too far into sophistry." "But there's nothing to be gained in being different in itself." The essay needed no cautionary caveat, and that's what Daniel purported it was missing. I posit it was missing nothing at all, and that only the most hopelessly pedantic interpretation of it would call for an explanation of exception. So, no, not looking for for a fight, just a little tired the "making a point for the sake of making a point."
- knowtheory 14y agoA difficulty i have is that it sounds like you're nit-picking OP, claiming that he's nit-picking. The reason why I bring this up is that i don't think Daniel's point is a small one. And perhaps he hasn't couched it in the most benign of ways (although it is pretty benign), there is a difference between saying "Be true to yourself" and "Being different is okay". It may well be the case that these two things coincide occasionally, but i agree with Daniel that conflating the two misstates what sucks about high school, and how life may change in the future.