5 ms·
This is one of PG's most misunderstood essays. The title is to blame as well. It should rather be called "What's wrong with the school system" since the essay's
by rsp1984 12y ago
This is one of PG's most misunderstood essays. The title is to blame as well. It should rather be called "What's wrong with the school system" since the essay's main point isn't about Nerds and what distinguishes them from the rest. At the core of the essay is much more the truth about our modern school system and about the lack of perspective and proper incentives therein. As PG rightfully points out this leads to the creation of sick social hierarchies in which the bullies and psychopaths have the upper hand. His comparison of schools to "part-time prisons" is right on the money. In my opinion it is one of PG's strongest essays and it really influenced the way I think about my time in school today.
- jseliger 12y agoProbably the biggest reason is that nerds don't make any attempt to fit in Weirdly, a lot of people don't seem to read it closely. I pointed out an example of that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7760388 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7760388 . When I taught a couple of PG's essays ("What You'll Wish You'd Known," "Lies We Tell Kids") I saw a lot of cursory readings that were not compatible with the text—and those misreadings are similar to the ones in this thread. There were also a fair number who called him "arrogant," though when I'd ask for textual examples of arrogance I would rarely get anything. The arrogance comment always baffled me, because he seems no more (or less) arrogant than anyone who writes anything and images that someone else would want to read it.