Being Critical
I just read and really enjoyed Paul Graham’s latest essay, What You Can’t Say1. The abstract illuminates:
“How to think forbidden thoughts and what to do with them.”
It’s a slightly longer essay so I would recommend printing yourself a copy and reading it over coffee or lunch. I won’t attempt to summarize it but I do find some interesting points worth highlighting.
Nerds are always getting in trouble. They say improper things for the same reason they dress unfashionably and have good ideas: convention has less hold over them.
I’ve found this to be true so often. Graham is using the term ‘nerd’ as an affable connection to his profession in computer science but there are certain people who cannot be satisfied with mindless convention or willful apathy. One could certainly add artists to this group of people who find the status quo disingenuous. But who are these people?
These are people whose professions and lifestyles require the ability to peel away convention, precedent and false assumptions. Journalists must do this. Architects must do this. Programmers, designers, artists, writers, scientists, teachers…
Wait, that’s everyone.
Sort of.
In the essay Paul Graham toys with the idea that physicists (read: all scientists) have a much tougher environment for work than, say, PhDs in French literature (read: those who practice in humanities).
I disagree about degrees of difficulty because the point of each field is meaningful discovery. Just to write a paper is a formality but to give the world something useful, that kind of substance never comes easily. But let me rephrase it my own way and test out my logic.
The lack of critical thinking won’t eliminate you in certain fields while in others it almost certainly will. So a janitor can do his work merrily without this sort of muscle as a requirement but it is impossible to write computer software or design a building or research biology without critically thinking all the time. In some fields you can get by calling yourself a professional (because you are paid for what you do) even when your work is trash.
Does religion require critical thinking2? I have no idea on Graham’s cards but many scientists and other critical thinkers believe that it eliminates it; it must be all the stares they get when they ask a very fundamental question like “Why close your eyes to pray?” or “What, precisely, is wrong with Rock music?” If you ask a fascist they will recommend keeping the religious folk. Germany did. Iran did. Osama would…
I can’t force the people around me to think as I do but let me finish with this: even if finding the muster for critical thinking is difficult, when you encounter a person who always has their critical thinking helmet on because they are an artist or a scientist, remember this is because it is what makes their work work.
1If you'd rather avoid the whole essay for the four or so "swear" words within, I'm warning you now.
2I believe religion takes a lot of critical thinking, it just isn't a social norm. Religious people do things like purchase forgiveness for sin for a few hundred years, persecute people who disagree with them and throw reason out of the window when a theory scares them. Fortunately every few hundred years or so someone is able to tie their critical thinking to a larger set of events and cause some growth.
6:23:17 AM 
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