This is a very interesting essay -- I found especially interesting your observation that much of SV speak is downstream of two traditions: the frontier tradition and the high modernism tradition.
It seems like there is one big tradition missed there, something many of the histories of silicon valley key in on: the '60s counter-culture. I would be very interested in seeing your thoughts on the debt SV has to that moment--and what that debt means in Trump's America.
I thought your essay was better than expected. It feels novel these days to read something that neither bashes nor adorns SV but has something interesting to say about it.
I have a feeling that the influence of the canon may be overstated a bit. Not just because it’s not fully coherent (though the histories are cool), but because these people just live on X now. A Silicon Valley X Canon list would be interesting.
My biggest critique is that the link to the canon was buried several paragraphs deep. Make it easier to find the books!
I would describe my entire education, from high school through grad school, as being in service to critique as an end in itself, not critique in service to some other end. Until wokeness came along, I can't recall much faith in any "liberatory projects," except among fringe persons.
I think critique was invented for projects of emancipation (say, all the 18th century ones) even if we no longer teach learn or practice it as if actually served that function. UChicago kids are learning texts and practices originally meant to perform such purposes even if neither they nor their teachers know it… which is one of the problems with humanist core great books blather! But I take it that we always write with the hope of someone reading and acting even if we are deliberately unclear to ourselves about what those hopes are, and what basis they might have.
I agree this might be a shortcoming of our education, but I am surprised at your surprise about it. It is the entire backdrop of our generation's schooling. Critical thinking! In the service of what? More critical thinking!
Actually the humanist great books blather might be an exception - does it hinge on critique? You could critique the texts, and of course if you were *really* smart, that is what you would do (*takes drag of clove cigarette*), but you could also write a paper like "Jonathan Swift's Use of Ocular Metaphors," which would require synthesis rather than critique, reconstructing Swift instead of "interrogating" him. UChicago kids could get an A for either. The student culture might elevate the critique, but we were also slaves to our grades as the judgments from on high, and if they judged the synthesist to be wise and true, we would largely accept that.
I think “critical thinking” and great books-ism are both flavors of a wish to become a free, humane person through the right reading and commentary on texts placed at a remove from supposedly more specialized and practical forms of knowledge… this person is imagined as himself already emancipated and/or as an agent of social emancipation. One might be expected to be “critical” of the Canon taught or deferential towards it (Plato is misogynist vs wow Plato asks Big Questions!) but either way a few kinds of interpretative moves teachable to 18 year olds are equated with an ethical and political formation that is in some way counter to the prevailing social order and its imperatives, such that getting right the content and prescribed attitudes towards this canon could be seen as a gravely serious matter…
This is a very interesting essay -- I found especially interesting your observation that much of SV speak is downstream of two traditions: the frontier tradition and the high modernism tradition.
It seems like there is one big tradition missed there, something many of the histories of silicon valley key in on: the '60s counter-culture. I would be very interested in seeing your thoughts on the debt SV has to that moment--and what that debt means in Trump's America.
I thought your essay was better than expected. It feels novel these days to read something that neither bashes nor adorns SV but has something interesting to say about it.
I have a feeling that the influence of the canon may be overstated a bit. Not just because it’s not fully coherent (though the histories are cool), but because these people just live on X now. A Silicon Valley X Canon list would be interesting.
My biggest critique is that the link to the canon was buried several paragraphs deep. Make it easier to find the books!
I would describe my entire education, from high school through grad school, as being in service to critique as an end in itself, not critique in service to some other end. Until wokeness came along, I can't recall much faith in any "liberatory projects," except among fringe persons.
I think critique was invented for projects of emancipation (say, all the 18th century ones) even if we no longer teach learn or practice it as if actually served that function. UChicago kids are learning texts and practices originally meant to perform such purposes even if neither they nor their teachers know it… which is one of the problems with humanist core great books blather! But I take it that we always write with the hope of someone reading and acting even if we are deliberately unclear to ourselves about what those hopes are, and what basis they might have.
I agree this might be a shortcoming of our education, but I am surprised at your surprise about it. It is the entire backdrop of our generation's schooling. Critical thinking! In the service of what? More critical thinking!
Actually the humanist great books blather might be an exception - does it hinge on critique? You could critique the texts, and of course if you were *really* smart, that is what you would do (*takes drag of clove cigarette*), but you could also write a paper like "Jonathan Swift's Use of Ocular Metaphors," which would require synthesis rather than critique, reconstructing Swift instead of "interrogating" him. UChicago kids could get an A for either. The student culture might elevate the critique, but we were also slaves to our grades as the judgments from on high, and if they judged the synthesist to be wise and true, we would largely accept that.
I think “critical thinking” and great books-ism are both flavors of a wish to become a free, humane person through the right reading and commentary on texts placed at a remove from supposedly more specialized and practical forms of knowledge… this person is imagined as himself already emancipated and/or as an agent of social emancipation. One might be expected to be “critical” of the Canon taught or deferential towards it (Plato is misogynist vs wow Plato asks Big Questions!) but either way a few kinds of interpretative moves teachable to 18 year olds are equated with an ethical and political formation that is in some way counter to the prevailing social order and its imperatives, such that getting right the content and prescribed attitudes towards this canon could be seen as a gravely serious matter…
Ah, you mean the entire pedagogical approach as critique. Yeah, I see that. Not entirely sure I saw that as an 18 yo though.