[tyre]

Had the same thought.

Some of his essays, no one else could have written them and brought a fresh, nuanced perspective.

These couple paragraphs wouldn’t get any attention if not for the name of the writer. Maybe that’s fine—great writers have their share of banality—but does reveal how susceptible we are generally to brand name over substance.

[gist]

I am actually surprised that PG doesn't feel uncomfortable about the 'acclaim' that he is getting for writing many of the things he has said that are not related to anything he has expertise in. Reminds me of celebrities who opine about politics with their thoughts (sometimes not always with PG).

Paul is authoritative on many topics. General thoughts about life and people are great to hear what he thinks. Why not? But he is no more special than 100000 other people who have no audience. Does he know this?

I've often thought he should do some A/B posting with his thoughts. Write something and then randomly decide whether to put it on his blog or some other place and see what the interest level is.

[dang]

They're essays. The word means 'attempt' and the genre has always been about non-expertise. Montaigne was the ultimate non-expert.

[FreakLegion]

> The word means 'attempt'

It can, but doesn't in this context. 'Essay' was a sort-of polyseme (like 'passion', which can still mean 'suffering') that has long since severed ties with its origin. Outside certain narrow academic discussions, the etymology and current use of 'essay' have effectively nothing to do with one another.

In any case though pg does pretend to some amount of expertise. "How to Do Philosophy" is an example.

[dang]

Of course it does; it has kept a close association with this meaning throughout literary history. An essay is an attempt, a sketch, thinking out loud. It's the literary genre equivalent of informal conversation. In an essay, you discover what you think by writing it, just as in exploratory programming you discover what your program is by programming it. To say that essays aren't for non-authoritative musing is like saying novels aren't for depicting human experience.

[tyre]

I strongly disagree with this.

The greatest essayists are not putting a "sketch" into the world. I cannot imagine reading an Isaiah Berlin essay and saying, "this is just informal conversation."

Consider Didion, Foster Wallace, Sontag, Mailer, Orwell, Hitchens, Paine, Zadie Smith, the founding fathers of the United States via the Federalist Papers.

There is no lack in seriousness, no lack in rigor, and no lack direct purpose backed by thoughtful consideration and ample evidence.

There are _also_ informal or unserious or musing essays, but please do not lump together the entire genre of essays with a description of Medium posts.

[dang]

I think we got some signals crossed. I wasn't talking about being unserious—just that you don't have to be an expert to write a fine essay.

I haven't read all the authors you list, but the ones I have support the point. They were not specialists writing about topics they were authorities on. They were good writers and thinkers exploring the topics they were writing about.

[FreakLegion]

I didn't say essays aren't for non-authoritative musing. My points were:

1. 'Attempt' is the origin of 'essay', not its current meaning. This sort of mistake is so common there's a fallacy (genetic) named for it, but a more compelling read than some entry in a dictionary of fallacies would be The Genealogy of Morals, Essay 2, section 12.

2. pg's essays aren't non-authoritative musing. I don't think he himself claims they are, even in the essay on essays. Exploratory and a process of discovery? Absolutely. But these things aren't necessarily evident in the final product and in any case can coexist with the pretense to authority.

Side note:

> In an essay, you discover what you think by writing it

This is simply a description writing, whence the dictum "writing is revising".

[sillysaurusx]

For what it’s worth, I explained the situation to a friend, and they read the essay and said it was their favorite. They said most of pg’s essays feel exhausting, and they don’t generally like reading them. So I guess I was mistaken, since the audience is the ultimate test of an essay.

It just felt painful to see so much left unsaid. But my friend said that it was immediately injected into the reader’s mind, and didn’t need to be said.

[gist]

My thought is that Paul should view his essays at least as seriously as someone who is writing an important college application essay given who the audience is (college admissions in that case; HN readers in this case among others). Or maybe someone writing an opinion piece for a newspaper that is widely read and taken as significant.

Imagine as an extreme (and not what PG is doing) if someone writing an 'essay' were to express objectionable stereotypes about people (women, minorities, certain women). [1] The point is if you have a following I think you need to take what you write (essay or not) more seriously. After all PG for whatever reason with his essays typically has several people review before posting which appears to not be consistent in a small way with the fact that an essay (by what you are saying) is about non-expertise. If that is the case why do you need others expertise to vet it before posting?

[1] If it's someone's point of view why does it bother people so much when it's expressed if they are stating it as their impression and not fact?

[dang]

If anyone is taking pg's essays as what they they ought to think rather than as what he happens to think, that's their problem, not pg's. I don't think anybody is taking them that way, though; people are just conjuring this up for some strange reason. Some even suggested that HN has this response!

Actually, I think I know the reason. pg writes to maximize brevity and directness. He's always interested in the shortest logical path from A to B. When language is optimized that way, it has a force that can sound like an implicit claim to authority. So his essays land that way with some readers, and then they react with a sort of protest: who is this guy and why does he get to act like an authority? But he isn't—what he's doing is stripping out everything extraneous, and that includes the soft touches that normally soothe the reader—"this is what I think", "your mileage may vary", that kind of thing. He's not stripping them out because he wants to provoke or thinks he's an expert or anything like that. Rather, it's a matter of taste. He likes to make things minimal. The same impulse is behind Bel, or the design of HN's front page. This is someone who might spend weeks getting rid of a single line of code if he was convinced the program could be shorter.

Before I met pg I thought it was impossible for someone to talk the way that he writes. But he does. He's always going for the shortest way to put things. What's clearer in spoken language than in writing is why he does this. It's for pleasure. In person it's infectious, because he clearly does it for its own sake and for fun. It's also essentially the thought process of an essayist: someone on the hunt for just the turn of phrase that makes a point in just the right way, and then moves on.

> If that is the case why do you need others expertise to vet it before posting?

They might think of something you missed or find parts that are unclear. But I don't think he's looking for experts so much as good readers.

[gist]

Actually very good reply to my reply. But I think there is another reason PG is this way. He has a math and a programmers brain. As such he would be more likely not to wrap his writing in superfluous wording and he would be more direct in how he makes his point. I am sure many of us have ran into people like this (I know that I have).

> He's always interested in the shortest logical path from A to B. When language is optimized that way, it has a force that can sound like an implicit claim to authority.

Agree which is why someone should take that into account when they write (they don't have to of course they (and PG) can do what they want that makes them happy).

I make money writing. And I do really mean 'make money writing'. I am not an author or a professional writer (what people think that means) but I earn a really good living and I do so by writing. And for the purpose of my comment here it's not important what it is that I do to earn that money. But it's considerable let's say. One thing that I do is always take into account what tone or mood I am trying to achieve to get what it is I want when I write. I don't obviously put the same effort into HN comments as I would when I am writing to make money or if I was writing something that many people would read of any importance (that I might be broadly judged on). So I guess this is my judgement on what PG has written and the way he writes. Fwiw I was not an english major, didn't study philosophy or the classics, didn't do particularly well in English class, didn't know even what you first said about essays either. My point is to me (in order to earn a living) the audience is super important.

[juped]

Anyone can be direct. Fewer can be direct while having a lot of money. I'd bet the latter is on more people's minds.

[dang]

That's probably a huge and mostly hidden factor. Another is the ambivalent reactions people have to influential personalities, which pg has been in this community.