Ask the Box

24 sep 06

"Care to expand on your feelings about ESR?"

i have complex feelings on esr.

first of all, i should tell you (not the asker, but my other readers) what or who "esr" is. e.s.r. are the initials of eric steven raymond ("esr" is his "handle", or login/internet name).

eric steven raymond is some middle-aged guy who lives in a philadelphia suburb, possibly with his wife, even though i can't quite figure out the nature of their relationship, or even if it still exists. he employs himself in matters related to computing, but mostly he just seems to write a lot on the web and whore his personality all over creation.

eric has answered two of my emails! the creators of homestar runner did, too. but most e-people don't bother, so i've given up on my old habit of writing to random entities whose email addresses i find on the web (i've had a few random people write to me over the years of my web-presence -- i'm ignoring the context of this project, which is centered around random people writing me).

all web persona provide contact info, and then some aren't interested in contact -- odd, no? i guess i didn't write anything of interest or importance. maybe if i made a an e-death threat, they'd be more receptive. coincidentally (i stress this), esr recently received a politically-motivated email death threat, according to his blog.

which brings me back to the discussion on "what esr is". esr is, among other things, a supporter of the "war on terror", u.s. military presence in iraq, and the free market, and is a self-proclaimed "libertarian fundamentalist". i don't doubt the genuity of his convictions, particularly, but some individual psychology lies behind them, an individual psychology i believe to be disturbingly similar to my own.

esr is almost pathologically narcissistic. he's also something i like to call an "iconoclastic conservative"; i hesitate to call him a reactionary conservative, because "reactionary" has sort of lost its meaning in that context. but he's like me in that he's so annoyed by liberal culture (and human beings in general who are not precicely like him) that he "votes for bush out of spite", as it were. but politics is merely a manifestation of a larger issue.

a google search like this one will provide an excellent summary of a given website: `site:website.com`. this form will return all indexed pages in the order of their pagerank (google's perception of their importance). it's a better tool for "portrait of a man/website" than esr's own automatically generated sitemap, which is weird, UNIX-y, and confusing.

Results 1 - 10 of about 8,120 from catb.org for . (0.15 seconds)

holy crap. here's a similar google sitemap for his blog. anyway, visit and assess for yourself. i know that a lot of people share my views on esr.

eric stresses the fact that he's not a "liberal" or "conservative". i picked up on some desperation to invent ways in which he is not a conservative, just to match the ten items in the ways he isn't a liberal. according to him, more or less the only ways he's not a conservative are in that he doesn't hate homosexuals, and doesn't like religion. a lot of the problem with esr isn't that he holds mean views (although i think they're mostly uncompassionate), but that he presents them in a mean way; it's sometimes hard to stay rational and follow along with someone's principles, ideals, or even practice, without one's comprehension being affected by the perception of that someone as a personality.

eric is essentially, and at heart, adversarial -- he is a bellicose creature, and is most comfortable when fighting. he endeavors to anger with his language, so that he can feel that he's making readers feel defeated and small. this isn't dissimilar to what i do.

i've been obsessed with esr for a few years now, and i'm not entirely sure how it began. but i can tell you why it began -- i saw (and see) him as being mostly an unpleasant person with unpleasant views (i've tried to seperate these traits, with only some success), but i can't ignore the corellations to my own unpleasantness. whenever i find myself trashing the free market or advocating tax charity, i can hear, in the back of my head, esr nastily mocking me, humiliating me in a william f. buckley sort of way, and throwing virtual tomatoes at my head. i even went so far as to adopt his own brand of market conservatism for a short time, even though i hadn't thought it through at all.

he's such an energetic, emotional, conveyant, and ultimately persuasive writer that it's hard not to get fired up by what he says, and start "agreeing" with it, even while ignoring the content, or only failing to notice it.

his personality is truly overwhelming, and of course is the barrel of the gun that shoots off his views. which reminds me: he supports firearm ownership unhindered by gun laws, and makes a more vital issue of this than i think it deserves. i don't think gun control is a very important consideration, but eric enjoys the controversy it generates, because of the aforementioned fundamentally adversarial nature. also, he just likes guns, as i did (and still do, mildly) -- i used to have an "illustrated encyclopedia of firearms". i'd draw pictures from it, and one easter made a "bread gun" in lieu of a "bread bunny". liking guns is illustrative of a violent nature, if anything is.

i'm a little left of center regarding gun control, but not entirely out on the pier, feet dangling in the water. but as i said, i just don't think it's an issue worth much consideration, except as perhaps some sort of metaphor for civil liberties. but it comes with the package deal of libertarianism, which is a convenient way to say "i don't fit into any category, man!" while not having to be creative enough to actually create your own category.

eric isn't on the fence about anything -- it's one of his raisons d'etre. his qualities of mind are intensity and extremism; it's much easier to confront people when your views are totally polarized. at his essence, he's simply a very aggressive person, more so than i am, although we share a style of presentation, perhaps some political views, and i fear a personality.

i've noticed that unilateralism and absolutism are disorders that geeks and nerds suffer from. geeks are incapable, either intellectually or in principle, of "sitting on the fence", even though this is the only logical course of action, in my opinion. this is in fact what i really liked about john kerry, and how i justified voting for him: he was always changing his mind, and never seemed quite sure about anything. you know what they say about wise men, fools, and certainty. bush, on the other hand, is known for being "firm in his convictions".

esr is a self-affirmed hacker/geek. i've observed that "geeky unilateralism" again and again to come out of scientists, computer nerds, etc -- left-brainers, essentially. this is why geeks love computers, and logic -- there are no grey areas. everything is either 0 or 1, right or wrong. geeks aren't able to tolerate or even comprehend ambiguity -- it just doesn't fit, unless "ambiguity" is considered a discreet category in and of itself, even though it can't be deconstructed in a scientific way.

esr's computer-related lifestyle is related to his politics. in fact, it's essential to it. polarity and logic (IF x OR [NOT q] THEN [y OR b] AND [NOT a]) applies to his dealings with others, politics, money, computers, and everything: all conscious objects are dealt with as binary circuits.

in a weird sort of way, i worship esr, although not so much anymore. it has something to do with my worship of intelligence, worship of mathematical and computer competence, and need to let the hate flow.

i even stalked him a while back -- i know his address by heart, and even confirmed it with the polar coordinates he gives on his personal site. even as i write, i fantasize that he's going to find this page with a google search on himself (i'd bet $5 that he does this relatively often, just as i do). basically, he's a violent narcissist, like me; he reflects those character flaws in me that i not-so-secretly enjoy, like some kind of sweet and fatty treat that i know isn't good for me.

most people around me are leftists -- this is simply the rule of the game; i come from a relatively educated and well-off family, which is a sure recipe for liberalism. so, like eric, my fundamental need to be different and piss people off is going to make me focus on those areas of my fuzzy and unsure politics that might be argued to be conservative, and present them with a smirk, just to anger liberals, even though all the while some part of me knows better. it's horrible, really. i once told someone that my political views correspond to the polar opposite of any group which at that time surrounds me. the fact is that i don't care much about how humanity rules itself or allocates resources, so my stance on it can conveniently serve other purposes, such as "to annoy people".

having almost no real-world experience, i live in a realm of fantasy and idealism, one that can be flipped around at any given moment, depending on my mood and my whim, and without any repurcussions whatsoever.

i like the personality esr presents (or perhaps only "love to hate it"), even though it's a hateful one (perhaps because it's a hateful one), so i've found myself monkeying him, since my views are so gossamer, transient, and mouldable that they can and do correspond to whatever psychological trick i'm currently playing on myself.

i'm a very typical narcissist -- there are two entities in the universe: me, and The Other. esr feels the same way, although i don't think he has the willingness, interest or perhaps ability to make psychological analyses that explain and predict behavior. eric is mostly uninterested in self-reflection and mostly in the dark concerning his self-awareness, whereas i tend to overdo it.

oh yeah -- esr does some computer stuff, a thing in which i have very limited interest. he's an "open source" advocate ("open source" computer programs are open to modification by any and all programmers, thus enjoying the benefits and pitfalls of collaborative development), programs computers, and lives and breathes UNIX. he's a lot smarter than i am, too, which contributes to my weird hatred-worship.

he is the incarnate of those traits in myself that i don't rationally see as beneficial, but enjoy anyway. esr, like conservatism, is a bad habit and an addiction. "you should try it sometime", says the drug pusher. thoughts of "everything is going according to plan, and your yowling is not only hurting my ears and is reflecting your stupidity" are a lot of fun, if you don't pay too close attention to the content of the yowling. but even the content of liberal whining is a target: it's easy to make fun of and disregard any sort of idealism, especially unilateral idealism.

when someone asks "what are your hobbies?", i say "conservatism".

conservatism flatters my egomania and narcissims, because it's based around the individual and his needs/wants. i suppose this is just the way i see conservatism -- as somewhat fundamentally wrong and evil. and this is why i love it so -- i can be a very hateful person, and it's nice to have such a convenient lens through which to focus my disdain for the universe. if i'm in a bad mood, i become quite conservative.

but mainly, here's what i love about conservatism: it allows me to remain allied with my (lack of) principles. if you're a liberal, then it's implied that you want to change the world. if you aren't doing it, then you're a hypocrite, which is so unbearable that conservatism is an easy refuge ("everything's fine! shut up!"). it's a similar problem i see in christianity -- how can you call yourself a christian if you aren't out there, evangelizing every moment of every day, trying to save hell-bound humanity from itself?

you can't -- you're a hypocrite, and don't really believe the things you say. same thing with liberalism. put up or shut up, essentially; conservatism is a good way to avoid coming under the scrutiny that yields analyses like that. it's hard to argue with "i don't give a shit, and i'm not doing anything about it".

in principle, when my mind occasionally wanders down that way, i muse "yeah, we should help the homeless", but then i get distracted by what's on TV. but ideals are useless, which is a big part about what i find objectionable about (most? many?) liberals: they're stuck in a fantasy world that precludes action (even if they were interested in it), because their "goals" are so unconsidered, broad, unattainable, and abstract ("feed the hungry"). how can you call yourself a liberal if you aren't out there every second of every day, easing the pain and suffering of humanity?

ok, back to esr. basically, i think he's a narcissistic, affectedly-iconoclastic, violent fifty-year-old baby, something i might very easily turn into if i'm not careful, if i haven't already. i don't care about the open source and UNIX stuff, and neither does any other halfway-normal person (are you even dimly aware of it?). but the mark of the beast is that people get involved in their subcultures to the point where they start to fantasize that their subculture has world-changing repercussions. computers just don't matter as much as people like me think they do, especially when i'm clacking their keys.

esr scares liberals away -- 90% of the people posting on his comment boards are conservatives who chastise esr for being too liberal. furthermore, i'm sure he loves this, just like bill o'reilly does -- everyone knows bill is conservative, but he can fantasize about being uncategorizable by pointing out that he enjoys some criticism by a few right-wingers.

i've talked about myself more than i've talked about esr, but that's sort of the point: i was (and still am, but less-so) obsessed with him, because i see so much of myself in him. i'm truly sick -- i've even written him letters that flatter his own views, just to get him to like me. i need therapy.

truthfully, i don't know what my political views are -- they're whatever i think i can write about. and, because i write with vitriol and criticism most easily, i tend to gravitate towards the right on a lot of things. also, i'm scared of the right, and am afraid they're somehow going to "get me" if i disagree with them, unlike the left, who are a bunch of wimps who don't own guns.

i respect (maybe it's safer to say "i note") that conservatives tend not to be idealists. they pretty much keep quiet, looking out for number one, and don't talk about what society should be doing. this stance is essential to conservatism -- not necessarily a need not to change the world, but a need not to care. i can support that in principle, because i by and large don't care either.

i've mentioned that i hold neither principles nor morals, at least in an abstract way. i'm not totally without empathy though, and can feel it strongly when suffering is happening right in front of me. but if i'm just sitting around, isolated from the living world, my statements tend to be manifestations of "screw you, you're not worthy of even a glance". a good solution would be to go out on a peace corps mission and see some true poverty and miserable suffering for myself; it wouldn't be so easy to keep it in the realm of fantasy and abstraction then. i remember vividly an elderly homeless woman i saw on the san francisco BART who literally broke my heart.

remember what will rogers said: "all i know is what i read in the papers". some people don't get this joke. what will means is that he's not out there observing anything firsthand -- all he does is read some characters on a piece of paper, and this amounts to his narrow and fantastic portrait of the world. all i do is watch some electrons bouncing off of a screen, which amounts to my portrait of the world. we go to the grocery store, hardware store, and video store, but we don't know what's really happening in the world outside of our plastic suburban corridors, simply because we haven't observed it.

time to trash the free market some more (you know you can't get enough): if there are people suffering, doesn't it seem like the logical thing to do is to reach out and help them directly? ie, if they're sick, give them medicine, and if they're hungry, give them food? we can't afford to rely on some free market fantasy to provide for all (especially because it's been demonstrated not to do so). it's obviously better to distribute medicine, than to say "people will buy medicine once they have enough money, which they obviously will once enough corporations spring up".

esr talks a lot about communism and socialism in eastern europe and russia, and how they were these monstrous evils that demonstrate that the only way to salvation is through free market capitalism -- another extreme, polarized stance, as is the norm for mr. raymond. what he doesn't seem to get is that these governments were fascist and dictatorial -- by no means were they communist or even socialist. real communism, although it might be a ridiculous pipe dream, is necessarily married to democracy -- it's closer to anarchism than anything else, which is ironically what esr espouses (even though there are inherent problems with anarchism, namely, that it's tautologically impossible to enforce).

the misdirected leaders of "communist" movements in eastern europe, china, and russia knew that a communist ideal is, indeed, democratic (no need for government -- the people rule), and named their countries things like "the people's republic of china" and "the democratic republic of korea", even though the people living there did anything but rule.

i think, and i find somewhat, that i've become a little bit softer and more tolerant since my days of fanatical esr love-hate. so maybe it's time to forget about eric steven raymond, even though i do like to check his blog from time to time, if for no other reason than to see whom he's trying to piss off this time.

that was incredibly, shamefully long. i'm not going back to revise it. ok, i probably will.