The Age of the Essay (2004)
paulgraham.com
paulgraham.com
Professor Hall taught me how to write for pleasure. I'd known how to do that as a child, but I forgot at some point in High School, presumably while working on yet another paper on the symbolism of a book I disliked. It's past time we stopped doing that to students. I do believe that literature is good for the soul, and that literary analysis is a decent way to practice critical thinking, but it's a narrow slice of what writing can be.
In Linda Hall's classes, I wrote essays on the implications of technological progress, and blurbs for a cookbook, and someone's termination letter. After turning in that letter, Professor Hall brought in a colleague to play the part of the woman we'd fired, interviewed her about the company's hostile work environment, and tasked us with writing her appeal to HR. Every assignment was different, the variety was fun, and I use the skills they taught me every day.
Thank you so much Professor Hall.
I used to wonder where my penchant for writing “Dear Administrator” letters came from, and reading your post reminded me that as a high schooler I was encouraged to write these by basically every student club’s faculty advisor, anytime we needed money or supplies or other resources, or had a conflict, or any number of other scenarios—which of course in retrospect is great practice for life. Or at least, great practice for being a lawyer—and probably not a coincidence that half my high school friends chose that profession.
> The Internet is changing that. Anyone can publish an essay on the Web, and it gets judged, as any writing should, by what it says, not who wrote it. Who are you to write about x? You are whatever you wrote.
That being said, I think the above has contributed a bunch to sensationalism. Unbundling of writing from magazines and newspapers into little articles incentivizes writing individual articles that stand out -- clickbait, shockers, and half-truths.
Good writing and crisp thinking definitely still rises to the top, but so does controversy and stirring up emotions. So yes, essays have won, but it's less clear the kind of essay that Paul mentions ("a few topics you've thought about a lot, and some ability to ferret out the unexpected") are the ones that have won
First of all, the “what’s a real x” trope is pathetically lazy, lame as hell, and is a really great way to look like a jerk who thinks his own personal, temporally limited experience is somehow inherently “more true” and “more correct” than literally centuries of development and tradition. Then he goes on to try to make the ridiculous point that “an essay isn’t really about defending an argument” as he attempts to defend the argument that essays are not about defending arguments lol.
The arrogance and egotism of these sorts of essays always overshadow their otherwise redeemable points.