Name: Anonymous 2008-10-24 16:36
Excerpted from http://lispy.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/lisp50-notes-part-i-johnl-recalls-how-sussman-revealed-nature-of-intelligence/
JonL spoke about growing up in the Ozarks. He talked about how his parents influenced him intellectually and genetically. He talked about how racist everyone was there and how he took the slurs personally somehow…. He talked about how he ended hanging out with Jews and how he sort of became, as it were, an “honorary Jew” because they figured if he was so smart, he must be a Jew, too. (I’m trying not to mangle this too badly.) So Sussman asks him one day, “Why are Jews so smart?” Now, JonL was pained at recounting the answer he gave. He confessed to having picked up on some the racism that was endemic to the Ozarks. “Uh… must be their genes,” he’d said back then. Sussman was very irritated at this answer. “WRONG,” he said, “it’s the LAW!”
I have no idea how many people “got” this. JonL wasn’t too sure either. The default assumption is that we’re all rabid libertarians and atheists, I suppose. JonL explained that Sussman was referring to the Torah… the Jewish scriptures. Sussman argued that because Jewish fathers are required to teach their children how to read and write– so they could understand the Law– that this somehow gave them a fantastic intellectual foundation. JonL referred to a talk that Sussman gave somewhere– it was extemporaneous, but better than most prepared talks. (I want to see this talk if anyone finds a recording!) JonL was totally blown away by this talk… the best thing he’d ever heard. But in it, Sussman argued that intelligence was transmittable and improvable. Somehow, if you can (legitimately) learn more words, you expand your ability to think. This tied into symbolic thinking being about giving names to things. (This reminds me of that strange story in Genesis about Adam naming the animals in the garden of Eden.) Sussman said, “great ideas can be understood by an ordinary person.”
JonL spoke about growing up in the Ozarks. He talked about how his parents influenced him intellectually and genetically. He talked about how racist everyone was there and how he took the slurs personally somehow…. He talked about how he ended hanging out with Jews and how he sort of became, as it were, an “honorary Jew” because they figured if he was so smart, he must be a Jew, too. (I’m trying not to mangle this too badly.) So Sussman asks him one day, “Why are Jews so smart?” Now, JonL was pained at recounting the answer he gave. He confessed to having picked up on some the racism that was endemic to the Ozarks. “Uh… must be their genes,” he’d said back then. Sussman was very irritated at this answer. “WRONG,” he said, “it’s the LAW!”
I have no idea how many people “got” this. JonL wasn’t too sure either. The default assumption is that we’re all rabid libertarians and atheists, I suppose. JonL explained that Sussman was referring to the Torah… the Jewish scriptures. Sussman argued that because Jewish fathers are required to teach their children how to read and write– so they could understand the Law– that this somehow gave them a fantastic intellectual foundation. JonL referred to a talk that Sussman gave somewhere– it was extemporaneous, but better than most prepared talks. (I want to see this talk if anyone finds a recording!) JonL was totally blown away by this talk… the best thing he’d ever heard. But in it, Sussman argued that intelligence was transmittable and improvable. Somehow, if you can (legitimately) learn more words, you expand your ability to think. This tied into symbolic thinking being about giving names to things. (This reminds me of that strange story in Genesis about Adam naming the animals in the garden of Eden.) Sussman said, “great ideas can be understood by an ordinary person.”