Paul Graham wrote an excellent ‘essay’ proclaiming the death of the same. You can read it here. Graham speaks broadly of how the classical essay form, and the rigorous (and now superfluous?) standards which apply to it, is an ‘intellectual hangover’ from a time long gone. Graham’s essay urges us to follow our curiosity, and not too readily conform to the track that we ‘think’ we are meant to follow, narrowing our scope of inquiry and learning. There are many potential discussion points about the burning need to reform education for the current age but I would like to focus briefly on one thought that arose from reading Graham.

I often chide myself for being interested in too many things, trying to learn too little about too much, reminded of Lisa Simpson’s admonishment from a snotty British documentary maker. “So you’re more of a buffet-style intellectual? Picking and nibbling till one day you’re 38 and managing a Barnes and Noble”. However, the same sort of intellectual polymathmatics that I’ve been afraid of seems to be increasingly encouraged. Perhaps I grew up, already imbued with the fashionable hypertextual mentality.