Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
I here refer to the online essay "The Morality of Laughter by F.H. Buckley", by Kelley L. Ross.
This is the second time that I have read a meaningful reference to this novel in a work that I admire. The first reference was in Eric S. Raymond's Jargon Files, where he defines the word "grok". It is a popular hacker term, and is borrowed from Heinlein's novel. The literal meaning of "grok" is "to drink", although its common meaning is "to understand", with the implication being that if one groks a subject, then one has a deep and intuitive understanding of it. The concept of grokking is extremely important in hackerdom. It is, for example, one of the things that distinguishes a merely competent programmer from a truly wizardly one. The wizardly programmer groks programming, whereas the merely competent programmer can only understand it.
The reference to Stranger in this essay also employs the word "grok", which is part of why I like it. It reinforces my earlier exposure to this word. It is also in the context of describing the attempt of Valentine Michael Smith, the hero of the novel, to understand laughter. In his attempt, he first says, "I grok wrongness", where "grok" is here used to mean "perceive" and "wrongness" is meant to indicate that the laughter seems to him to be a kind of cruelty. This usage of "grok" also reinforces its usage as "to understand deeply". To grok something is partly to be perceptive of it, to have gained a deep insight into its structure. Another intriguing thing is that Ross claims that Heinlein's thesis in the novel is the same as his own. That is, the purpose of laughter is to protect us from life's sorrows and misfortunes.
This references to the book are starting to fascinate me. Valentine Michael Smith, as a human being raised by Martians, is intended to be a barometer of the human condition. The book sounds like it has been written with a certain perceptiveness about same, which is making me want to read it next after I finish The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
In fact, my motivation for reading Stranger is indeed quite similar to that for reading Structure. I kept reading a large number of references to Structure in other works that led me to want to read it as well. One simply gets intrigued to discover just what it is that people are talking about.
This is the second time that I have read a meaningful reference to this novel in a work that I admire. The first reference was in Eric S. Raymond's Jargon Files, where he defines the word "grok". It is a popular hacker term, and is borrowed from Heinlein's novel. The literal meaning of "grok" is "to drink", although its common meaning is "to understand", with the implication being that if one groks a subject, then one has a deep and intuitive understanding of it. The concept of grokking is extremely important in hackerdom. It is, for example, one of the things that distinguishes a merely competent programmer from a truly wizardly one. The wizardly programmer groks programming, whereas the merely competent programmer can only understand it.
The reference to Stranger in this essay also employs the word "grok", which is part of why I like it. It reinforces my earlier exposure to this word. It is also in the context of describing the attempt of Valentine Michael Smith, the hero of the novel, to understand laughter. In his attempt, he first says, "I grok wrongness", where "grok" is here used to mean "perceive" and "wrongness" is meant to indicate that the laughter seems to him to be a kind of cruelty. This usage of "grok" also reinforces its usage as "to understand deeply". To grok something is partly to be perceptive of it, to have gained a deep insight into its structure. Another intriguing thing is that Ross claims that Heinlein's thesis in the novel is the same as his own. That is, the purpose of laughter is to protect us from life's sorrows and misfortunes.
This references to the book are starting to fascinate me. Valentine Michael Smith, as a human being raised by Martians, is intended to be a barometer of the human condition. The book sounds like it has been written with a certain perceptiveness about same, which is making me want to read it next after I finish The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
In fact, my motivation for reading Stranger is indeed quite similar to that for reading Structure. I kept reading a large number of references to Structure in other works that led me to want to read it as well. One simply gets intrigued to discover just what it is that people are talking about.
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