Volume 6 · The Unfinished Syllabus · Essay 244

Steelmanning

Steelmanning is a small handle on a large fact. Grip it, and the fact becomes easier to carry.

The idea is simple, and like most simple ideas it is easy to nod at and hard to use. The nod is free. The use costs attention, every day, in small change.

A good librarian is a quiet revolutionary. She knows that a child with a borrowing card and a long afternoon is more dangerous to ignorance than any syllabus.

Learning is the one wealth that survives every partition of fortune. Write it on the wall of the mind, not the wall of the house. The house already has enough instructions.