flâneur

Impro is a handbook for running a cult

seangoedecke.com · 3,110 words · saved by 1 readers

This take doesn’t sound particularly original, but references to Impro pop up in all kinds of places: in influential tech blogs, as part of the initial process of onboarding for Palantir, and on the reading list of multiple big-tech founders. Impro is part of the secret canon of Silicon Valley, right alongside books like Seeing Like a State and The Power Broker. Why is that? For two reasons: first, because Johnstone’s outsider critique of established institutions is appealing; and second, because Impro is a handbook for running a cult. The part of Impro that is most obviously useful to software engineers is Johnstone’s chapter on status. According to him, status games pervade all social interactions. Even innocuous, friendly conversations operate in terms of status. When you apologize or downplay something to “be nice”, that’s performing low status; when you reassure somebody, that’s performing high status; when you and a friend are comparing stories, you’re making friendly bids for st

Here’s the big idea in Keith Johnstone’s book Impro: Children are naturally creative, but are violently formed into repressed adults by Western culture and education The process of becoming more creative and expressive is largely a process of unlearning these habits of repression Improv — improvisational comedy — is thus not just the skeleton key for learning to act, but for unlocking a more authentically human way of life This take doesn’t sound particularly original, but references to Impro pop up in all kinds of places: in influential tech blogs, as part of the initial process of…

saved by

related reading