You're very welcome. :)
I've run into some more supplementary analyses of this revolutionary brain, but I'm still disappointed that it's received so little press. Mainstream media indulges in what is at best a pop-psych interpretation and at worst a smear without bothering to look at Assange's
actual publication history. Perhaps this is because they don't know now to make it accessible to soundbyte consumers.
Robert Manne, however, has legitimately contributed to the discussion:
The Cypherpunk Revolutionary Julian Assange, a long article published at Cryptome, and in an audio interview at ABC Radio National, with
The untold story of Julian Assange. The article references Katchadourian's piece from the New Yorker as well, so
here's that.I don't agree with Manne on everything -- for example, I'm not convinced that Assange is a sexist -- but his analysis is obviously well-researched.
Still, as I read I'm finding problems with Manne's conclusions. On the subject of Assange being known (that is, known by Domscheit-Berg) to fabricate stories about his personal history:
Assange also told Dreyfus about a foundational political memory, an incident that had occurred while he was about four. His mother and a male friend had discovered evidence concerning the British atomic bomb tests that had taken place in Maralinga in greatest secrecy, which they intended to give to an Adelaide journalist. The male friend had been beaten by police to silence him. Christine had been warned that she was in danger of being charged with being "an unfit mother". She was advised to stay out of politics. For a four year old to grasp the political meaning of an encounter such as this seems a little improbable.
This seems decidedly off the point. For a child to remember an event that created emotional turmoil in his family is not strange, and neither is it strange for that child to ask questions about the event and receive a more thorough explanation of the context later in life. People commonly link memories in this way, by supplementing an original memory with additional explanatory information, rather than creating and keeping totally separate memories every time a new bit of information about the original memory is obtained. This common economy of memory is massively useful, and is also well-known, as it's what makes all of us susceptible to suffering errors in our own memories from time to time.
So take Manne's perceptions with a grain of salt, I guess. This intellectual seems lacking in common sense.
I may add more to this comment as I read, or I may just stop bothering to read if I get too frustrated. The inability to suffer fools gladly makes for an excellent time-management strategy.
EDIT: After getting back to reading, I have to correct myself. The passage I criticized was a minor hiccup rather than an indicator of simplicity. This is a fantastic article.
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