I think the reason is that I was
so hopelessly rejected that for me, there wasn't
anything to gain by trying to follow any of the fads.
It wouldn't have made any difference. I'd still be just
as rejected, so I didn't try."
Stallman points to his taste in music as a key example
of his contrarian tendencies. As a teenager, when most
of his high school classmates were listening to Motown
and acid rock, Stallman preferred classical music. The
memory leads to a rare humorous episode from Stallman's
middle-school years. Following the Beatles' 1964
appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, most of Stallman's
classmates rushed out to purchase the latest Beatles
albums and singles. Right then and there, Stallman
says, he made a decision to boycott the Fab Four.
"I liked some of the pre-Beatles popular music,"
Stallman says. "But I didn't like the Beatles. I
especially disliked the wild way people reacted to
them. It was like: who was going to have a Beatles
assembly to adulate the Beatles the most?"
When his Beatles boycott failed to take hold, Stallman
looked for other ways to point out the herd-mentality
of his peers.
Pages:
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153