Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that both the author and a few of the commenters here suffer under the misapprehension that impostor syndrome is equivalent to a lack of confidence or arrogance, or to humility.
As far as I understand the phenomenon it is rather an inability to internalize accomplishments, resulting in a skewed perception of one's own competence.
Humility is, of course, important; but it is altogether something different from an irrational amount of self doubt, and impostor syndrome is thus clearly not valuable.
Please excuse any errors in the text above, as english is not my first language.
If English is not your first language God help the rest of us :)
I think your observation and analysis is spot on. And I think I may add to your assessment with a couple of other points.
1) "Imposter Syndrome" is an 'in' phrase at the moment, its use as currency marks out the speaker as being part of an 'in' crowd. Similarly when people use the expressions "onboarding" or "I'll just leave this here" or "ping" or "tl;dr" or any of the countless other expressions that serve as social status plumage.
2) The entire article implies being the author is smart. Look at me, I'm smart -- this is an unwritten all-but-explicit large part of the message of this post.
3) This is the type of post that HNers lap up. It's hip, it's got the right bounce, it talks about trendy social phenomena, weaves a satisfyingly yummy narrative. You have to ask yourself why these types of posts get so many comments and upvotes.
Thank you!
I wholeheartedly agree with your points.
How ironic it is then that the article lamenting the ability of "smart people" to "convincingly rationalize nearly anything" may, in a sense, itself be a rationalization of the author's own perceived smartness (as well as the smartness of those that might identify with him).
This is, of course, not to say that there are no good points in the article itself - there certainly are.
I honestly identified with it because it's been my observation that too many people decide on something and then rationalize it without considering their thought process for getting there.
And I'm always secretly afraid that I do it more than I think I do. So when I see the blog author describe something so exactly close to how I feel about it, it's gratifying.
As far as I understand the phenomenon it is rather an inability to internalize accomplishments, resulting in a skewed perception of one's own competence.
Humility is, of course, important; but it is altogether something different from an irrational amount of self doubt, and impostor syndrome is thus clearly not valuable.
Please excuse any errors in the text above, as english is not my first language.