Jimmy Carr: philosopher?

Jimmy Carr has a book out and he gives a wide-ranging and very interesting interview here. Lots of unexpected insights into his life and more generally on success, how to get it and how to cope with it.

In one fascinating aside, Carr describes becoming better at schoolwork after some years being a rebel. He says he approached it not just by applying himself to subjects but instead by understanding the cultural code he was being asked to perform, a topic the economist Tyler Cowen also focuses on. Carr says that getting an A for a history essay is about understanding the form and what it needs to be, less than about knowing history. As a meta-insight, in the hands of an obviously very bright guy, I suspect that has stood him in good stead for all kinds of challenges.

If you’re interested in how to approach cultural code-cracking as a practice, try this.