I found out about this through another computer history book, which noted the “macho” programming culture that pervaded the elite and anachronistically all-male university.

But out of all this privilege emerges the most radically democratic computer language and system architecture of its times. I wondered why.

Kemeny doesn’t mention his philosophy directly, but it leaks through in asides. He was appalled by people deferring to computers, and the people who programmed them.