Do you not see the irony in your post? Just like the people you lambaste, you also do not have a level-headed opinion, based on a 3rd party account and not personal experience.
I would put "getting my values from editorialized stories and school teachers" as one step below "getting my values from Reddit and Twitter" on the "how divorced from reality are my sensibilities" scale. Better, but not great.
Please, do point out the irony, since I clearly don't see it. I never claimed someone needed to have personal experience in this area to make a judgement. Everyone during the discussions was judging McCandless as he was presented in the book. Whether it was heavily editorialized or not is irrelevant, because everyone who was making the judgements were working with the same information. It could have been 100% fabricated, and it would still be ridiculous (in my opinion) to call him a hero.
