To put it another way, is anyone really going to know Clojure without knowing the something about SICP? Is there anything out there that more fully captures Clojure's definition of functional programming than On Lisp or Learn You a Haskell for Great Good?
OK so here's where we differ. It's in our definitions [what could be more Clojuresque] of "learning Clojure". Sure, Clojure's syntax takes an hour versus the thirty minutes Ableson takes to cover Lisp syntax including the substitution model. Then what?
Well I'm saying the two things a person needs to learn Clojure are the practices already described in four decades of Lisp's literature and the Clojure interop. Without either piece, I won't know Clojure.
I agree. However, the Lisps all have subtle differences. For example, Clojure's interop is one difference, but it's not the only difference. These subtle differences still need to be explained in that Lisp's context to receive a full understanding of that Lisp. This is what I feel nonrecursive has achieved with his writing about FP in Clojure.
Still, though, I think you have it wrong about Clojure's design. You mentioned the talk "the value of values." Immutability and functional programming are core to Clojure's philosophy. This is pointed out on the clojure.org home page. I'm not sure why you think it's not?
Also, Clojure is meant to be a general-purpose language. Also from the home page: "It is designed to be a general-purpose language". So I'm not sure why you think otherwise? I started learning Clojure with 0 experience with the JVM, and many others are doing the same.
I'm also not sure what you mean by "education is entirely orthogonal to Clojure." I think you're commenting on the value of producing an introductory Clojure book? In any case - you mention that "there are better languages for teaching functional programming." The point of Clojure for the Brave and True is not to teach functional programming, it's to teach Clojure.