That said, in the latter half of this post he backpedals and gives the "hacker culture" credit for being able to recognize his contributions, but still -- the title of the article isn't "On the openness of the RFC process in the 80s".
I don't know what to think about ESR. I disagree strongly with his interpretation of what hacker culture is, and how free software works, and personally I think it has taken us a long time to undo some of the damage he did to the discourse in both those areas. But he also legitimately influenced a lot of things for the better. Oddly, he seems to be unsatisfied with that level of achievement, and wants to be recognized as being a great statesman or visionary. If he claimed less credit he'd probably get more credit.
Some of them are hackers, but it seems a lot of them he meets through his other hobbies: wargaming, shooting, swordfighting, etc.
ESR is programming's William Shatner. His various doings get this big inflated ego ascribed to him, but in real life he's just this guy, you know?