No, I agree that Conrad shouldn't be teaching Emacs. He could have explained how to use any old text editor by loading from the REPL though.
I just don't want to learn Emacs. I just don't want to learn Emacs. I didn't think this was a controversial point. Why does learning lisp mean learning Emacs?
Why does learning Lisp mean learning Emacs? Because it is the best available environment for Lisp, at least among free ones.
Mobody forces you to learn Emacs, but then you either have to pay for commercial IDEs, or use some unhelpful (even hostile, if you are used to benefits provided by sophisticated IDEs) enviroment. You can also set up Eclipse plugins which nobody in the Lisp world heard about, let alone uses. You can use simple text editor and go back to the way software was written in 70s. All these things because you refuse to use some piece of software, and yet are willing to learn others. The choice is yours, of course.
Emacs is well worth the time, though; I agree with you.