Author Helen Lewis’ recent book titled The Genius Myth is an interesting deep dive into a reality we all experience but might not have given much thought to or recognize. Yascha Mounk has an interesting interview on The Good Fight (titled Helen Lewis on The Genius Myth) for anyone who wants to get a good analysis of this discussion.
Lewis brings up some compelling questions and observations, all shaped by the reality of a cultural evolution that sees a shift from the concept of genius being a thing that stands external to the individual, to genius then becomminmg attached to the individual. Now the modern age is arguably on the precipice of yet another potential change in how we define and understand the concept of genius in the face of what are very real problems that emerged from this individualistic approach.
Part of the problem engages the question of whether this concept of genius is something we can live without. Arguably we cannot. What we can explore however is the differentiation between its ancient usage and its modern usage.
In a reductive sense, the concept of “genius” in a modern framework gets attached to accomplishment. Accomplishment gets attached to the myth of progress. And yet, part of what we are also finding is the rise of the individual as the necessary driving force of this modern myth.
Or perhaps less the individual and more the “representative.” Where the notion of genius has been reformulated to map on to the interests of humanism and western exceptionalism, we are no longer drawn by the external revelations and appeals to the transcendent that once shaped our human interests. Rather, we are drawn to our firm belief in the accomplishment of the human. In order for us to remake the world in OUR image, we need our genius’ to have a face and a story.
Here is where things get especially complex. First, it is true that genius is necessarily defined or measured by culturally positioned points in time. Second, it is also true that history is defined by the nameless masses of people who might have been a genius had they lived in a particular cultural moment but who never had the chance. For example, there could be endless potential “Steve Jobs,” while at the same time there can only be one. The one is the genius who is alive at the right place in the right time with the right factors.
Third, it is true that genius’ can even be created retroactively. This means that being a genius has less to do with the person than it does with what a particular society at a particular point in time shapes the genius into. Again, both representative and symbolic.
Fourth is the realization that there is an inate human need to draw out stories of genius. People need these myths. We crave the stories even more than the accomplishments.
Which is where the great contradiction of perceptions arise. When one looks at what the concept of the genius actually is, it becomes abundantly clear that such things have very little to do with the actual individuals the label gets attached to. At best what we have is the marriage of certain biological traits to any number of external factors. There is a sense, which is a point Lewis makes, in which progress is thus inevitable. It’s not about who, its about when. This is how contingent realities work.
And it is not only inevitable, it is also a matter of all things existing “in relationship.” Accomplishment, or progress, arises as a product of a cooperative and collobarative force. A force in which all things are interdependent. For example, it would be true to say that Einstein becomes a genius precisely because he was born into a world where emergent theory was at such a place as to pair with his particular biological makeup and numerous external factors. Does Einstein himself contribute to this? Yes. But only in so far as all of these things are colliding at this particular point in time. As the idea goes, if not Einstein, it would have eventually been any number of unnamed individuals. And any individual that gets adorned with the label genius are surrounded by an immense number of other factors, including other nameless persons.
And yet, it still appears to matter that the name Einstein exists all the same. Without our genius’ we don’t have culture. We don’t have our stories. We don’t have our modern myths that allow such things to emerge as progress.
Here in lies the conundrum, pressed further when we come to realize how these stories get shaped. Genius’, in the modern sense, often have outragious lives that are exempt from “ordinary laws.” They often need to suffer. They need the drama. The need to be the rebels, the outcasts, the tortured soul. An ordinary genius is no genius. It’s not enough for the name to exist, we need that name to be attached to something more than human. It is our own image as humans that is on the line after all. Even more fascinating to consider that once named genius’ whom stick around and persist for too long tend to fade from our conscisousness or become villains. They become defined not by the accomplishment that brought them into the limelight, but by the mundane life that tends to throw it into question or the failures that malign it. The only way to resurrect them is for their story to be recast following their deaths (which also does happen).
In terms of what this has all been leading me to think about, I wonder how much of this functions as a necessary critique of our modern obsessions with progress. After all, it would seem that if we lose our confidence in the idea that this world is moving forward, even if its moving forward towards an undefined aim, and if we start to doubt that we get the credit and praise for these accomplishments or this progress, the entire human enterprise appears to be thrown into question. Worse yet, we have the world this leaves in its wake, which is a world built on hierachies and measures of our own making. All of which consistently and persistently tell us where we do and don’t belong in the ranking of life.
Ironically, since we intuitively know that the vast majority of humanity is not considered genius, humanity as developed a penchant for scapegoats- as long as we aren’t the villain we can consider ourselves good enough to somehow be defined by the representative genius’.
This is debated, although I have read enough to be persuaded towards this idea, but it does appear that the world moves forward on the basis of a very select few with influence, while the vast majority of humnanity makes no difference at all beyond being numbers that the influerencers move in particular directions. Some of these people with influence become our genius’.
To be okay with this idea, the vast majority of humanity accepts that these genius’ are our representatives, while in reality this way of thinking and precieving the world and its genius’ is what hands us life’s greatest struggles, most readily relating to perceptions of meaning and worth and the real, tangible experiences of surviving in a world that places us within a very stark hierarchy.
Is it possible to convince ourselves that the answer lies in making small differences where we are? Certainly that is part of how we tend to respond (just browse the shelves of your local bookstore or library for evidence of this “the world is what you make it” mentality). We narrow our worlds to our families and friends and spaces of influence and profession. The problem is, these perceptions, this convincing ourselves that we can truly exist in these ways in a world defined by the modern genius, doesn’t map on to how reality actually works. Which is why we continue to prop up our genius’. A nameless world that can’t know and name its accomplishments or that doesn’t make any real difference is a defeatist one. For as long as our representatives exist and we aren’t the villain, we can convince ourselves that the opposite is true.
And thus around and around we go. But there is something I think we can glean from this portrait. This cycle, even if its rooted in something more universal, is a relatively modern one. One of the ways we can break it is by shifting our understanding of genius back to those external truths that once defined it. Genius in this sense is unearthed, uncovered and recieved. It is the source and foundation of our forward movement, precisely because it has the authority to give it meaning. This is something the modern world has largely lost in the wake of its changing allegiances from truth to self. What we have is a world shaped by technological advancments. A world reduced to data points, which not inconsequentially has created a recognizable meaning crisis. A crisis that many in the modern world are beginning to recognize as been there lurking under the surface for quite a while.
What do we do with our selves if the self is not the genius we thought it was?
One last thought. As a Christian, I can’t help but see in all of this a powerful connection between this idea of genius as revelation and the ensuing concept of the representative. In this sense, which aligns with a more ancient understanding, Genius is more akin to Logos. A Logos, in its proper sense, is a revelatory act. If one of the outcomes of the modern age has been reshaping the Logos in our own image, what happens if we see the representative of the genius reshaped in the image of the Logos instead? What I have found is, it is precisely when we do this that the hierachies disappear. That accomplishment no longer becomes enslaved to the self. Rather, genius can be found breaking into every culture and every age with its own particuarlity, with humanity and its accomplishments being contingent on this Truth and contextualized within this Truth.
In the Christian sense, then, the true genius is Jesus. The representative Logos in whom we find our own sense of identity and meaning. To me, this seems to make a lot more sense of the human enterprise, both in our experience of this and in our rejection.
The Stories of my Life 