I’ve been reading and listening to
for years, so it was especially exciting to interview her for Reason about her new book, The Genius Myth: A Curious History of a Dangerous Idea.I can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s not a dismissal of individual differences and ability levels, but it shows how concepts and categories we take for granted are built up over time, are constantly changing, and typically serve unacknowledged ends. This is what the best social commentary does: It de-naturalizes seemingly self-evident categories and shows how they are created. All of her work is worth consuming, but if you are interested in the broad idea of ‘genius,’ I also highly recommend her 2023 podcast series The New Gurus.
The Genius Myth shows how what it means to be a genius has changed radically over the centuries (it was something very different for the ancient Greeks, for instance), how it became linked to all sorts of weird biological theories, and how Elon Musk has come to personify genius in our time (we discuss whether his failure at the Department of Government Efficiency spells the end of his particular genius moment).
We talk about The Beatles, who illustrate many things about genius, including the way the concept often serves nationalist interests—along with William Shakespeare, the Fab Four are probably England’s biggest cultural export. Helen makes a strong case for Paul McCartney ultimately being more interesting than John Lennon, who is usually accorded greater standing as a ‘genius’; as important, we discuss how and why most scientists, inventors, and artists go on creative streaks that eventually end.
We also talk about William Shockley, the sad sack who turned to racial science after winning a Nobel Prize for helping to invent the transistor and scaring away virtually everybody in Silicon Valley from working with him. In her book, she discusses how Shockley’s obsession with IQ is especially ironic because he was deemed unsuitable to participate as a kid in psychologist Lewis Terman’s famous study of young ‘geniuses’ (Shockley was one of two future Nobel laureates who didn’t make the cut!).
Helen’s previous book was Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights. We revisit some of the people and themes of that book, since ‘genius’ is a heavily gendered construct (The Genius Myth has a great chapter about professional widows of geniuses, such as Sonia Orwell, and the artist Lee Krasner, who midwifed much of Jackson Pollock’s posthumous fame). We talk about U.K. vs. U.S. feminism, especially as it relates to intersectionality and trans issues.
And we revisit her incredible 2018 interview for British GQ of Jordan Peterson, which has racked up over 70 million views. It’s an amazing conversation that remains current and interesting—and reflects many of the themes of The Genius Myth, especially an egghead version of mission creep: Why is it that so many people who are good at certain domains come to believe that they are expert in all things?
Here are the section headings of our conversation. Below that you’ll find embed of YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and Soundcloud versions. If you go to the Reason page, you’ll also find a full transcript.
0:00— Introduction
1:36— The Genius Myth
7:20— How dead geniuses fueled national myths
11:30— Thomas Carlyle and the Great Man theory
18:18— Are inventions inevitable?
23:22— Francis Galton and eugenics
33:35— Pro-natalism and declining fertility rates
37:14— William Shockley
48:00— Shakespeare and The Beatles
57:22— Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, and the gender dimensions of genius
1:03:50— Lewis' Jordan Peterson interview
1:07:18— Germaine Greer and second wave feminism
1:11:05— The gender debate in the UK vs US
1:14:14— Elon Musk's rise and fall?
1:20:57— Do geniuses have second acts?
Upcoming events:
Reason Versus debate: Jacob Sullum and Billy Binion vs. Charles Fain Lehman and Rafael Mangual, June 24
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