Genius is . . .

I ran into some semantic trouble over dim-sum lunch the other day with two friends, Andy and Jim. They had a lot to say about the issues raised on this blog, but we kept getting stuck on terminology, starting with the word "genius."

Andy wanted to distinguish between "genius" and "greatness" in the following way: genius is a person's extraordinary ability, which is not always harnessed; greatness is the extraordinary achievement itself. Jim, who was paying for lunch and therefore had special status at the table, was inclined to agree.

I resisted. I've been pretty sloppy with my use of "genius" so far, but I've mostly been taking my cue from Michael J.A. Howe, who argues in his book Genius Explained that genius is a cultural construct, and therefore is inevitably connected to accomplishment.

"Describing a person as a genius is not like stating that he or she is tall, or even intelligent or clever. The word is never introduced soley as a description of an individual: it always denotes a recognition of outstanding accomplishments. If you are unconvinced about that, try to think of someone who is widely regarded as having been a genius but who never produced highly valued creative work...If a baker is someone who makes a bread, a genius is a man or woman who produces masterpieces or discoveries that greatly impress other people."

Dean Keith Simonton, author of Origins of Genius and a giant in the field, agrees with Howe, preferring what he calls the "eminence" definition over the high-I.Q. definition, for a few reasons. "The word is commonly used to refer to those individuals whose impact on history is most widely recognized," Simonton writes. He also argues that "genius" connotes a uniqueness which is impossible to appreciate without taking particular accomplishments into account. 

Merriam-Webster, on the other hand, seems to support Andy and Jim's purer notion of genius-as-aptitude. After running through the more archaic uses, it lists this definition:

"a. A single strongly marked capacity or aptitude; b. extraordinary intellectual power especially as manifested in creative activity; c. a person endowed with transcendent mental superiority; especially : a person with a very high IQ."

So which it: Is genius a raw ability that may or may not be activated, or is it a mature skill set visible only upon its deployment? The distinction might seem trivial, but the popular ambiguity of the word's meaning goes to the heart of discussion and debate about intelligence and talent. Is there such a thing as an unaccomplished genius? Can a person be a genius without actually doing great things?

I still think not, for several reasons.

1.  High I.Q. does not = Genius.
As already outlined elsewhere on this blog, I.Q. tests do a reasonably good job of measuring an individual's analytical intelligence, and ranking it among the general population. But raw analytical intelligence is a far leap from the ground-breaking creativity and dynamism that we commonly associate with genius. Not surprisingly, I.Q. tests cannot predict who will show even inklings of genius. Most geniuses probably do have an above-average I.Q., but there is no proven lower limit. The reknowned Genius physicist Richard Feynman was proud to remind people that his I.Q. was only slightly above average. Jane Piirto, author of Understanding Those Who Create, has suggested that talented performers can do quite well with an I.Q. of 100 -- dead average.
    Accepting that high I.Q. does not correlate to real genius means has two immediate implications:
    1) One does not necessarily need extraordinary school-smarts to make extraordinary contributions in their chosen field (ala Bruce Springsteen's remark here).
    2) While we should demand excellence everywhere in society, we should not burden young academic stars with unfair expectations of future genius. A high I.Q. is a nice start, a useful ingredient, but nothing more.

2. Genius is not a kernal, but a kaleidescope, .
Study after study shows that what we think of as genius (and more ordinary talent) is never the result of a single ability, but rather a massive aggregation of distinct qualities, each critical. They include: curiosity (Tannenbaum, 1983), persistence (Renzulli, 1978) flexibility (Davidson, 1992), resilience (Jenkins-Friedman 1992a, b), risk-taking (MacKinnon, 1978; Torrance, 1987), and passion (Benbow, 1992). Articulating all these qualities and where they come from is the primary focus of this blog/book.

3. Genius is relative.
The essence of genius lies in a person breaking out of a conventional paradigm: Einstein conceiving of E=MC2, Mozart composing his Requiem, Proust writing Remembrance of Things Past. No one would today accuse me of genius for being able to discuss the theory of relativity or being able to write at great length about the relationship of sense and memory. Yesterday's genius is tomorrow's ordinary knowledge or experience. (Thanks, Pete).
     If genius is all about challenging the intellectual/artistic status quo, then it doesn't exist until that challenge is actually mounted. We might say that we suspect someone of having the potential for genius, that we have high hopes for someone. But without the revelation of the actual ground-breaking idea or work, the genius clearly has not fully formed.

4. Genius is subjective, and rhetorical.
Except for a small handful of transcendent figures, the planet will never agree on who is and who isn't a genius. People wield the term loosely (recklessly?) and for a variety of reasons. In a TV studio recently, former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson called me a genius (before they started rolling tape) for writing a book he likes. I happen to believe that my friend Dan Seiden is a musical genius, but you've never even heard of him and so far no record executive is inclined to agree. (Dan himself won't even put a lot of his rawest and most powerful and most plaintively beautiful stuff online, forcing his friends to take matters into their own hands).   
    Not only can we not agree on who is and isn't a genius -- we can't agree on why someone is a genius. Is David Byrne a genius because of his unique mind -- or is it his unique songs, or his life-long, inspiring eclecticism? Is the savant Daniel Tammet -- who can verbalize pi to 22,500 decimal places and who learned the Icelandic language in a week -- a genius because an accident of biology makes him one of fifty true savants, OR is he a genius because he may be the only savant in the world who can elegantly articulate what he's going through? Reasonable people will argue one or the other.    
    I've noticed that people generally use the word in three different ways. 
   1. As a shorthand for someone with a high I.Q.
   2. As a way of expressing the otherness of a remarkable achiever -- Mozart, Einstein, Tiger Woods. We think of these people as being somehow beyond conventional human abilities and understanding. It helps us to think of them as somehow super-human.
   3. As an attempt to catapult a generally-unknown person into wider esteem. "You should read her essay -- she's a genius."

For all the above reasons, even with the slippery nature of the word, I don't think there is such thing as an "unaccomplished genius." But can a genius be unheralded? Absolutely. I disagree with Howe and Simonton on their pre-requisite of worldwide recognition. If the essence of genius is a person doing something new and special, we would expect public recognition of its importance to take a while. The MacArthur Foundation seems to make this point nicely with its "genius grants" -- even though the foundation officially does not use that loaded word. In its fellowship program, MacArthur recognizes "talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction." MacArthur fellows are usually not yet renowned, and seem to be in the midst of a fertile period where their accomplishments are A) already substantial, but which B) also strongly hint of one's best work yet to come. It's as if MacArthur is saying, "We think you're on the cusp of genius."

Comments

[Michael Gottlieb]

Dear Sir,

You write that "The reknowned Genius physicist Richard Feynman was proud to remind people that his I.Q. was only slightly above average." Could you please inform me of the source of this information? (I edit The Feynman Lectures on Physics, and co-author the Feynman Lectures on Physics supplement, "Feynaman's Tips on Physics." I am the son of a psychologist and know very well that IQ tests are not particularly meaningful.)

Best Regards,
Mike Gottlieb
mg@feynmanlectures.info

[David Shenk]

Hi Mike. Here's the quote I have, from http://www.assessmentpsychology.com/genius.htm:

"On the trip home from the Nobel ceremonies in Stockholm, prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman stopped in Queens, N.Y., and looked up his high-school records. 'My grades were not as good as I remembered,' he said, 'and my I.Q. was 124, considered just above average.' "
- James Gleick. (1992). Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman. New York: Pantheon.

I'm assuming they copied down the quote correctly. I don't actually have the Gleick book in my office. Please let me know if the quote is incorrect.

[James]

You might be interested in this article from Paul Graham,
"Is it worth being wise"
http://www.paulgraham.com/wisdom.html

He talks about the idea that to be intellegent is like having an extreame ability is some area rather than wisdom which is to have an average high ability.

Not sure that his essay has a great foundation (other than person observation) but it is interesting all the same.
Makes me think of those old computer games where you had to build a character. You had say 10 points to assign to tree qualities, Magic, Strength, and Skill say. You could use the 10 points to choose exactly which character you want, but you only had the 10 points, if you wanted a character that was amazing at Magic, it probably couldn't also be very strong...

Perhaps that is the way we are in life? Or maybe you don't have set/limited number of points but that it is hard to gain more and you can choose to either broaden your abilities or to focus on one skill. Which one is better? it depends what you want I guess, Personally I'd rather be a jack of all trades than an autistic savant (no offense to Daniel Tammet of course).

[Tony]

First, David, I should say I hate the word 'genius'. I agree with the person you cite, Mike Howe, that 'genius' is an externally given appelation. And I agree with the emphasis you put on long-term focused maybe obsessive development leading to accomplishment. In the USA, the latter insight isn't well-known. In Germany, Goethe's example is known to all via standard education, one learns about his life in school. Other cultures also have exemplars whose lives are taught to everyone in standard education, such as Rabindranath Tagore in Bengal, or for that matter Garry Kasparov in Russia.

I suspect you'll find that, depending on the ed system in different countries, the insights you seek to spread will either be received as surprising, or boring and anodyne because it's taught in school. Other countries don't call the USA "anti-intellectual" for nothing. Those of us who grow up in the USA have to deal with the lack of placement here in the curriculum about exemplars of accomplishment and the paths they took to get there. That lack depresses democratic pressure for school improvement.

I hope tho that a blog like this or a book like the one you write will discuss why the emphasis on accomplishment in the US is mostly on identifying it, exploiting it, and cutting it down to size, while the task of nurturing it is restricted only to immediate family, with all the limitations and resentments that implies. My own view is that the state of affairs here is deep in American history, and it goes back to the demographics of immigration, wherein upper tails of accomplishment worldwide didn't emigrate to the USA, before the 20th century worldwide mass war and expropriation and looting of elites brought many of them here as refugees. So Americans until recently belonged to a culture where the upper tail of accomplishment was cut off, because the cultures nurturing it didn't emigrate. Hence its exemplars were too rare to be integrated by state policy. And remnants were available for exploitation, with no legal sanctions against that.

There's a lot to be said about how to lasso glaringly accomplished people like prize cattle, and how they struggle to avoid being labeled like cattle. It's open season on prize cattle. But don't tell anyone you found one.

I think the situation in continental Europe is profoundly different. Its public education systems were crafted in major dimensions by its most accomplished exemplars, who got to power via the French Revolution and its echoes on the Continent. The involvements of scientists and mathematicians in France, and of Goethe (preceded by Leibniz) in Germany have little in common with goals Horace Mann had in the US. The ties of genius - which to me is just a label on prize cattle, which is why I hate the label - to family are often superceded today in continental Europe by school ties.

In China, a fulfilling education that doesn't depend on your parents' wealth is considered a human right. I know, that sounds laughable. It's one of those threads that goes thru communism via the French Revolution back to Confucius.

The Harry Potter series is a wonderful tale about how family doesn't have to matter, if one has Hogwarts. Harry Potter's attraction (or that of movies like Akeelah and the Bee) is that every child, especially picked out ones, sees how limited their family is. They dream of a place that doesn't exploit them - Hogwarts. Or a community. Alas, to me the most unrealistic parts of Akeelah and the Bee is the support Akeelah gets from her community. Much more realistic to me is the scene where Akeelah's pregnant sister has to protect her from a cheating parent in the audience.

The USA doesn't have educators who read Harry Potter and take any lessons from it. Pope Benedict pays more attention to Harry Potter than our school administrators do. On the other hand, he runs a school system, one should note - the largest non-public school system in the USA.

I hope the above is stimulating, and I wish you luck with your book.