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0 pointsyters17y ago0 comments

First of all, where do I say people do not deserve responsibility for genius? They just do not deserve sole responsibility. I do not think genius is without effort. Genius requires supreme effort.

But, do you think there's a difference between the deep insights we call genius and someone who achieves a lot? I do. The people who are most celebrated for such insights vs. only being prolific seem to have a common claim to a transcendent source of insight. Off the top of my head: Homer, Plato, Dante, Einstein. Plus, Bach dedicated his work to God, not the church.

Like the speaker says, people saying that they are the genius is very recent. Having read a fair amount of the Western corpus, I'd agree. Makes sense too from an etymological standpoint, since genius means some kind of spirit, like genie. Plus, the individualist attitude seems to coincide with a derth in good art, so it looks like modern artists are missing something. It also leads to the really lame idea that good art means being totally original, which actually results in no one being original and mostly just incoherent instead. Finally, for what it's worth, my own experience validates this idea. Any ideas that seem truly good to me seem to be something outside of myself that I've grasped. Haven't you had this same experience?

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unalone17y ago· 2 in thread

"Insight versus prolific" is a tough thing to debate. Zappa fans believe that the Beatles offered nothing to music. Some people think Sex Pistols are nothing but noise.

We don't know much about Homer, Plato's concept of "the gods" was one that said humans had their own free will and were not tools of the gods (brush up on Greek mythology, particularly Prometheus), Einstein gets called religious but wasn't actually. Dante you may be right about: I haven't studied him enough to know.

People claiming brilliance goes back as far as Shakespeare, who was known for being hotheaded and arrogant with his writing. It certainly goes back further, though I couldn't name specific names earlier than Shakespeare, who's pretty much the perfect null hypothesis. If Shakespeare thought he was good in and of himself, that means possibly the greatest artist of all time rejects this theory of divine inspiration.

Art isn't about originality. It's about personality. Art is partly about technical expertise, partly about artist ego. You only know yourself: the process to genius in art is the process of discovering your own standards.

For what it's worth, I've never had that experience. I know exactly what caused me to have the ideas that I do. I analyze my ideas until I understand what drives me to create them. As a result, I'm extraordinarily egotistical. It's why I thought it was worth denying the statements from the original post.

ytersOP17y ago

First, to clarify. By inspiration, I do not mean that someone hears a voice telling them what to do. Instead, I mean the person has a vision of something higher, outside of themselves, that they try to replicate in their art. Maybe you already think this, and we're just talking past each other.

Homer starts off the Iliad with an invocation of the muse. Read Plato's dialogue Ion, where Socrates says exactly what I'm saying. Plus, you will find the same idea in Phaedrus, Republic, and the Symposium. I'm not saying Einstein is religious. He's obviously not a theist. But, he did think his ideas were not merely constructs out of his own mind but following some higher sense of beauty.

pg writes a similar idea in his essay on taste:

http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html

He says taste is not subjective, not something people just create. There is a timeless logic to it.

Finally, in closing, here's a relevant cite from the very end of Dante's Paradiso:

As the geometrician, who endeavours

To square the circle, and discovers not,

By taking thought, the principle he wants,

Even such was I at that new apparition;

I wished to see how the image to the circle

Conformed itself, and how it there finds place;

But my own wings were not enough for this,

Had it not been that then my mind there smote

A flash of lightning, wherein came its wish.

Here vigour failed the lofty fantasy:

But now was turning my desire and will,

Even as a wheel that equally is moved,

The Love which moves the sun and the other stars.

unalone17y ago

Okay, yep! We secretly agree. I thought you were saying that all genius comes from non-humankind. I agree that there's an objectivity to taste and that we all approach it.

I'd differ, though, in saying that we are our own standard. The greatest art is that which most reflects its creator.

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