Divine Fury (51 page)

The posthumous journey of Einstein’s brain—from absconded relic to downloadable app—says more about the fate of genius in the postwar
world than it ever will about the physiology of creative intelligence. In effect, it traces the arc of the genius’s decline and even death, marking out a trajectory of devolution to the people. For the same forces that would bring genius to every screen and put a piece of it in every home have shattered the aura of the genius’s sanctity, divesting him of his special significance and rarefied power. That process, moreover, has been willed. Just as the citizens of Athens saw fit to banish Socrates and his demon from the polis, we have felt the need to exclude the genius and his exception from the public square.

That may seem a surprising claim. Was not Einstein the “person of the century,” the “genius among geniuses,” as
Time
magazine declared in 1999? And surely the continuing effort to locate the stigmata of Einstein’s genius confirms that old habits die hard. The methods may no longer be those of Broca or Vogt. But the search to isolate genius—to pinpoint it in the body, to confirm it in the flesh—is similar all the same. So is the yearning that lies behind it. The need to establish the genius’s fundamental difference is stubborn, and the human desire for the transcendent and the extraordinary is great, no less now than when Socrates’s contemporaries first marveled at his
daimonion
.
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All that is true. It is no less true that even today, in the liquid crystal light of a computer-generated image, one may still detect a faint glow of the sacred. The French critic Roland Barthes called attention to the familiar
numen
in 1957. “Paradoxically,” he observed, “the more the genius of [Einstein] was materialized under the guise of his brain, the more the product of his inventiveness came to acquire a magical dimension.” Einstein’s brain had become a “mythical object,” and Einstein’s genius a myth, which served to mediate the secrets of the universe and to comfort us in our darkness and insecurity. The genius of Einstein resembles even now what the ancients once called a “middle term” of the universe, shuttling between ordinary human beings and the heavens. The
divinum quiddam
of his brain provides a glimpse of another dimension; it is a portal to a mysterious realm.
⁵

Yet, at the same time that Barthes was describing the brain of Einstein as a totem of genius in ways that recalled the rites and rituals of old, others were calling attention to a development that worked against the familiar process of sacralization. The German Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt in 1958 wrote of the “commercialization and vulgarization of genius,” a process that was gradually dissipating the “great reverence the modern age [had] so willingly paid to genius, so frequently bordering on idolatry.” This was a process, Arendt appreciated, evident from even before the war. As the Austrian novelist Robert Musil observed in the
first volume of his modernist classic,
The Man Without Qualities
, written in the 1930s, “the time had come when people were starting to speak of genius on the soccer field or in the boxing ring.” The widening of the field was already apparent, and to the dismay of Musil’s narrator, even made room for “a racehorse of genius,” which, chomping on celebrity’s bit, sped by his rivals on the outside. Galton had included oarsmen in his surveys of hereditary genius. But what caught the eye of Musil’s protagonist was the burst of movement and surge of activity in the stables of popular culture. Genius was no longer confined to the artists, statesmen, and scientists who had long commanded pride of place.
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This trickling down (or welling up) of genius along the vertical axis leading from high culture to low was accompanied, as well, by a horizontal expansion, a pushing outward of gender boundaries and geographical frontiers. If even a horse could be a genius, then surely men and women beyond Europe and the United States might qualify for the title? That acknowledgment was often grudging. But genius had a way of imposing itself. The eminent English mathematician G. H. Hardy modestly denied that he himself was a genius. But in the Indian autodidact Srinivasa Ramanujan, whom he brought to Cambridge in the summer of 1913, Hardy was humbled to confront a person he was convinced was “in the class of Gauss and Euler,” a true “
natural
mathematical genius,” among the greatest of the greats. Others saw a similar creative prowess in the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, catching a glimpse of what still other observers would discern in the flash of Pablo Neruda or Charlie Parker, Jorge Luis Borges or Naguib Mahfouz: creative originality of the very highest order. As the doyen of American anthropology, Alfred Kroeber, argued in a seminal study in 1944, genius was less a function of blood than of environment and culture. Taking aim at the eugenics of Galton and the Nazis, Kroeber included in his study data from the great civilizations of China and India, Mesopotamia, and the Arab world, making clear that genius might come from anywhere, as long as the conditions were right. Feminists of the avant-garde, meanwhile, were quick to make a similar point with respect to women, taking courage in Gertrude Stein’s bold avowal that “I am a genius.” Not all were so forthright. But most shared the conviction that the empire of genius knew no sex.
⁷

This gradual expansion of genius—in effect, its democratization and globalization—gathered momentum in the aftermath of 1945. The development marked, in some sense, a return to an older understanding of genius as a faculty possessed by all. That understanding, it is true, had never been entirely abandoned. Although men and women had spoken for centuries of genius as a general disposition or trait, Europeans,
and especially Americans, continued long after the eighteenth century to acknowledge that different people might have
a
genius for different things. As even Charles Spearman, the analyst of the all-governing
g
, was prepared to admit, “every normal man, woman, and child is . . . a genius at something.” By the same logic, Spearman added, everyone was “an idiot at something,” perhaps a less surprising revelation. But he was far from alone in harboring the suspicion that there might be a bit of genius in us all.
⁸

In the decades since World War II, that thought has become commonplace—so much so that some critics have described it as “our genius problem.” Genius is now everywhere. A 1993 cover story in
Newsweek
magazine, for example, observed that “judging by the hundreds to the thousands of newspaper references to ‘geniuses’ every month, we’re overrun with them.” Not to be outdone,
Esquire
boldly declared in its end-of-the-millennium “Genius Issue” that we are “living in an age of genius.” Proof of the assertion was forthcoming in the names of those who at that very moment were enjoying their fifteen minutes of genius-fame, including the fashion designer Tom Ford, the Amazon executive Jeff Bezos, the Broadway musical singer Audra McDonald, the basketball star Allen Iverson, and the actor Leonardo DiCaprio. More recently, the well-regarded German newspaper
Die Zeit
devoted a special issue to “geniuses who have changed our life,” profiling such modern incarnations of the type as Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks; Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook; Miuccia Prada, the Italian designer; Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Ikea; and, of course, Steve Jobs, widely hailed at the time of his death in 2011 as a departed “genius.” There is irony in this description of Jobs, insofar as the genius historically has been regarded as an original creator, and Jobs, by his own admission (more or less), did not create, but rather tinkered and tweaked, adapting the ideas of others for sleek and widespread consumption. Undoubtedly there is brilliance in such “tweaking,” and in other ways Jobs fit the part, embodying the image of the eccentric rebel and temperamental sage, prone to fits of anger and not averse to trying LSD. Yet, judged in historical terms, this master of marketing and mimesis was the very opposite of the genius ideal, who created from nothing, ex nihilo, drawing on no example but his own.
⁹

Not that we should be surprised by the description of Jobs, or by the appearance of the other names on these lists. The blurring of the lines between genius and celebrity has been under way since the eighteenth century. In America, especially, where the business of the country is business, to think of individuals in the vanguard of the digital
age, such as Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, as geniuses is even less of a surprise. With their historical suspicion of theory and their predilection for practical application and common sense, Americans have long treated applied genius with special reverence. If Benjamin Franklin, the first genius of the United States, was a tinkerer and entrepreneur par excellence, Thomas Edison was his fitting heir, the archetypal American genius, for whom usefulness and utility were the ultimate tests. Edison was “the greatest inventive genius in the world,” in the opinion of Henry Ford, and widely regarded as a “wizard.” Yet he worked hard to dispel the illusion that his powers were magical, claiming, famously, that “genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration,” the consequence of dogged persistence and good old-fashioned elbow grease. Fittingly, Ford was among Edison’s closest friends. The two together represented the perfect coupling of ingenuity and application, and the attendant financial rewards. Genius, in the American way, was not just thinking new thoughts and creating new things, but finding a use for them, and then using them to make a buck.
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It is little wonder, then, that as genius attended the rich and famous, it hovered—and hovers still—before those who yearn to be both. Once genius was born, now it is (self)-made. That, at least, is the claim of a flourishing self-help literature that offers genius as a lifestyle and aspiration. Have a look at
How to Be a Genius: Your Brain and How to Train It
. Or set your imagination on fire in
Ignite the Genius Within
. For those who prefer fewer flames, there are
Sparks of Genius: The Thirteen Thinking Tools of the World’s Most Creative People
, or the “30 Ways to Spark Your Inner Genius” in
Everyday Smart. Becoming a Problem Solving Genius
is within your grasp, as is
Uncommon Genius: How Great Ideas Are Born
, or even
Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within
. “You can “unlock your inner genius” in
Thought Revolution
. Or learn how to think like “history’s ten most revolutionary minds” in
Discover Your Genius
. Stumble upon “your best ideas” in
Accidental Genius. Cracking Creativity
, according to its subtitle, discloses
The Secrets of Creative Genius
, and
Practical Genius
provides, as its subtitle proclaims,
The Real Smarts You Need to Get Your Talents and Passions Working for You
. You can learn
How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci
in a book of that title, poke around in
Pocket Genius
, or rummage through
Junk Genius
. There is
Football Genius, Negotiation Genius
, and
A Genius for Deception
, which recounts
How Cunning Helped the British Win Two World Wars
. And, if you have done all of that and want something more, consult
So, You’re a Creative Genius
. . .
Now What?
Or put a little spice in your life with
Penis Genius: The Best Tips and Tricks for Working His Stick
. There is genius in just
about everything these days. As one recent bestseller sums it up, there is
Genius in All of Us
.
¹¹

But if genius is everywhere, the genius is nowhere, or at least harder than ever to see. The same forces that have democratized and expanded genius’s kingdom have sent the genius into exile or to an early grave. That curious fact will become apparent if one tries to name a genius in the postwar world. Einstein comes immediately to mind, of course. But he is the exception who proves the rule. And though there are others—including artists, such as Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock, or scientists, such as J. Robert Oppenheimer and Richard Feynman—they tend either to be holdovers from an earlier age or fail to command common and overwhelming assent. The truth is that we live at a time when there is genius in all of us, but very few geniuses to be found.

What does that paradox say? Was Einstein not only the genius of geniuses, but the last of the geniuses? It is possible that it is simply too early to tell. Just as the genius of Shakespeare was only recognized after the fact, it may be that the geniuses of today will only be discovered tomorrow. Still, even if they now walk among us, we no longer regard geniuses as we once did; nor do we look to them for the same things that we did in the past. The religion of genius is a moribund faith: the genius is all but disenchanted.

The defeat of Hitler marked a turning point in this respect, largely putting an end to the formal rites of the genius cult in Europe while putting the people on guard against investing human idols with such power. True, the cult lingered on in the Soviet Union and China, and some far-flung redoubts. And something of the sacred continued to lurk about Einstein, and continues still (if his eyeballs ever go on sale, they will no doubt fetch a pretty price). But he himself did his best to discourage such veneration. It is telling that when Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion inquired whether Einstein would be willing to accept the presidency of Israel in 1952, Einstein politely refused. The post was largely ceremonial, and Einstein was deeply sympathetic to Israel’s fate. But, as he pointed out in his official response, he lacked the “natural aptitude” and the requisite “experience” necessary “to exercise official functions.” Genius was not a transferable skill; genius in science did not a genius in politics make. Einstein was hardly above using his celebrity to enhance his support for a variety of political causes. But his refusal to be enshrined as a genius in an official capacity is in keeping with his resistance to a world that would allow the many to relinquish their power to the few. By making of some men more than men, the many made less of themselves.
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