Thinking Big

How do we relate to people of historical import? How do we think of people like Einstein, Darwin, Beethoven, Picasso, Kant, etc? We learn about them mostly in school, as The Inventor of Such & Such or The Person Who Innovated Some Such Thing, and I think that this portrayal often gives rise to the perception of a dichotomy between the geniuses of the past, and the normal everyday people that we see all around us (and even within us) in the present. However, there was of course a time when those people were present, not yet the great monoliths of the past. So what would they have looked like in the present, would they already have appeared as these monolithic figures, radically different in kind from the people around them? I suspect not.

In my undergraduate days, I was lucky to learn about Kant (and others of his era) from a professor who was well versed not only in their ideas, but also seemingly in all of the juicy gossip of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, specifically in Germany. There was something very humanizing about learning that Kant had not only overturned the debate between rationalism and empiricism, but that he was a man who very punctually took walks at the same time each day, along the same route. In fact, it's said that the people of Königsberg sometimes actually set their watches to the walks of Immanuel. If you have a penchant for good wine, he was also a good ally to have, as he is reputed to have had a cellar constantly stocked with fine vintages. These kinds of things serve to put human flesh on his superhuman historic bones. He was not just the man who revolutionized the way that we look at philosophy, he was also a man who enjoyed good drink, but was very much a rule-follower (that's in his philosophy too, by the way) and a bit of stickler.

If I remember correctly, there is also a nice exchange between Hegel and Schelling. They are two figures that also loom large in the history of philosophy, and in fact were roommates in graduate school. After some time, though, there was a terrible falling out between them and they came to hate each other. At a conference some years later, the two were put up at the same hotel, and were in fact staying in rooms just down the hall from one another. Schelling staggered back from the conference drunk as a sailor only to find himself entering the wrong room at the hotel. Whose room should he stumble into, of course, but Hegel's, the latter actually in the bath at the time. These two enemies finally meeting face to face, there was nothing to do but have a drink (academics will recognize that kind of behaviour). Through the night they drank and talked, and the next morning, surely through some grueling hangovers, each wrote a letter home to his wife. Schelling wrote about how he was so happy to have seen Hegel, and really in the end Schelling thought that he had misjudged him. Hegel wrote to his wife that he'd run into that old scoundrel Schelling, who was still the same arrogant and ignorant ass that he'd ever been.

The purpose of these stories is to show that this great figures from history that we learn about are in fact people. Often, they are very quirky people, and I find stories about them fascinating and fun because they contrast so starkly with the ascetic picture of such geniuses that we normally get. I had a similar experience in my own life while attending a talk in the philosophy department with my undergraduate mentor, a man whom I greatly idolize for his intelligence, kindness, generosity intellectual and otherwise, etc. When the talk concluded we walked out the door together, and he turned to me and said, "I really just couldn't focus at all on that talk, and didn't follow half of what she said." I was completely floored that this pillar of intelligence before me couldn't command his attention with omnipotence. He, too, struggled to stay focused sometimes... just like the rest of us. That was an experience that marked me profoundly.

I think that it's easy for some Montrealers to forget that McGill is a world-renowned institution. Certainly it was for me while I was growing up, and while I was going through myself. After all, it was the neighbourhood school, almost every adult in my life had gone there. My mother went there, as did my uncle, my aunt, all of their friends, etc. (My father was educated in Germany before he emigrated to Canada.) It was really only in my last year at McGill that it started to dawn on me that it was more than just the school down the road. And it was only when I left Montreal to go to graduate school that it hit me full force: people were shocked that I'd gone to a Big School like McGill. (Part of me wonders whether they were shocked that I had gone to McGill, or that I had gone to McGill.) It's a pretty impressive school, I'm starting to realize, and I once commented to my mentor that I wondered who around me would be a big deal later on in life, who would go on to do something really important and impressive. After all, plenty of important things have happened at McGill, or been done by its students later on down the line. My mentor responded, "Yes, there's probably at least one person in your crowd who will really make an impact. What if it were you?" I was not ready to hear that.

I started off this post wondering aloud (or rather, asilent but atype and apublic) about how we related to the great figures of the past, but really what I was hoping to bring out is the character of great people in general, including in the present. I think that the great dichotomy between Geniuses and the rest (we get no uppercase letters, of course) is unhelpful, both because it places unrealistic expectations on us if we wish to do something really important, and also because such unrealistically stringent criteria for excellence make it too easy to excuse not striving to be so.

Sadly I have only a few parting words for you on the subject of identifying genius. It seems to come with practice, though. The more you learn about geniuses, the more I think it becomes easier to identify them. But here are three features that come to mind when I think about genii.

First, they're game changers—people who see things going on around them working in a few different ways, identify the presuppositions that underlie all of those ways, and question them. Copernicus hypothesized that maybe we were looking at things all wrong by assuming that the Earth had to be the stable point around which the universe rotated. Kant put aside the assumed independence of mind and object that underlies both rationalism and empiricism.

Second, in order to recognize those presuppositions, geniuses would seem to need a pretty good synoptic view of their field. ("Field," in this instance, is used very broadly.) It's only given such a synoptic view, such a comprehensive appreciation for different stances, that one can identify a common feature that underlies them all. If you want to question fundamental assumptions, you need first to identify them, and that requires a broad grasp of your topic. (Note that this kind of synoptic view is exactly the kind of thing away from which our higher education pushes us, as graduate programs are pared down further and further, streamlined to get people through as quickly and efficiently as possible. If I'm right about genius requiring a synoptic view, that does not suggest that we're entering much of a golden age for genius, or at least not that post-graduate education is the way there.)

Third, it requires dedication. My grandfather always used to say that genius was 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration, and from what I've learned about the great people of our past, he was right: they worked like dogs.

So if you want to find a genius, just keep your eyes open for someone who's got a really broad view of their field, on the basis of that view asks questions radically different than the mainstream (specifically ones that question presuppositions underlying the very positions of the mainstream), and works like hell to find answers. Of course, identifying and challenging former presuppositions does not necessarily give you much direction, seeing what may not have worked in the past probably doesn't give you enough information to know which avenue to take up instead in moving forward. Perhaps that's inspiration, and of that I know nothing at all, so I will say no more.