I have never had much patience for geniuses. Very smart! Very productive! Also: very annoying. Think of the rude eccentric who talks out of turn, sharing his unsolicited opinions on subjects about which he knows very little. Or the bigwig scholar running late and not responding to emails, too absorbed in his own work to be considerate of others.
No wonder I nodded along to The Genius Myth: A Curious History of a Dangerous Idea, Helen Lewis’s insightful (and very funny) new book about the excuses we’ve made for preeminent artists and inventors, from the creative minds of Renaissance Florence to the tech titans of Silicon Valley. “A suite of behaviours that would otherwise be inexcusable,” she writes of entrepreneur-turned-government-adviser Elon Musk, “are forgiven when they are the price of greatness.” Steve Jobs, “like Pablo Picasso before him, [would] successfully convince everyone around him that the a—holeness was indivisible from the genius.” Albert Einstein wrote out a contract for his wife that included the clause “You will stop talking to me if I request it.”
But Lewis’s indictment runs beyond what she calls the “deficit model of genius”—where “oddness is transformed into specialness,” alcoholism and drug addiction might be creative necessities, and psychological breakdown is perhaps to be expected. In a series of well-chosen case studies, she cleverly lays out other aspects of the myth. Geniuses, we suppose, are iconoclasts and rebels, venerated by history for going against the grain. They are offensive (because mere mortals can’t comprehend their brilliance). And they are singular.
Of course, reality is more complicated. Sometimes the “Semmelweis reflex”—named for the skeptical contemporaries of the doctor who discovered germ theory—is warranted. That is, sometimes weird ideas are just … wrong.
And geniuses are hardly solo enterprises. They are always supported by other people, whether colleagues in their labs (see Thomas Edison tinkering with the light bulb) or women typing manuscripts (see Leo Tolstoy and his long-suffering wife, Sofia). Moreover, they often benefit from being in the right place at the right time. The Beatles’ talent alone wasn’t enough. As Lewis notes, “You need the right collaborators, the right environment in which to flourish and a dollop of plain old good luck.”
In death, geniuses benefit from having their legacies carefully curated, an advantage enjoyed by figures like William Shakespeare and the painter Jackson Pollock. And speaking of death, you need a “memorable” one—maybe even a little bit early, before your shine has faded. “Go too soon and you haven’t had time to do your great work,” writes Lewis. “Stick around too long, and the memory of your later, lesser output might overwhelm your early success.”
I left the book more convinced than I already was that genius isn’t a helpful category. It’s detrimental for whoever is labeled as one, conferring status that just isn’t conducive to well-ordered relationships and a correct sense of a person’s place in the world. And it’s not helpful for us “normies,” either. Deeming someone a genius inclines us to overlook their bad (even criminally bad) behavior and overrate their off-the-cuff pronouncements on topics outside their domains.
Just as Hollywood and Silicon Valley shelter their respective stars, Christians are liable to idolize our greats, like brilliant Bible scholars and well-spoken pastors. Sometimes we risk excusing what we shouldn’t, turning a blind eye to wrongdoing. Society has incorrectly assumed, writes Lewis, that “superior knowledge and expertise in one domain confers authority in others.” But maybe the very gifted apologist doesn’t also know everything about dietary supplements or running for elected office.
Most dangerous of all, attempts to define genius have often turned racist and eugenicist. The first section of The Genius Myth traces that troubled history, from the taxonomies of eugenics researcher Francis Galton to the troubling applications of IQ tests and an ill-conceived sperm bank for Nobel laureates. Lewis mentions one such laureate, physicist William Shockley, who “proposed that those with IQs under 100 be offered cash payments in return for being sterilised.” He wasn’t the only thinker to float the idea—a horrific one, of course, if you believe that all people are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27).
That image bearing is foundational. But it doesn’t quite answer one of the book’s underlying questions: What do we make of extraordinary innovations? What of the phonograph, “Strawberry Fields Forever,” the Sistine Chapel, the MacBook?
God’s image bearers are equally human, equally dignified. That doesn’t mean we are all equally skilled at solving logic puzzles or sculpting clay. Some very gifted people really do produce exemplary things. Annoying as I have found the geniuses I’ve come across, I’m also a little jealous—of their monomaniacal focus, their sheer force of will, the research they produce, and the art they make. I wish Tolstoy had been kinder to his wife and Mozart had been better adjusted. But I’m still glad we have Anna Karenina and those piano concertos.
Lewis addresses this distinction at the beginning and end of The Genius Myth. Her argument is interesting (and, I think, convincing) for Christians. “We all hunger to experience the transcendent, the extraordinary, the inexplicable,” she acknowledges. Brushing up against genuine genus elicits a “vertiginous falling-away as you contemplate an artwork, or an equation, or a new concept … and have no idea how it was created by a human brain.” Looking out an airplane window, perhaps you’ve wondered along with Lewis, “How did the Wright brothers do it—how did they know to do it?”
“I wish that we would move back to the ancient idea of genius, something that is found in particular actions, or specific works,” she advises. Genius is divine and inexplicable and outside our control—inspiration strikes; the pieces fall into place. It’s one person’s possession only for a time, a temporary gift rather than a lifelong identity, an expression of God’s power and beauty and creativity.
As onlookers, we can only be grateful. We’re shaken. We’re awestruck. Now it’s just a matter of where we direct our worship.
Kate Lucky is the senior editor of culture and engagement at Christianity Today.
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