November 14, 2005
Removal of Context = Appearance of Intelligence
Hypothesis: Viewing something without its context makes that thing appear to be of a higher quality than when seen within its context.
Anecdotal Evidence:
- I used to think the couple of brilliant bands from the '60s I love spontaneously emerged to create some unique musical types; but through a former music-loving former roommate, I discovered thousands of bands with very similar styles of music, upon which the famous ones slowly built and improved piecemeal.
- Similarly, I come from a particular intellectual tradition (Hayek, Popper) and people with whom I discuss politics who don't know anything about about these thinkers (and the traditions they themselves come from!) think that I'm much more insightful than I am, even when I credit Hayek for everything.
- A fun example of this pattern is how we think that people we meet from other countries are more intelligent than our local peers when really, they are so knowledgeable about other cultures and languages because, well, for the Frenchman, they know as much as we do about our own culture and language.
In other words: nothing appears out of nowhere, but we--romatically--think that genius is just spontaneously created, thus magnifying the role of genius in our minds.
Thoughts?
Posted by Morgan at 01:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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Comments
I think there’s a lot of truth in that, sort of the old “genius is 99% perspiration” saw. The thing about foreign expertise is ably illustrated in an old ‘point/counterpoint’ column in the Onion, where an American woman writes “European men are so sophisticated” and describes the finesse and nuance with which her Roman lover courted her, and the counterpoint “American women are totally easy” is a warts-and-all piece by the lover about the greasy spoon he takes them all to, the cheap wine, making up stuff about the statues and pretending he’s an artist, etc.
The thing is figuring out the changing context I think- that’s where the newness happens. On the flip side of the ‘genius’ spectrum, a friend and I were once debating (drumroll) the Holocaust, and he was saying something along the lines of “well, when all was said and done, this was what happens when you get the industrial revolution plus unchecked nationalism, so it wasn’t this shockingly ahistorical surprise out of nowhere its taken to be” and I was saying that just because there is a context at some level doesn’t preclude something being shocking, and appropriately regarded as shocking even after the fact. Believing otherwise is like saying ‘unless something occurs without an origininating cause i.e. God literally appearing in your bedroom’ then it is otherwise explicable in and cannot be regarded as shocking, unique, genius, anti-genius, etc.
Posted by: ooghe at November 14, 2005 01:46 PM
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