Turner changed the way subsequent artists used light and colour
What price would you put on genius? $500,000 per genius, if you are the MacArthur Foundation. And how do you know if you are a genius? In a “single phone call” from the MacArthur Foundation telling you that you are a lucky recipient of the 2010 MacArthur Fellowship, popularly known as ‘genius grants’.
Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against giving the brightest and the best of us ‘no strings attached’ resources to enable us to push back horizons and to push forward society. But there is something awry with these ‘genius grants’ that reflects our own confusion about genius and its relation to society today.
First of all, this year’s 23 recipients—substantial as their contributions to society may be—have a long way to go before sitting comfortably in the genius pantheon alongside the likes of Galileo, Shakespeare, Beethoven
Dr. Marc Latham
The ingredients of genius are indeed complex and difficult to define.
I am content with my self-proclaimed genius status, but would probably give it up for a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation grant.
I’m not a resident of the USA though, so my above statement is purely hypothetical.
David Coventry
Not sure you can identify genius in contemporaries (at least not very often). Still, the awards are only popularly known as genius grants. I’m sure the genius community have a different name for them.
Kieran Hunter
It’s too easy to be very vague about what it means to be a genius. What does it mean to “change something fundamentally”? I think there’s a large element of other material factors being in play and so-called “geniuses” just being in the right place at the right time.
Sundar
Though I agree with most of what the author says, I beg to differ when she says that there is outright mutual dependence between Society and Genius. The Society is hardly receptive to ideas of a genius at the first instance. Were not the ideas of Darwin and Copernicus considered blasphemous? The role of society becomes more important when statesmen and social reformers, whose ‘genius’ we often fail to acknowledge, put forth their ideas.
sharmini brookes
We shouldn’t get hung up about the use of the word ‘genius’ as it is used pretty loosely these days but it is important to clarify the concept as Shirley Dent has done here in order to clarify what our society considers important for our future development as humans in this world. A ‘genius’ idea may not be recognized in one’s lifetime but if the idea survives it can have an impact if it is discovered and made public. At a time of global misanthropy and lowered horizons, it is more important than ever to consider what we truly value as life-changing ideas.