I think that there is a tendency in American (by which I mean USican) popular culture to go too far the other way.
The American Dream has always been about humble origins + hard work == success, and this is why Edison was seen as being such an exemplar of “American know-how”: he was an autodidact who used persistence to cheaply engineer an incandescent light bulb, making him successful technically and financially. So, the party line that the American Dream is selling is that hard work, persistence, and dedication are what lead to success, and not ‘genius’, or native intellect. No one wants to admit that even though it wouldn’t be fair, even though it wouldn’t be ‘democratic’, this is simply not true!
Hard work is fine and well, but beneath a certain threshold of intelligence, Einstein-level work is near-impossible, and while removing the reverence of Einstein is correct from a rational perspective, it will bring me no closer to achieving Einstein-level productivity. I’m not a genius, not in the same way that Einstein or Feynman were (I don’t care what Feynman’s official IQ was) or Hawking is. And that’s okay, or at least that’s what I tell myself each morning so I can get out of bed.
Wow, this got more depressing than I thought it would. Well-written article; I agree with it, and I think that many could do more if they shut up and did the impossible.
I think that there is a tendency in American (by which I mean USican) popular culture to go too far the other way.
The American Dream has always been about humble origins + hard work == success, and this is why Edison was seen as being such an exemplar of “American know-how”: he was an autodidact who used persistence to cheaply engineer an incandescent light bulb, making him successful technically and financially. So, the party line that the American Dream is selling is that hard work, persistence, and dedication are what lead to success, and not ‘genius’, or native intellect. No one wants to admit that even though it wouldn’t be fair, even though it wouldn’t be ‘democratic’, this is simply not true!
Hard work is fine and well, but beneath a certain threshold of intelligence, Einstein-level work is near-impossible, and while removing the reverence of Einstein is correct from a rational perspective, it will bring me no closer to achieving Einstein-level productivity. I’m not a genius, not in the same way that Einstein or Feynman were (I don’t care what Feynman’s official IQ was) or Hawking is. And that’s okay, or at least that’s what I tell myself each morning so I can get out of bed.
Wow, this got more depressing than I thought it would. Well-written article; I agree with it, and I think that many could do more if they shut up and did the impossible.