Light pouring into the Panthéon in Paris. Photo by Evan Qu / Unsplash
Good morning. Today is the second of the sansculotides, the unnumbered days that fit between years. We celebrate la génie, or the inspiration of ideas.
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The modern definition of genius – the one that comes attached to Mensa scores and Einstein posters – is a relatively recent development in the use of a concept that dates back to the Roman times. The Romans believed in something like a soul, but one that was inherited from generation to generation. Indeed, the word "generation" contains the clue about what "genius" meant to them – an invisible spirit within you that inspired your talents, thoughts, and personality. Because they observed so many intangible traits being passed down (today we would call them "genetic," again falling back on that Latin root), they used this concept as an explanation for why, even in the days of the Republic, certain families were seemingly suited for certain professions or pursuits. We still fall for this determinism today. The French, attempting to break the stranglehold of genetic monarchy – which was theoretically theologically based – replaced the concept of natural-born right to rule with genius, a natural-born right to be whoever you are (which, in some people's minds, included "ruler," as we see Napoleon's head poking into frame). It was the American obsession with inventive intelligence – as opposed to British wit or French talent – that started to narrow the word's meaning (in English at least) to a specific kind of smartness. This, in turn, took the concept out of the spiritual realm and made it corporeal: one doesn't have genius, one is a genius.
Genius sleeps in, my mother told me, by way of explaining our mutual late-to-rise habits. Like many children, I had been declared a genius by my own mother. In my case, it was because I got decent grades at school without struggle and wasn't intimidated by the piano – this, in a parent's mind, so easily escalates to the elusive Einstein-Beethoven combo everyone's apparently attempting to raise – and while it did wonders for my confidence in grade school, it led to some rude awakenings in high school and college, when the intellectual rigors of life became more, well, rigorous.
