I've found similar line of thinking in the work of Polish writer, Jacek Dukaj. In his "Po Piśmie" ("After Writing") he had also remarked on the fact that education you would get in higher classes is not the education you get in lower. You're taught how to deal with boredom (as in you were not supposed to work), so you'd be more creative.
Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored
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Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored
#222[deleted]
Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored
#223No mention of female genius. What about Mary Shelley, Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper …and on and on
Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think this is more of a version of the "why have we stopped making good music/movies, almost everything today is garbage?" issue. Tangentially, though, I think there's something to the complaints about music. Why does pop music have any noticeably autotuned singers at all, when anyone who regularly goes to karaoke bars knows that there are lots of good singers everywhere? In other words, why is being a good enoug…
Autotune is a tool like any other. Generally those who consumed media before that tool was invented will be skeptical of it because “things I like didn’t need it.” Those who begin consuming media after the tool was invented don’t have the same biases. A 50-years ago version of that would be microphones on broadway. It used to be a point of pride to fill a theater without amplification. Now we don’t really care.
I am unsure if it tells more about any general attitude about "tools" or more about Broadway. Microphones are still not used in opera or classical music.
Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored
#225Not much mention of female genius, Ada Lovelace, Mary Shelley, Grace Hopper, etc
Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
Been reading Chuck Klosterman's book, But What If We're Wrong?. Which is partly that thought. The things that get remembered in the global consciousness are not always the people or things we'd expect. It's possible that we have a "genius" right now that will be remembered in 100 years. But due to all the local noise it's hard to see through that and remain objective. Basically we're really terrible at guessing what…
This is a well studied phenomenon in literature. Some books we regard as classics today sold relatively little upon release, while authors in the past were incredibly popular then, upon the author's death usually, the name was utterly forgotten from aesthetic appraisals. Ideas of a "canon" are much less stable than people think.
A good example of this is the Author of the famously "bad line", "It was a dark and stormy night" was Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who was perhaps one of the most famous authors of his time, who also coined many very common expressions we use today.
Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored
#227We don't have Einsteins because the brightest people don't work on astrophysics because there's no money in it. Instead, they're figuring out how to use AI to sell more dick pills and artfully distressed furniture to people devoid of erections and taste on the goddamn Internet, for more money in a year than Einstein saw in a decade.
maybe we do have Einsteins today but since the problems are so deep and the fields so vast, it is hard for one man to truly stand out as dominating a whole field. Not to mention that so many more people have access to compete in the modern world compared to Einsteins world where only a subset of people from rich countries were being educated.
Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored
#228I've found similar line of thinking in the work of Polish writer, Jacek Dukaj. In his "Po Piśmie" ("After Writing") he had also remarked on the fact that education you would get in higher classes is not the education you get in lower. You're taught how to deal with boredom (as in you were not supposed to work), so you'd be more creative.
While I have not read Jacek Dukaj (I’ll add to my list), I wonder if it’s less of not supposed to work vs had the option of indulging in less lucrative pursuits than even todays elite. Historically, wealth was largely land-driven and the elites did not work that land themselves. The historical “job” for the elites was war, which came in waves and left a lot of time for other things like poetry, philosophy and science. Todays upper middle classes are all wage workers with often longer and longer workweeks. Ideas like FIRE (financial independence retire early) are picking up steam, but are far from mainstream. This business of the parents combined with lack of tutoring or other one on one education has to be taking a negative effect on the quality of education.
Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even when it comes to philosophy I think it holds true. Up into the 1930s Bergson was regarded as one of the most important philosophers in Europe while Wittgenstein was barely mentioned outside a few, select circles, even he had already published his Tractatus . Nowadays Bergson returns blank stares when you mention his name to an Anglo audience while Wittgenstein is seen as one of the most important philosophers of…
Which is profoundly sad since Wittgenstein is only saved by his prophetic beliefs about language - despite writing like a post-modernist while somehow being considered part of the "analytic tradition"... He is fashionable nonsense.
Funny, I thought his musics about "language games" was the part of his output more amenable to fashionable nonsense. I have met very few students who attempt to say anything about Tractatus, but quite many who espouse deep-sounding platitudes about "language is a game".
Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored
#230I think this is more of a version of the "why have we stopped making good music/movies, almost everything today is garbage?" issue. With the benefit of hindsight, we only remember the greats (and the very worst villains) from past eras. While if we look around today, we see all the people who will never make it into the history books, just like we see all the songs and movies that will never become "classics." Edit:…
> I think this is more of a version of the "why have we stopped making good music/movies, almost everything today is garbage?" issue. Tangentially, though, I think there's something to the complaints about music. Why does pop music have any noticeably autotuned singers at all, when anyone who regularly goes to karaoke bars knows that there are lots of good singers everywhere? In other words, why is being a good enoug…
Because good musicians don't need to make pop music anymore.