Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the age of the genius

Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. Economist, The Economist 4 Min Read 28 Aug 2025, 12:52 PM IST President Donald Trump, Reg, talks at a news conference with Elon Musk in the Oval Office of the White House (AP) Summary The dangers of bending for those anointed as special books on genius tend to fall into predictable categories. There is hagiography, according to the “How Picasso Revolution Act”. It has been declining (“Picasso was a monster”). And there are manuals for manuals (“how to become the new Picasso”). “The brilliant myth” by Helen Lewis is more original and painful. This is the high age of the genius, can deduce readers – but not in a good way. If you have a brainwave in a forest, and no one can share, are you a genius? Not according to Ms Lewis, a British journalist because Genius is a social status. You are one because you are different from another – as a place ‘somewhere between secular sacred and superhero’ – and because others say it. Genius is a story just like a achievement, which requires a good reputation management. Selection criteria vary, so it has a political dimension, which provides a way to increase beneficiary groups. For the romantics, Ms Lewis says, Genius is linked to passion, madness and illness. Victorian researchers thought it could be analyzed and quantified, an approach that continued in the 20th-century interest in IQ. The conclusion of this pseudo -scientific genius -ology was a sense of the worthlessness of those at the bottom of the scale and an enthusiasm for eugenics. The crutches that these ideas presented had the habit of discrediting them, and their own handicap for genius, with false data. Three uncomfortable known motifs come up in this witty recording. One is ‘the shortage of genius’ deficit, through which ‘extraordinary talent drops a price’. Sometimes it is paid by the geniuses, in radiation, alcoholism or depression. Often, through selfishness and worse, it is withdrawn from those around them, including pleased spouses and uncreditated co -workers. The genius label “becomes a licensing scheme for their eccentricity” and “a shield against questions”, writes Ms. Lewis, and look at Michael Jackson and Roman Polanski. A second archetype is the genius as rebels: dissidents who face outdated Orthodox and are confirmed by history. It is impossible to tell something, they prove that it is not. “He knew he was right,” Take Ms Lewis, “and he was!” She mentions Galileo and the Impressionists, mocked about their first exhibition in 1874. Make a fetish of contrary ‘, this genius model is dangerous because conventional wisdom is wise. Third, and equally dangerous is the lasting deception that Genius is “a communicable skill”: that is, the assumption that awards in one walk make someone an authority in others. It encourages the anointed to sound on topics that are far beyond their competence. In fact, “a self -esteem as a” smart person “simply makes you more likely to keep your wrong opinions extremely powerful.” Genius, the author insists, must be properly attributed to works, such as paintings or inventions, rather than people. A belief that contrary is a sign of greatness. The belief that ominous behavior is a price worth paying. Faith that someone has distinguished in one area will be right about everything. Remind it all about someone? “He is one of our big geniuses,” Donald Trump once declared from Elon Musk (in the photo), “and we must protect our genius.” Mr. Musk, says Ms Lewis, “performs the cultural role of genius, sleeps under his desk and hopes to die on Mars. Lionize for his victories with electric cars and space travel, he fell into the genius trap and concluded that he was a special person – for example, to reproduce the federal government. Honorary book refers to me. His political success is partly based on the myth of transferable genius: presumably a star in the business world, and on TV he would make a good president. Opinion newsletter, which brings together the best of our leaders, columns, gas essay and reader -correspondence.