Every Genius Needs a Nerd and a Patrician
In Kurt Vonnegut’s Bluebeard, the character Paul Slazinger describes the 'mind-opening team' required to make new ideas successful.
The rarest member of this team is what is known as the Authentic Genius. They almost always have great ideas, but without the requisite support their ideas would be doomed to be ignored by the majority of the population.
As Vonnegut puts it, the Genius needs support from two others playing distinct roles in the team: * First they need a '...highly intelligent citizen in good standing in (their) community’. This person must be someone who understands and admires the Genius’ ideas, one who can vouch that they are ‘…far from mad’. * Secondly they require someone with the unique ability to '...explain everything, no matter how complicated, to the satisfaction of most people’.
Or as I shall refer to them; the Patrician and the Nerd.
Without the ideas of the Genius to refer to the Nerd would often '...be regarded as being as full of shit as a Christmas turkey' and the Patrician would be known as the sort of character who would '...yearn loud for changes, but fail to say what their shapes should be.'
Or to put it another way, Nerds need something interesting to get other people excited and Patricians need something exciting so that others will stay interested in them.
While Slazinger was referring to Revolutions in the book – both Societal and Artistic, isn't it possible that the same idea could apply to ideas of every type? The next time you're watching a terrible movie or using frustrating software consider how likely it is that either or both the Patrician or the Nerd have bought into the ravings of one of their own rather than an Authentic Genius.
Our task should be to find the missing angles in our triangle or else be doomed to a life of frustration – either by promoting or supporting terrible ideas or worse, seeing our ideas ruined by people who don't really understand or can't explain the fantastic products of our Genius minds.
For myself, I may need to go find a Genius and a Patrician. In the meantime, I’m going to reread my copy of Bluebeard.
Via Kottke