Genius is born in collective ciphers — and the brilliance in the cooperative remains hidden until there is an expressed peril to group stakes — then an emergency encryption of memes and forms of protective thought are ignited, risking decoded secrets and nothingness.
We are universally smarter together than we are apart. The danger of that argument is that collective minds can lead to an arbitrary — and always wounding — Group Think mentality where happiness takes precedence over duty. In a recent article celebrating the Beatles and their incredible song, Hey Jude, I argued the following in the commentary flow:
I agree the music from the 60’s was world-changing and gave voice to the downtrodden and the misbegotten. We get geniuses in strains — warfare, royalty, playwriting, music, science — but rarely politics — and we sorely need a resurgence of the musical lyric as an influence in politics and culture again that is involving and not discriminatory.
Is genius always with us — or does it only create itself in dire times of moral decay? Is genius truly solitary — or is it really only purchased in the needs of societal salvation? How do we deal with genius ideas if most of us have mediocre minds?