The Genius Famine Quotes

“In essence, and in opposition to the past ‘cohesion geniuses’ of religion, philosophy, literature, music, and art that we mentioned earlier; modern ‘evil geniuses’ have used their creativity to undermine rather than strengthen social cohesion; to argue or demonstrate that there is no such thing as truth, or that the false is true; to assert that life has no meaning, to assert that forms of immorality should be praised as virtuous, and to reject beauty in favour of originality or even to try to promote ugliness as beauty. In other words, they used their genius to reverse the values of the past and promote a dark, nihilistic and despairing Void of a life.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“Modern society has indeed become more and more ‘evil’ – which is to say (providing here a brief definition of evil) organized in pursuit of destruction of The Good in the traditional sense of the word – the Good being (roughly) the transcendental values of Truth, Beauty and Virtue, underpinned by a sense of unity and the eternal.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“Modern Man can, if he wishes, ignore his mortality, not think about it – so distant is it from everyday life; so many and so thick are the insulating layers between himself and the real environment of food, clothing, shelter and warmth; invaders, predators and parasites. He can live absorbed in a world of drugged distraction. And this is, pretty much, the totality of the modern vision of life.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“Of course people still feel gnawing anxiety, depression and despair. But these do not trigger religiousness, being increasingly dealt with by 24/7 distraction provided by the mass media, interpersonal communication and quick transportation; any dysphoria (mild depression or otherwise unpleasant feelings) is dealt with by mass medication with tranquillizers and emotionnumbing ‘antidepressants’, ‘antipsychotics’ or ‘mood stabilizers’ (these words are placed in ‘scare quotes’ because they are all marketing terms with negligible scientific or clinical rationale).”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“Worse still, ‘originality’ – rather than consequence – has become the test of genius. The fact that something is ‘original’ – meaning novel, makes it praise-worthy. In fact, originality has now become indistinguishable from mere changes of fashion. In previous eras, there was not a special status given to novelty as an aspect of high quality work – but since about 1800 in the West there has been: greatness is supposedly mostly a matter of being innovative. Yet while great geniuses may innovate this is not the rule, for instance Gluck and J.C. Bach were greater innovators, but much lesser composers than, J.S. Bach and Mozart; Constable and Gainsborough were less original, but higher quality, painters than Francis Bacon or Lucien Freud.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“Newton’s biography reveals that he was an extreme example of the Psychoticism trait. Psychoticism is important to genius because it describes someone who is uninterested and uninfluenced by the normal human concerns – which are essentially ‘other people.’ Most humans are social animals, who see life through social spectacles, and who are motivated by the desire for friends, sex, status, and so on. But not Newton. In his early and most creative years, he simply wanted to be allowed to get on with his work.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“Karl Marx’s (1818-1883) philosophy – heavily influenced by Rousseau – altered the idealized group from the ‘tribe’ to the ‘worker’ and argued that a worker’s dictatorship must inevitably develop to ensure equality based on Marx’s fate-based understanding of History. Again, dissent was not to be permitted and dissenters were ‘enemies,’ ‘imperialists’ and so on. Its culmination was the world-historical horror of twentieth century Communism, and its descendant Political Correctness, in which ‘the worker’ is replaced by supposedly oppressed or more natural ‘cultural’ groups. Dissenters are ‘racist’ and other catch-all, highly emotive terms (such as ‘hater’ or ‘denialist’) employed to discourage dissent, such that even the slightest deviance from orthodoxy is termed ‘racist’ in order to reprove it and intimidate the deviant into silence.39 These ideologies can distilled down to three essential dogmas: (1) Those who have power – whether financial or cultural and whether deserved or not – are bad and should repent by giving it to those who lack power and creating ‘equality’ (2) Those who lack power – on whatever measure is seen as important – are superior to those who have it because they are somehow more genuine and (3) Those who dissent from this view are wicked.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“So, these evil geniuses may or may not have had exceptionally wicked personalities, although all were somewhat unpleasant characters37 – but they did have a net-destructive effect on society. This effect was net-destructive because they advanced a compelling but destructive worldview; one which led to the suppression of, for example, the ability of people to perceive meaning and purpose in life, or active-encouragement of selfish, parasitic, or cruel behaviour.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“Novelty of outcome + Social Approval of that outcome = fake creativity”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why we need geniuses, why they’re dying out, and why we must rescue them

“Genius has now all-but disappeared from public view; partly because intelligence (which is strongly genetic) is in decline in the West, partly because social institutions no longer recognize or nurture genius, and partly because the modern West is actively hostile to genius.”
― Bruce Charlton, The Genius Famine: Why we need geniuses, why they’re dying out, and why we must rescue them

“In sum, modern creatives are highly likely to be amateur or professional, intentional or accidental destroyers of the Good – in their net effect if not wholly. This is one of the horrors of our uniquely nihilistic world. Humans have always failed to attain The Good due to our own weaknesses and bad motivation – but we are now in the situation where it is normal (also legally and officially encouraged and rewarded) actively to attack The Good, by many means and on many fronts – so that both creative ability and hard-working conscientiousness do not merely fail to reach their promise and their ideals – but are harnessed to work against The Good. In sum, most modern creatives inflict either more, or less, harmful outcomes overall; and the more effective their creativity, the greater the harm they inflict.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“The modern ideology is compounded of human rights, equality, individuality, minimization of suffering and maximization of self-respect, diversity, inclusion and a strong emphasis on nontraditional sexual self-expression and identity. But the point is not so much these positive doctrines as the negative ones: this-life is all there is, and there is no meaning to life beyond the happiness or misery experienced; there is no objectivity to morality, humans are existentially alone and communication is uncertain and mostly a matter of self-deception. In sum, the modern ideology is secular and nihilistic, and modern people are short-termist, pleasure-orientated, and alienated.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“geniuses and make us aware of the work of geniuses; the question arises: How was it that such simple and unselfconscious societies could spontaneously recognize and respond to something as complex and unpredictable and unique as a genius – when our much more prosperous and complex society cannot? The reason is just that most human societies of the past, and certainly those societies where genius most thrived, were serious; they recognized that life is a serious business, that there is a reason for it all, a purpose to it all, and (in those societies where genius was most prevalent) that each person had a part to play – by contrast, at least in mainstream public discourse, modern Western society does not acknowledge any of this.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“We regard it as quite obvious and undeniable that the Establishment is now ‘Leftist’ as evidenced by dominance of those with this perspective in academia, among senior churchmen, in the media, and in all mainstream political parties – all of which promote some degree of Political Correctness. The radicals of the 1960s, and their followers, are the honour-loaded Establishment of today. The British philosopher Sean Gabb has documented how, since the 1960s, the Left has displaced the traditional ‘conservative’ Establishment, taking over almost all of organs on the British State, including the police and legal system.105 The dominance of Leftism in academia has been documented in numerous studies.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“Therefore we currently have an incentive system in place to generate fake creativity: an incentive system in which there are un-creative people who dishonestly strive to be regarded as original because they want to appropriate the label of creative and usurp the title of ‘genius’. In sum, under modernity creativity has been reduced to novelty – and novelty can be simulated. It is trivially easy for clever and well-trained people to generate mere novelty, so there is an excess of it (we call it ‘fashion’). Therefore the discriminative test applied to novelties is whether they are approved by the social systems that allocate high status. When novelty is socially approved, then the person who generated it gets to be called creative – maybe even a creative genius. Thus: Novelty of outcome + Social Approval of that outcome = Fake creativity And fake creativity is an attribute bestowed upon an outcome or person; bestowed by the social systems for generating status – in other words the mass media (primarily), politics, civil administration, the legal system, education... in a nutshell the Leftist Establishment.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“By re-labelling, some non-creative nonentity (maybe someone of high career status, maybe of high but un-creative ability, maybe a charming character, maybe just a novelty-merchant) is simply stated to be a genius, repeatedly talked about as a genius – probably given awards and medals for being a genius – and the concept of genius is thereby blurred, relativized and even further discredited.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“So colleges and universities – which used to be a haven for geniuses – have instead become a mixture of ideological churches; holiday camps; schools of dissipation and irresponsibility; ‘learning shops’ run by managers, accountants and public relations professionals; and research factories generating ‘evidence’ as required by whomsoever has money enough to fund them. Thus in Britain, and in all the other European and European diaspora nations (the USA, Canada, Australia etc.); we see the same picture of a society with a high concentration of effective geniuses that flipped, quite suddenly – and in the space of a generation or two – into a society which is in practice, and almost universally, actively antigenius: a society selecting against genius, excluding of genius, persecuting of genius.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“To reiterate, geniuses are people who combine an especially high intellectual ability with a spontaneous tendency to focus on some abstract (by ‘abstract’ we mean ‘not-social’) problem, and the inner motivation to maintain this focus, to quest for an answer, for relatively long periods of time. However, there are only two ways that they can realistically find the space to pursue their genius: a patron or, in some cases, a well-funded university.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“Modern society is, of course, run by Head Girls, of both sexes (plus a smattering of charming or charismatic psychopaths), hence there is no assigned place for the creative genius.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“Nor are the elite modern institutions selecting for personality qualities of independent and inner motivations and evaluations that are an intrinsic part of the Endogenous personality – quite the opposite, in fact; since there are multiple preferences and quotas in place which net exclude Europeandescended men (that group with by far the highest proportion of Endogenous personalities – i.e. having the ultra-high intelligence and creative personality type). This can be seen in explicit group preference policies and campaigns enforced by government (and the mass media), and informal (covert) preferences – leading to ratios and compositions at elite institution (especially obvious in STEM subjects: i.e. Science, Technology, Engineering, Medicine) that demonstrate grossly lower proportions of European-descended men than would result from selecting for the Endogenous personality type.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“The Endogenous personality combines high intelligence with the ‘inner’ personality; and it used to be fairly normal for Endogenous personalities to gain admittance to the most elite institutions. However, nowadays, it is clear that college admission criteria are much less likely to select for intelligence than in the past. In other words, attendance at the most selective institutions is no longer a matter of being of the highest intelligence. Partly this is because of the changing nature of educational evaluations – the best reports and grades at school or top performance in exams are no longer so ‘g-loaded’ that is, they are less correlated with general intelligence than they used to be (some of this may be due to the IQ test score inflation which is termed ‘the Flynn Effect’).”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“In a society of declining intelligence, we would expect: rising crime and corruption; decreasing civic participation and lower voter turn-out; higher rates of illegitimacy; poorer health and greater obesity, an increased interest in the instinctive, especially sex; greater political instability and decline in democracy; higher levels of social conflict; higher levels of selfishness and so a decline in any welfare state; a growing unemployable underclass; falling educational standards; and a lack of intellectualism and thus decreasing interest in education as a good in itself. We would also expect more and more little things to go wrong that we didn’t used to notice: buses running out of petrol, trains delayed, aeroplanes landing badly, roads not being repaired, people arriving late and thinking it’s perfectly okay; several large and lots of little lies . . . In addition, the broader modern system – especially of extended formal education (stretching ever further into adult life), exam results and continuous assessments, required subjects and courses; the supposed ‘meritocracy’ – suppresses the influence of genius, since the Endogenous personality is seeking, ever more strongly with age, to follow his inner drives, his Destiny, and all the paraphernalia of normal, standard requirements stands in his path. While others need sticks and carrots, and are grateful for encouragement, discipline and direction; the Endogenous personality is driven from within and (beyond a basic minimum) he neither needs nor appreciates these things – at best they slow him down, at worst they thwart and exclude him. The Endogenous personality requires mainly to be allowed to do what he intrinsically and spontaneously wants to do – but in modern society he is more likely to be prevented.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“The same picture can be seen even more starkly in classical music – the nineteenth century had Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Debussy, Berlioz, Weber, Verdi, Wagner, Mahler, Brahms… the list just goes on and on. In the early twentieth century there were a few leftovers in Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Richard Strauss and then… nothing.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“Thus, we can conceive of roughly two kinds of genius. The scientific-technical genius will increase the chances of a sci-tech breakthrough, or a novel theory that will lead to these. For example, inventions such as the spade, bow and arrow, wheel, plough, railway, radio… these are assumed to be products of sci-tech geniuses; and their value is obvious. This kind of genius may help either group survival or even help to expand the group of which he is part. By contrast, an artistic, philosophical or religious genius will implicitly aid group cohesion – we term these cohesion geniuses. Improved cohesion could therefore be the explanation for the occurrence of artistic genius, or the genius of a storyteller – and also an explanation for religious geniuses who invent new interpretations, beliefs, practices, rituals, stories, scriptures, priesthoods or other forms of institution… that have the consequence of binding-together the group.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“Some geniuses are nice, many are nasty – but that is not the point. The point is that the genius feels his first (or a very high) responsibility is to do his utmost to create and sustain the best conditions he needs for his work, and to do that work, and communicate that work. He feels his duty is to follow his Destiny. And this motivation comes above the desire to help other people.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“British philosopher Colin Wilson (1931-2013) exposed this in his marvellously insightful short study: Lord of the Underworld: Jung and the Twentieth Century (1984);”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“In sum, committees do not look after geniuses – rather they ignore them, or persecute them. It is likely no coincidence that English genius very suddenly all-but disappeared in the era from about 1955-198069 in which bureaucracy waxed dominant in national life – and nowadays geniuses are absent, invisible, or fighting for survival against the forces of mass media, committees, peer reviewers and other faceless officials. This is sad for the geniuses; perhaps fatal for our society.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“Michael A. Woodley makes the point that individuals who can properly be classified as geniuses necessarily have brains that are wired differently from normal; they are programmed to focus on their destined tasks and therefore may be unable to deal with the small details of day to day affairs.61 For instance, Einstein once got lost not far from his home in Princeton, New Jersey. He went into a shop and said, ‘Hi, I’m Einstein, can you take me home please?’ He could not drive a car, and many tasks and chores that most people take for granted were beyond him.62 Woodley’s conclusion flows from the idea of genius as a group-selected trait adapted to be an asset to other people. In sum, the potential genius needs to be looked after; because in terms of negotiating the complexities of human society he is likely to be vulnerable and fragile. The corollary of which is that when geniuses are not looked after, they are less likely to fulfil their potential, and everybody loses. For instance, the American reclusive poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was ‘managed’ by Colonel T.W. Higginson; Jane Austen (1775-1817) flourished in the obscurity of her family and the critic and social philosopher John Ruskin (1819-1900) was sheltered and nurtured by his parents, then a cousin. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was looked after by his brother Friars; Genetics-founder Johann Mendel (1822-1884) was secluded in a monastery; Pascal (1623-1662) was looked after by his aristocratic French family.63 Plus many another genius was sustained by a capable wife – Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) depended on his, older, wife Adele; and would only eat food prepared by her; so that when she was hospitalized, Gödel literally starved.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“The proper social role of the highly able Endogenous personality is not as leader. Indeed, the Endogenous personality should be excluded from leadership as he will tend to lack the desire to cooperate with or care for the feelings of others. His role should be as an intuitive/ inspired ‘adviser’ of rulers. Adviser-of-rulers is a term which should be taken to include various types of prophet, shaman, genius, wizard, hermit, and holy fool – the Socrates of the early Platonic dialogues is an historical example, as is Diogenes, the Cynic, of Sinope (c.412-323 BC), who lived in a barrel and is supposed to have snubbed Alexander the Great (without being punished), or even the Fool character in Shakespeare plays. These are extremes; but the description of Endogenous personality and of an ‘inner orientation’ also applies to most historical examples of creative genius. The Endogenous personality – therefore – does not (as most men) seek primarily for social, sexual or economic success; instead the Endogenous personality wants to live by his inner imperatives. The way it is supposed-to-work, the ‘deal’, the ‘social contract’; is that the Endogenous personality, by his non-social orientation, is working for the benefit of society as a whole; at the cost of his not competing in the usual status competitions within that society. His ‘reward’ is simply to be allowed, or – better – actively enabled, to have the minimal necessary sustenance, psychological support (principally being ‘left alone’ and not harassed or molested; but ideally sustained by his family, spouse, patron or the like) to be somehow providedwith the time and space and wherewithal to do his work and communicate the outcome. For the Endogenous personality, this is its own reward.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them

“So, it can be seen that Conscientiousness and Agreeableness are two sides of the same coin (and the inverse of Psychoticism) – which is that a person high in Conscientiousness and also Agreeableness is one who – here and now, and in the present moment – derives the greatest satisfaction from his conformity to the social group, and is attentive to cues of social group values: and (more important) who has aversive feelings if he transgresses or he fails to follow social norms, such as would happen if creative thinking was in play. And such a person is not creative – because he is focused on learning and doing what the social group wants him to do, instead of what his inner drives tell him he ought to do: needs to do.”
― Edward Dutton, The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them