In that case, Mr. Emerson, you are certainly a great man. This line, as cliche as it is, happens to be quite ironic as well because it is viewed first as a great line and misunderstood, making it great: mind-blowing.
Being misunderstood is not really a sufficient condition for being great in my opinion. It can be argued that it is a necessary one, though. However, as a witty maxim, this does work. I can think of a lot of people who are misunderstood, but I would struggle to call these people great in any way.
Emerson's focus on genius of originality and greatness of misunderstanding is kind of awesome. For one thing, he makes himself a genius by his own definition. For another thing, he's probably pretty close to being right. Geniuses are well ahead of the thought of their time. Their though processes are either too radical or too unconventional for the rest of society to keep up with. As a result, they are often distrusted. For example: Jesus was martyred for his preachings, Newton wasn't understood widely until 200 years after his theories on calculus, Socrates was martyred, Galileo was martyred. Emerson mentions all these men and their greatness.
These are people who probably "got it" a lot more than anyone else. As a result, they become either feared, loved or both. Furthermore, the things geniuses say and theorize often go against the grain, causing their interpretation to be unclear, leading to misunderstanding, making them great by Emerson's definition.
The idea that genius must be achieved by orginality is admirable. I have no problems with defining a great thinker as someone who figured some profound thing out with out the help of many other sources. This does discredit many pre-approved geniuses though. Stephen Hawking loses a lot becuase he just improved on Einstein's and others' theories. Or what about Plato? He basically took many things Socrates said and made them better and easier to understand. That almost defies greatness.
It's easy to misunderstand a genius, I guess.
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Good comments, Andrew. Is originality (or, in Emerson's case, originality delivered in a manner that is misunderstood) a prerequisite for greatness?
ReplyDeleteI think you could start an interesting discussion about music using this as a starting point. Was the Rolling Stones, who, at least at first, relied on recycled blues ideas, a great band? Was Elvis Presley, who appropriated a bunch of blues, gospel, and country ideas to form a new sound, great? How about hip-hop artists who sample older songs? I'm not sure I know the answer, but it's fun to think about.
Nice hyperlinks, also!
Nice post, Andrew, a good way to pick apart that quotation. The argument against SH and Plato is one of the big issues I had with the essay. Can we really get any farther if no one is allowed to stand on, say, Tycho Brahe's data, or the invention of deep space radiation photography?
ReplyDeleteI liked your formal logic argument, it was great. But perhaps difficult for most people to understand without the links? Hmm.
NICE WORK MAN i really enjoyed reading this as i do with all your work. This was very thought-provoking and i respect this work a lot. I agree with the Philoshophy terms stated in your writing. It is a necessary arguement and it works.
ReplyDeleteA hard quote to tackle but a very nice job disecting it!
nice job