Episode · Honestly with Bari Weiss · 2025-07-08
Books mentioned on Is Anyone a Genius?
Love him or hate him, many consider Elon Musk to be a modern-day genius. He co-founded PayPal, which transformed how people purchase things.
Bari Weiss discussed The Genius Myth by Helen Lewis. Helen Lewis discussed Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari, The Price of Greatness by Hilary Emmanuel, Benefit of Clergy by George Orwell, and Hereditary Genius by Francis Galton.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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The Genius Myth
The Genius Myth by Helen Lewis is a provocative historical exploration examining society's enduring obsession with individual genius and the cultural mythology surrounding extraordinary talent.
Discussed“And your argument in your new book is this is not simply because we live in a capitalist economy.”
Where to get it
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Lives of the Artists
Discussed“The thing that was interesting looking at those Renaissance artists is that Giorgio Vasari's lives of the artist.”
Where to get it
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The Price of Greatness
Discussed“There's a book out there called the price um the price of greatness.”
Where to get it
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Benefit of Clergy
Discussed“It's from the essay benefit of clergy which is his review of Salvador Darly's memoir in which he says Salvador Darly horrible.”
Where to get it
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Hereditary Genius
Hereditary Genius by Francis Galton is an 1869 book that attempts to rank people by lettered classes while arguing that human intelligence and success are entirely heritable.
Discussed“Francis Golton who's um a really brilliant 19th century kind of dilotant scholar half cousin of Charles Darwin and he writes this slightly mad but you know inspired book called hereditary genius in which he tries to rank everybody in Britain by lettered classes”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (6) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“All of these questions are raised in Helen Lewis's brilliant new book, The Genius Myth: A Curious History of a Dangerous Idea.”
“And one of the things I thought about a lot writing the book is you can tell a lot about a society by the category of people that are that we're fishing for geniuses in.”
“You know, I have a I have a story in the book that I think will really resonate with um honesty listeners, which is about a very left-wing queer theater director who was making work that was essentially celebrating pedophilia.”
“And I talk about um Harvey Weinstein as another example of this in the book.”
“I think, you know, he could have been an Elon Musk level figure, but he just, you know, he had all the way through trouble accessing the places where knowledge would happen.”
“And that's the, you know, that's the takeaway is that that we can't alter human nature. Sure, I'm into that. But what we can absolutely do is change the the soil in which the seeds are growing. Um, so I Yeah, I I'm not I'm not a full I'm not fullbore great man, but I and I'm not fullbore blank”