suppressing geniuses
Whenever a truly original genius appears in this world, people immediately endeavor to get rid of him. To this end, they have two methods. The first one is suppression: they isolate him, they starve him, they surround him with silence, they bury him alive. If this does not work, they adopt the second method (which is much more radical and dreadful): exaltation—they put him on a pedestal and they turn him into a god.
Translators Introduction, 2014 Norton Critical Analects of Confucius
- this is the exact kind of midwit take that im a real sucker for. no idea if it's true or not but it sounds so interestingly transgressive
and that's the important bit. - that being said i do think its pretty good that the rationalists have so far avoided exaltation of any of our major thinkers. go us