✳flâneur — a map of the web's best reading

“The Genius Myth: A Curious History of a Dangerous Idea,” Reviewed | The New Yorker

newyorker.com · 2,883 words · saved by 1 readers

Let’s say there’s another pandemic. This time, a lethal disease spreads through contact with other people’s fecal matter. Precision toilet cleaning becomes a matter of life and death. In the wake of this pandemic, an aptitude test—call it the T.I.Q.—is developed to measure one’s ability to rotate brushes three-dimensionally inside holes. Kids who score highly are trained for the Toilet-Cleaning Olympiad, meant to keep the citizenry battle-ready and internationally competitive. Eventually, the world crowns a toilet-cleaning champion—not surprisingly, someone with an off-the-charts T.I.Q. This person is the very best at a skill that is crucial for the survival of humanity. Are they a genius? The question is hard to answer because our definition of genius is so inconsistent. Generally, we want geniuses to be good with their minds rather than with their hands, but we can make an exception for a surgeon or a chef. We expect them to discover new realms of knowledge; alternatively, they can b

Save this story Save this story Let’s say there’s another pandemic. This time, a lethal disease spreads through contact with other people’s fecal matter. Precision toilet cleaning becomes a matter of life and death. In the wake of this pandemic, an aptitude test—call it the T.I.Q.—is developed to measure one’s ability to rotate brushes three-dimensionally inside holes. Kids who score highly are trained for the Toilet-Cleaning Olympiad, meant to keep the citizenry battle-ready and internationally competitive. Eventually, the world crowns a toilet-cleaning champion—not surprisingly, someone with

Explore this link on the map →

related reading