While following this thread, I keep reaching for and not finding an essay written by Adorno (or Horkheimer or another Frankfurt intellectual), where the essayist writes about a transition that happens in the western description of *genius*. The transition is from that of the romantic period *rhapsodic poet consumed by madness* to the modernist *mad scientist*, a *mad and evil genius* that is ultimately identified with the privileged role of *truth bringer* in western culture. What strikes me as being consistent through this paradigm shift, from an emphasis on the romantic poet to the quantum physicist, is that this *truth bringing* is interpreted as clairvoyance from beyond *the shroud*. Whether physics *envy* or *authority*, the phenomenon may be a vestige or redirection of a long-lingering cultural pattern.
-- Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
