Decoding the Gurus - Required Readings: The Genius Myth by Helen Lewis

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

In another exciting Required Reading episode, Chris and Matt offer their penetrating, high IQ thoughts on the latest book by journalist and podcast quizmaster, Helen Lewis. Titled 'The Genius Myth: The Dangerous Allure of Rebels, Monsters, and Rule Breakers', the book tears into some of the long-enduring myths surrounding historical and contemporary geniuses from Picasso to Elon Musk. It's a critical dissection of gurus and devoted fans, so very on topic! And yes, it is better than Cod...Full episode is available to Patreons on the Revolutionary Genius tier! (1hr 13 mins).Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurusLinksThe Genius Myth: A Curious History of a Dangerous Idea by Helen LewisSnippy Review at The Philosophers MagazineLess snippy review at the ObserverRequired Reading: The Genius Myth00:00 Book Review: Genius Myth04:11 The Genius Myth: Book Thoughts!07:02 Exploring the Concept of Genius08:49 IQ Tests and High IQ Societies10:55 Social Perception of Intelligence12:20 Elon Musk and Modern Genius16:08 Historical Perspectives on Genius18:42 The people behind the Geniuses25:15 The Role of Context and Luck27:44 Mythmaking and Cultural Icons45:01 The Flawed Genius Stereotype50:50 What about Tim Robinson?52:51 The deranging impact of attention01:03:33 Overall Thoughts01:12:44 Better than Cod

Hello and welcome to DeCodecate, The Gooding, The Guru, Decoding Academia edition, you might have forgot, but this is a book review segment as part of the Decoding Academia series. That's a good idea. That's a good idea because our spin-offs were multiplying. There are too many of them. I like that we can do book reviews and we can also review articles and the same thing. Exactly.

Thing. Yes, you're right. It makes sense when you think about it. It's a completely coherent. They're both forms. the written word, Chris. That's the thing. Yeah, they're not gurus talking shit in audio format.

Although, to be fair, in this case, so as many people will already know, this is the genius myth, the dangerous allure of rebels, monsters, and rule breakers by Helen Lewis. Published by Penguin? That's a little penguin thing. Yeah. And that case, it is. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Helen Lewis, friend of the podcast, about to become an enemy as we tear her books. That's right. That's right. We are here not to critique Helen, but to bury her. Yeah. Actually, I will mention that, like, I saw some very snippy reviews on this. I mean, there were, you know, whatever.

There's different reviews. There's people that didn't like it and didn't like it. that's fine, Matt. Everyone's a lot of their opinion, but I did see one particularly, like, just very, very snippy review by philosophers on, uh, philosopher magazine or something like that. Yeah. Circulation 23. Yeah. Yeah. They were very upset about it. And as it turned out, they were kind of heterodox philosophers as well. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What, what, what made them upset? Do you remember? Yeah, they were, I mean, by and large, they were just like, they seemed to think that

she was wanting to take geniuses down a peg or two and that she wasn't specific enough. So, like, was she saying that Junius doesn't exist? And she didn't define her words properly. And she was, she's just all about tearing down, you know, geniuses. They mentioned Elon Musk. They had lots of little asides. Like, they noted, oh, yes, well, you know, Helen mentioned that she has to do seven times eight on a calculator.

So what does that say about her? Oh, what does it do? Oh, God. Yeah, and since when we're philosophers? I can good at math. Arithmetic. Not most of famous for it. Yeah, I could, you know, I could see, I can see people being, you know, like Elon Musk fans.

Anybody likes Elon Musk? Oh, yeah, yeah. You're not going to like this book. But, you know, well, let's fight. Let's see, Chris. I mean, what do you think? That's right. Fair, unfair. We are the deciders. We will decide. That's right. Screw Daniel Codzzi and John Meyer, who are the ones that wrote the review for the Philosopher's Magazine. That's what it's called. I just found it. But, you know, we determine here the overall quality of, of, of the books that we review you and it's not subjective at all it's it's more objective it's based on our you know our extensive background but mainly vibes um anyway vibes it's not a book review

we just read the book and it's like a book club just there's only two of us it's the book club meeting before the real book club um with with the patreon members and you know it's a jumping off point to talk about whatever we want connected to the book so that's right for the so i should mention that For those who are in the Decoding Academia here, there is a, like, a live hangout book discussion because a bunch of people read it and we will be there and we will listen to other people's opinion. So, like, if you find yourself infuriated by our takes, you can, you know, you can tell us to our face, so just bear that in mind.

If you pay us, you can tell us to our faces. Oh, yeah, that's right. You have to pay us. And books like this are voted for. The only reason we read it is because... That's not the only reason, Matt. I was already reading it. How dare you?

Well, I mean, this is very... It's very grammatically connected to our topic. I mean, we're mentioned, and should we get that out? Let's get that out of the way. We got a shout out. My name. My name was mentioned, and the podcast is mentioned, and your name was mentioned, probably just before mine. And some of the concepts we use and, you know, but that wouldn't swear us,

because that's just as it should be. That's just a sign of, like, bare confidence. And I will also say that, Matt, just for disclosure, I listened to the audiobook. So I had the Helen's dulcet tones reading it to me. She's a good audiobook reader. I don't know the narrator. That's the term. I'm very fussy with my audio narration voices.

There are many books that I'm like, I really want to listen to this. And I check the narrator. and I'm like, I just can't, no, I can't do it. I'm sorry, but there's a certain kind of American accent. And it's not even a normal American accent. It's the kind of accent they choose for audio narration. And it's too much, man. It's just too much, too much of a good thing.

Too much? It terms of there. Yeah, I can't explore it. Anyway. Well, can I, there's a, I'll only sidetrack us for like 40 seconds warm up. But there's a, the Game of Thrones book were read by this guy, called Roy Daltrees. And he did it

fantastically. Like he's a great narrator, right? But many people have noted that his portrayal of women makes them all sound like hags or kind of ancient major. Say, hey, up. You know, it's supposed to be like the sultry captures. So I don't know why

he chose that, but otherwise he's regarded as a very good narrator. So, you know, there you go. That's a little bit of a nugget of information for you. Like I said, only 40 seconds. That's all quick. Yep, that's fine.

Well, that's fine. Well, you know what that's not connected to? The theme of Helen's book. Oh. Go on. Yeah, so, I mean, how to sum it up, Chris? I would say it's a bit of, you know, an examination of the social construction of extreme talent and genius. So how people think about genius, how genius gets made.

and is it a real thing, really? Yes, in the Western world might be a caveat that I would add, but which I think Kellen also kind of acknowledges, you know, due to scope, limitations of time and language and when she is talking about the countries and context, which she is most familiar, but there is, like, it is not a worldwide tour around the concept of genius. That's not a big issue, but there were just points where whenever there was referenced me to, you know, I don't know, I think this is just an anthropologist thing, but like, whenever there's reference to like our appreciation, I'm like, well, oh, you know, this is where all the geniuses are.

And I'm like, well, not in China. But that's, you know. So you're saying Chinese people don't think that Einstein was a genius or they think about his geniusness in a completely different way? No, well, I think they do. I think all the examples given in the Western world apply. But it's just like, it's just times when you're talking about this is where all the geniuses were perceived to be in the 19th century or whatever. I was kind of thinking in Western societies, this is where people perceive them to be. But yeah, but I know it's a very pedantic thing.

But she flags it up as well as a limitation. So I'm not saying it's something you didn't consider. It's just a footnote. Okay. Footnote noted. So yeah, she sort of gets started in talking about, I think she sort of starts off with like the measurement of intelligence and at IQ tests and, you know, this idea of, yeah, you know, particularly extremely talented people and finding out who they are and everything. And there's obviously just like the history of IQ, it's been links to unpleasant. things around eugenics and race science and so on. But yeah, you know, I found that part, you know, interesting because that's an area that I know a lot about. And I thought you dealt with it pretty fairly. I think there are, there are, you know, interesting things there about trying to measure intelligence or talent, kind of at the extreme level. I mean, in short, simplifying it a bit,

IQ tests and stuff pretty good at just, you know, finding out if someone's got a learning disability, finding out whether someone, you know, is legally competent to stand trial or whether or not they need special, you know, remedial training or whatever. But once you get above, you know, the sort of pretty, you know, middle of the road type stuff, I think the validity starts to drop pretty strongly. So I found it quite funny when she was covering those, the high IQ societies. And as some of our gurus got a mention, what's his name? Chris Langen. Chris Langen.

I was so glad that Chris Rineer of Nixium was there. But yeah, the dysfunction in the Haiku societies and the people that set them up or administer them or are concerned. It is almost infallible, Matt, that like an overweening concern with IQ is a bad side. even in the case of like people who are genuine scientists who have achieved something, once they get too much the IQ, it seems that they become very stupid. It's like the curse of IQ. No, I know. But that's when she starts, I think, gets getting into some of the interesting stuff around

the social perception of it because I think she's right in identifying that there is a conflation in people's minds with this idea of an innate quality or a trait, a persistent trait that somebody has describes a person and what they accomplished in life, like, you know, how the amazing things they do or don't do. Success, in other words. And, you know, that's really obvious in the big figures like Elon Musk, who, despite all appearances to the contrary, people will be absolutely convinced that he has to be like one of the most intelligent people on the planet if you can measure such a thing and they'll point to all of the success right all of the money all of the successful businesses all of that stuff and i think um you know i think

that's a thing it's like it's a real conflation and it goes to i think the theme of the book which is what are you talking about are you talking about a quality that someone that describes the sort of essence of a person, or are you talking about what they've done in life? Because what they've done is obviously dependent on a whole bunch of other things, not to mention luck. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, she raises, obviously, the specter of Elon Musk in the last section comes up, right? And she is taking the position that, you know, objectively, he has achieved rather significant things. And like, whether that's by, you know, bamboozlement or genuine insight, it's still an achievement, right? And you should be able to approach someone and say,

well, they did this and they achieved that. And they are affecting Egypt in, you know, their social commentary or whatever, or their concerns with high IQ societies or whatever, right? Like, the same thing with Luc Montague, is it, or Luc Montagnor, I don't know how pronounced the name, but the French biologist who, like, won in the Nobel Prize, made genuine breakthroughs and went on to endorse distance homeopathy for reprogramming genetics and all this kind of thing like it doesn't mean that his earlier achievements were based on insanity right like or that he was always that terrible it doesn't have to be the case it can be that people are productive good in certain spurts and and maybe less so in different areas or different

time. So that I think is a thing that people in general think in very essentialized terms about individuals. Yeah. So I think the idea of talent and intelligence as like a unitary construct, right, as a single thing, right, that can be measured with a number more or less. That maybe makes some degree of sense in a certain range. But if you're talking, at a kind of exceptional level. I think what you see is a very jagged frontier. And that's a term from AI, right? This is the thing that most people have noticed.

We have these AIs that are, you know, incredibly smart in many ways, indisputably now. The AI skeptics can all go to hell because they've been winning math Olympiads and things like that. At the same time, they will have manifest flaws, right? Yeah. So this is what they call the jagged frontier. here, right? There are this whole spectrum of abilities, and some of them are incredibly high,

some of the middle of the road, and there are these little gaps and wedges. And, you know, I think that's a good sort of mental model for capturing people's capacities, especially at the more special, at the higher kind of levels, because it gets very jagged, I think. And that's why you have, you know, these people who are very, very good industry. at something, right? Could be painting, could be maths, whatever. And then they have a terrible take or a delusional thing, and they've fallen for the most obvious misinformation in some other area.

And we shouldn't be so surprised about that. No, no. And speaking about AI and people expressing skepticism, did you know that Helen expressed her skepticism about the kind of revolutionary utility of AI? and I was kind of like, yeah, I got you. You told me the journalists in general seem to be kind of...

They are. They were more nonplussed about it, so Helen is off that genre. But I was just, I'm so far from their assessment of like, well, it hasn't really done that much transformative. I'm like, God, you should live my life. If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at patreon.com

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