The Genius Myth, with Helen Lewis and Armando Iannucci (Part Two)

Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorrenti. Today's episode is part two of our recent live event with Helen Lewis and Armando Anucci, who were in discussion live at Conway Hall in London to ask if the modern idea of genius is distorting our view of the world. Let's join Helen and Armando in conversation now. I think this is one of the most powerful bits in in the book really because what being called a genius does to someone, usually mostly a male, is um allow them to get away with anything else that, you know, to to be badly misbehaved or to be appalling with their family.

I mean, I think Tolstoy's a really good example of this. He was, uh, you know, he had that, he was a he was an aristocrat anyway, so he had lots of money. And then he became, you know, so famous he was sort of father of the nation. But he just, he put the whole family through his every little whim. At one point he was like, we're all vegetarian now.

Yeah. And they had to be vegetarian. At one point he went, we're all going to Mongolia because I want to reconnect with nature in a yurt. um I mean he was very And then he said i i and I'm now going to be a hermit I don't I actually don't need any I'm gonna be celibate he said and then another child arrived the next year yeah I mean he he he just he he he become and because he was the family project I mean which was because he was a Russian aristocrat that was a you know attenuated but but anyway as as the kind everyone around him became part of kind of Project Tolstoy And then he was, um, when he kind of lost his religion and then went into more sort of spiritual stuff, he became a kind of enemy of the Orthodox Church.

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