|
> Tanner Greer uses Oswald Spengler, the original chronicler of the decline of genius back in 1914, to point out our current genius downturn. The author has a recency bias. I think the real burst of genius was from 800BC to 300BC. During that time you had Homer, Archimedes, Pythagorus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Buddha, Confucius, Zeno of Citium. You had the Odyssey, the Hebrew Bible, and the Bhagavad Gita. Judaism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Stoicism all have their foundational writings/teachings written down during this time. Way more people have read and studied and learned from Homer than from Tolstoy. Aristotle is way more influential than William James. Or maybe, different historical periods produce different types of genius, and many times it is apparent only looking backwards in time who the geniuses were and what was their true impact. |
Axial Age (also Axis Age,[1] from the German Achsenzeit) is a term coined by the German philosopher Karl Jaspers. It refers to broad changes in religious and philosophical thought that occurred in a variety of locations from about the 8th to the 3rd century BCE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_Age