I am watching Rossellini's Cartesius -- the intellectual biography of René Descartes -- and was thinking of submitting a link to it; it is held to be a very acc

I am watching Rossellini's Cartesius -- the intellectual biography of René Descartes -- and was thinking of submitting a link to it; it is held to be a very accurate if not an exciting film. Watching this film I think I may have a clue as to when cleverness became a "public nuisance". One of the TIL moments for me in the film is learning why the conservative intellectuals of the day were dead against "new planets" discovered by telescopes. It turns out, since all their natural sciences were governed by Zodiac hand-me-downs from Babylon via Aristotle and Avicenna -- ~"all natural phenomena are caused by the movements of heavenly bodies" -- having their magic number Seven (7) be supplanted was a complete intellectual crisis. It was "cleverness", being "aloof" and "an outsider" that marks the man, Descartes (at least as depicted here). He repeatedly makes the point in the film as to why he chose to live among Dutch merchants and sailors instead of fellow geeks in Paris! ("I want to be left alone to think and reflect"). I think pre-Enlightenment the conservative ethos was held to be 'godly' and 'true'. Then a sequence of brilliant clever men such as Descartes heedlessly began to question practically every received wisdom. And then by the time our witty man of letters comes around, it had become fashionable and no longer the unique instrument of true wits and true minds. - A reviewer: "At first glance this is the most tedious of Rossellini's portraits, double the length, with even more repetitive talk about a more abstract subject: the correct use of mind." https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0161382 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0161382 magnet:?xt=urn:btih:26FF01235DA0205BFA466939EED0EA5100CBB3BE