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>"Most who grew up to become geniuses, pre-1900, were kept apart from same age peers and raised at home, by tutors or parents. Michel Montaigne’s father employe
by ramesh31 2y ago
>"Most who grew up to become geniuses, pre-1900, were kept apart from same age peers and raised at home, by tutors or parents. Michel Montaigne’s father employed only servants who were fluent in Latin, curating a classical culture, so Montaigne would read the classics in his mother tongue. J.S. Mill spent his childhood at his father’s desk, helping his father write a treatise on economics"
I've noticed this as well, but took a different lesson from it: they were rich. They were all rich. Of course there's the odd rags to riches story here and there. But almost uniformly as a rule, anyone you've ever read about or heard of who was notable in any way as an intellectual in history was born and raised rich. There was nothing genetic or cultural about it. They were just afforded a thousand opportunities at every turn that the rest of us never were. That's really all there is to it.
- z3t4 2y agoAnd some form of autism. If you make a "normal" person rich they would spend their time and resources partying.
- rcxdude 2y agoYeah, generally for historical figures if there's no particular emphasis in the popular biography on their background they were part of the elite in some way from birth.
- rramadass 2y agoWhat you say is very true of course; Social Class, Economic Conditions, Environment are all huge factors in getting access to Opportunities and even more so, cultivating the ability to recognize and exploit them. But i wouldn't say "There was nothing genetic or cultural about it." It is Nature AND Nurture and while one can make up for deficiencies in either to a certain extent it is highly dependent on context and subject itself.