The Insanity Hoax: Exposing the myth of the mad genius by Judith Schlesinger

Author:Judith Schlesinger [Schlesinger, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mad genius, depression, misdiagnosis, bipolar disorder, DSM-IV, music, musicians, hoax, creativity, kay redfield jamison, manic, psychiatry, DSM-V, psychology, touched with fire, artists, genius, mental illness, DSM, melancholia
Publisher: Shrinktunes Media
Published: 2012-11-14T04:30:00+00:00

S I X

Blunt Tools and Slippery Slopes

I can answer you in two words: im-possible.

—Samuel Goldwyn

THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER DISMANTLED the most popular evidence for the creativity and madness link. This one explains why legitimate answers will never be found: mad genius research has too many inherent obstacles to be definitive, no matter how devoted or meticulous the seeker may be.

To begin with , those definition and measurement problems discussed in part 1 are scientifically insurmountable. It’s impossible to take two slippery, amorphous variables and determine if, how, and where they interact. It’s like trying to get two clumps of jello to stick together (1).

But the intrepid explorer who wants to press on anyway will come upon other formidable blocks in the road, like the quality of information mad genius advocates keep using to make their point. In addition to quoting the famous trio discussed in the previous chapter, supporters of the myth tend to mine their “evidence” from three other main quarries:

1. The words of antiquity, which lend that timeless tremor of “truth” to any concept, and suggest that someone will eventually prove what has always been “known”

2. The melodramatic kvetching of famous poets about the torment they endure in the service of their creative gift

3. The primitive theories of nineteenth-century researchers, whose names are collected to imply a long scientific pedigree for the mad genius idea, but whose actual writings are rarely specified, given how ludicrous most of them are

Even if researchers take a more rigorous approach—say, conducting empirical studies of living people—serious methodological problems still stand between them and their proof. What follows now are some of the biggest.

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