Robert Peters writes:

>Shakespeare was a servant of the King being a member of the King's Men.
>Not exactly what you call a rebel.  So Shakespeare, undoubtely an extremely
>gifted writer, was no genius?

Some of the things that Shakespear wrote would have been a slap in the face
to the establishment, that is, a little rebellious.

>Bills definition is very subjective and romantic.  But so is the very
>word "genius".  People call (almost exclusively dead!) persons with
>extraordinary (seemingly miraculous) abilities in mostly artistic fields
>geniuses.

I agree that it is subjective (as I said in my post - my definition) and
it is also overused, buy not by me and my definition.  For me, (personal
opinion) there has to be a special name for those who have the courage of
their convictions, forget public and peer opinion, stick their neck out,
to offer us another, sure to be controversial view of reality.  For me
they are true heroes of humanity.

>PS People tend to say John Lennon was a genius because he was the "head" of
>the Beatles and so rebellious.  But 1) he was not the "head" of the Beatles
>(there were two heads) and 2) his rebellion was very naive (Give Peace a
>Chance, Sleep-In) and risk-free.  This is what I call the danger of blind
>worship.  (And nobody calls McCartney a genius.  Maybe he just lives too
>long...)

I would call John a genius and Paul extremely musically talented.
Sending back his MBE and taking a public stand against things that the
establishment supported was rebellion.  The Nixon administration tried to
have him deported so they must have feared his power to instill rebellion.
There is a good test for genius (at least my definition) - were their ideas
brilliant and did they offend the establishment? I try to use the word very
carefully.

Bill Pirkle