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The Good Fight

Helen Lewis on The Genius Myth

The Good Fight

Yascha Mounk

News

4.6907 Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Helen Lewis is a staff writer at The Atlantic who writes about politics and culture. Her latest book, The Genius Myth: A Curious History of a Dangerous Idea, is out now. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Helen Lewis explore what our ideas of genius mean, whether you need to die young to be considered one—and why no one cares about geniuses with boring lives. Podcast production by Mickey Freeland and Leonora Barclay. Connect with us! Spotify | Apple | Google X: @Yascha_Mounk & @JoinPersuasion YouTube: Yascha Mounk, Persuasion LinkedIn: Persuasion Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to the year 2000.

0:02.0

Everyone, everywhere is having fun, except me.

0:06.0

On BBC Eye Player.

0:08.0

I worry you're growing up too fast.

0:10.0

Yeah, we can't be your little duck here forever, can I?

0:13.0

Inspired by a true story.

0:15.0

You walk out this house a boy, one day you'll come back.

0:17.0

When you do, you will be a man.

0:20.0

Oh, and hold your breath. What it feels like

0:22.4

for a girl. I wish I could look like you. Bebe, you can. Why don't you? Watch on BBC IPlayer.

0:30.0

It's just this really human impulse to sort of think that there is something within you that makes

0:34.9

you sort of better than other people who've just tried and been mediocre.

0:38.0

And actually a fear of failure that you don't want to try.

0:41.6

I think it's Maslow writes about this.

0:43.5

People don't just have a fear of failure.

0:45.6

They have a fear of success.

0:49.7

And now the Good Fight with Yasha Monk.

1:01.0

There's a topic I'm really torn about. When I look at the plays of William Shakespeare,

1:04.0

when I listen to the music of Rolfgang Rambollah's Mozart

1:08.0

and realize how incredibly prolific he was in his short life.

1:12.3

It's tempting to think of them as different superior beat of human, as a genius that stands

1:19.3

apart from the rest.

...

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