Everybody loves a genius story.

Whether somebody's gifts are of the Stephen Hawking or Steve Jobs or Tina Turner variety,

they make impossible stuff look easy and they let us off the hook, like we cannot

possibly be expected to measure ourselves against their almost miraculous achievements.

But is genius, a supernatural state or a social construct?

From KERA in Dallas, this is think.

I'm Chris Boyd.

My guest believes that who gets called a genius

has more to do with us than them. It's an indicator of what a society finds valuable.

And the way we usually tell the stories of geniuses is interesting as much for the details we

leave out as for the ones we memorize. Helen Lewis is a staff writer at the Atlantic

and host and co-host of numerous podcasts,

including the new gurus and Helen Lewis has left the chat. Her book is called The Genius Myth,

a curious history of a dangerous idea. Helen, welcome to think. Thank you very much. You acknowledge

that a particular individual can be credited fairly with acts of genius.

You have a harder time with the idea that any human being is a genius.

Why does the distinction matter to you?

Well, weirdly enough, I'm going back to a much older definition, you know, the one that was

used by the Greek and the Romans, who kind of what had this idea that genius was a kind of divinity acting through you. And I think that model of thinking

about it is probably a bit more helpful because it explains why, you know, some people have a

hot streak. It comes and goes. It also explains why some people kind of fall in love with their own

egos if they begin to think of themselves as a

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