essay

content/trigger warning: discussion of technofascism

Sam says something like: genius attempts to democratize excellence, willfully ignorant to the consequences.

Genius is "move fast and break things."

Easier in art than in other things. To break it is to point and cry, "Art!" (which anyone can do at any time).

Technofascism is not "move fast and break things." They say it is. They say a lot of things, but technofascism is semblances. Appearances. Technofascism is all surface; it's sponcon; it's advertising. Technofascism epitomizes propaganda. Propaganda is not fast. Context is fast. If I know you and care about you, I will take whatever you tell me seriously even if I tell you and myself I do not. Propaganda is slow and ineffective (it only needs a single convert, after all).

Technofascists want to move fast and break things but they don't. Genius does. Stevie is the closest technofascists ever got to genius, though of course he didn't even come close. He got closer than any technofascist before him because he thought himself an artist (lol). But he did nearly destroy the planet and humanity in the process. Many technofascists lionize him; they'll even tell you this story. But they don't know how to read it. They only know semblances, appearances. They don't get the subtext.

(I'm skipping over a lot—an example of genius. I didn't come up with this up myself so don't credit me for it, but if I tell you I'm skipping over a lot and still claim you're reading an essay, that is almost genius. It threatens to democratize excellence: someone who reads this can then go write an essay and decide they want to skip over a lot, and say so, and it will still be an essay. When their essay is better than mine, and someone reads it, and writes an essay better than theirs, that essay will probably be excellent. Remember, I didn't come up with this; thank Joan, or maybe the strict word limits of magazines—to make room for the ads, of course.)

Sam says something like: the next genius will teach genius. Will be genius at teaching. I don't know about that. If art is inherently collaborative, teaching epitomizes collaboration, or maybe learning does, and anyways genius and collaboration are incompatible (hence my obsession with it; collaboration, I mean).

I think Sam's fibbing. Sam's genius is that of restraint; Sam could write every book ever written 100 times over, but chooses to write a few (dozen). This is the genius of restraint. I sense, in his formulation (buried in the middle of a book, at the end of a letter), the genius of restraint. There's something else he wants to say, maybe only: beware.

Sam says the consequences of attempting to democratize excellence are grim (you can't spell eugenics without genius). Excellence is indecipherable at first, which means interpretation leans on appearances. Soon all that's left is surface minus substance, expression minus meaning, warmth minus care. Genius attempts to democratize excellence, but always ultimately fails; oppression compels mimicry, and muddles comprehension, because no one has enough time. (The only one who benefits is Kath—because she has the time.)

You could know everything there is to know, if you only had the time.

(But you already know it; you live. This is what I mean when I say everyone is clairvoyant: everyone can be genius but everyone is already clairvoyant.)

None of this is new; it's all already out there. I found my way here through Sam; that's what I mean when I say learning is collaboration.

Collaboration is "move slow and heal things."

Collaboration is time democratized. Or—fuck that fucking word—collaboration is time shared. Time together. Time cherished.

Genius is incompatible with collaboration. Good.