David Brooks has a column out where he mulls over the role of time invested in amplifying talent:
If you wanted to picture how a typical genius might develop, you'd take a girl who possessed a slightly above average verbal ability. It wouldn't have to be a big talent, just enough so that she might gain some sense of distinction. Then you would want her to meet, say, a novelist, who coincidentally shared some similar biographical traits. Maybe the writer was from the same town, had the same ethnic background, or, shared the same birthday -- anything to create a sense of affinity.
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The primary trait she possesses is not some mysterious genius. It's the ability to develop a deliberate, strenuous and boring practice routine.
Brooks' attempt is to slap back at genetic determinism, but it sounds like he could be describing a gene-environment correlation. To a great extent that's what "amplifying talent" is, a positive feedback loop between propensity and hard work.
But I think that sometimes the emphasis on hard work can be fetishized destructively. You read a book like Until It Hurts: America's Obsession with Youth Sports and How It Harms Our Kids, and you understand the opportunity cost of focusing on a task where those with innate talent can easily beat those who have spent years honing their skills at the upper levels. Not that greatness in sports doesn't require hard work, obviously it does, but among the best the small hardwired differences mean that those who aren't as fast, strong or quick by their nature will lose. Nassim Taleb's criticism of The Millionaire Next Door was that the book highlighted the winners and not the losers who had the traits x, y and z which the authors suggested result in their wealth. Taleb points out that x, y and z may be necessary but they may not be sufficient conditions for a particular outcome (career and asset acquisition paths exhibit a lot of path dependence due to random events, good or bad).
No one is born a world class athlete or chess master, obviously. They are made through hard work. But, of the people who make themselves into exemplars of virtuosity through effort, all may also have some innate abilities which give them the margin of excellence or victory. And this does not even explore the role that luck may play. Consider Olympic caliber American athletes who were at their peak right before the 1980 games.
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to paraphrase someone else:
why do we insist that the science of human beings should be a source of sentimental uplift? why is "pessimism" considered a legitimate criticism of science?
the human condition really does present dilemmas. outside of the context of reports on science, sophisticated people readily see through claims that there are easy solutions to life's problems.
I'm a pretty successful cartoonist (now animation filmmaker). I was raised by a mathematician and an MBA who thought visual art was kind of ghetto. My high school had no art classes. I dropped out of a college "fine arts" program that abhorred cartooning.
I don't think I would have done any better if I'd been "mentored." In fact I developed a resentment towards authority that I think aided my self-teaching. To this day I am grateful I wasn't forced to take art classes in grade or high school, as they would have ruined the one area of my life that existed outside school and others' authority. I'm glad my parents and teachers didn't try to "amplify" my talent; they would have destroyed it.
Sometimes people have the talent but not the interest, while other people have the interest but not the talent. Then there are those people who have the talent and even the interest but lack the drive. Finally for those very very few people who have the talent, the interest and are insanely driven to achieve, there is a decent chance for success.
The older I get the more I'm convinced it's all in the stars.
What Nina said. If there is one hallmark of "genius", it's a genuinely unteachable maverick quality, a stubbornness (you could also call it integrity and incorruptibility).
Brooks is talking about manufacturing high-performing robots - but is this really creativity? You could say that Mozart (to use his example) became the genius that he did not because but in spite of the fact that his father exploited him. The fact that he grew up to be a highly productive and normal man (wife, six kids in 8 years) is a triumph of genes, not upbringing. Or perhaps Leopold was a wiser father than we think.....
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Look at Bobby Fischer. His chess genius was innate, and clearly had something to do with his fatherlessness. The opposite of the manufactured Polgar sisters whose playing is brilliant - but is it beautiful? I'm not a chess player so I can't say, but I do know that the 13 year old virtually self-taught Fischer beat a 26-year-old Grandmaster in "The Game of the Century." Analyze that, David Brooks.
And I continue to pose this great, unanswered question:
Why has there never been a great female juggler?
Inborn traits may account for more of an athlete's success than a novelist's success. According to my current understanding of the brain, it continues to adapt to the environment in the way that legs, arms, etc. do not (given a healthy individual).
Certainly, in extremely competitive fields (music, sports, art, etc) more than just hard work factors into whether someone is a success (luck, genes, etc.). But it is a necessarily ingredient, and often overlooked when people are looking at the achievements of people in fields they do not understand. Not only that, but the ability to recover and learn from failure.
Also, examining how and why an individual has achieved outstanding success in a field, receiving external recognition, is a different than examining how and why a person has developed extraordinary skills.
Fischer also fits into the category of someone who trained and practiced their way to success. A close look at Mozart's actual career and production shows the same thing. They started very young and had early mentoring influences.
But there are a number of fields that there is no obvious talent (in the form of repeatable results) because they are extremely difficult to practice at and get positive feedback. You can train to be a good plumber, but you really cannot train to be a good manager.
Both the blog post and Brooks however confuse success with talent. The cartoonist who commented above notes herself as "unknown" which is very much to the point. But I think the key point to a cartoonist is generally that they be humerus (ironic or otherwise). And cartoonists generally do get direct feedback on their results.
Look at Bobby Fischer. His chess genius was innate, and clearly had something to do with his fatherlessness. The opposite of the manufactured Polgar sisters whose playing is brilliant - but is it beautiful? I'm not a chess player so I can't say, but I do know that the 13 year old virtually self-taught Fischer beat a 26-year-old Grandmaster in "The Game of the Century."
I think this is closer to the truth:
Fischer also fits into the category of someone who trained and practiced their way to success. A close look at Mozart's actual career and production shows the same thing. They started very young and had early mentoring influences.
Fischer worked unbelievably hard at chess, day in, day out, until won the title. He also had a very fine coach, Jack Collins. Collins himself said that Fischer taught himself. But he taught himself from past games and instructional books, in which chess abounds. Are you really self-taught if you learn from books?
As an utterly un-gifted player who has nevertheless devoted years to the game and its history, I would say that both Fischer and the Polgars played beautiful chess. Fischer's appeals to me more, but that is probably simply because he was a stronger player. Kasparov is the ultimate "manufactured" player, but he played the most beautiful chess I've ever seen.