Recently read some of Patricia Fara's "Newton: The Making of Genius." Not about someone being some sorta genius, but a case study about how social movements built his mythology and defined words like "science" and "genius."
Secular movements offered replacements for religious institutions. Newton was sainted; medical and tech experts became the new miracle workers ("new saviours of sick bodies and a deteriorating environment").
Science and religion, genius and sanctity: from some perspectives they seem completely distinct from one another, yet their cultural roles are closely related. As Western society has become increasingly secularized, intellectual ability has gradually displaced saintly dedication as an attribute of greatness, while medical and technological experts have assumed the mantle of miracle workers.
I suspect a psychologically harmful split in our secular archetypes:
- "Men of science": detached hyper-rationalists
- "Artists": governed by mad passions
Makes more sense to me if this reflects religions which had strong opinions/roles on these matters. How do these ideological ideals fit with our organizations' hiring filters?
in the early days of the U.S. Space Program—another period of panic—there was still room for genuine oddballs like Jack Parsons, the founder of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Parsons was not only a brilliant engineer—he was also a Thelemite magician in the Aleister Crowley tradition, known for regularly orchestrating ceremonial orgies in his California home. Parsons believed that rocket science was ultimately just one manifestation of deeper, magical principles. But he was eventually fired. [112]
[112] Though possibly, this had at least as much to with his libertarian communist political affinities than his devotion to the occult. His wife’s sister, who seems to have been the ringleader in the magical society, eventually left him for L. Ron Hubbard; on leaving NASA, Parsons went on to apply his magic to creating pyrotechnic effects for Hollywood until he finally blew himself up in 1962.
―Graeber, "The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy". Also see Wired's article, "Occultist father of rocketry 'written out' of Nasa's history"
German programmers I worked with mentioned Club-Mate everyday: their monk's beer? Is Agile for bureaucratized temples in service to state-like corporations?
Office workers stare at screens all day. If you write internal apps, does the company section you away socially from these employees? Create a role where you're basically priests who go off for some days, perform arcane rituals & trials of dedication; then a miracle happens to change their world?