It is agreed that WJ Sidis had the highest known IQ. He lived an unfocused and unproductive life. I have known many like him. He looked exactly like a childhood friend of mine who signs his emails Osiris (lately only the Egyptian symbol of that god). He has the same expression. But it is not William James Sidis whom I find astonishing, but his mother. Her autobiography is on the web. It is short, to the point and readable.
She was born in a godforsaken Ukranian shtetl in an ultraortodox family (We were all ulraorthodox then, so it would be ebough to sya that they were Jewish). Her parents married while he was at the yeshive (at 17) and had fifteen children. Then the Tzarist regime started the pogrom program (progrom IS program with Russian pronunciation) and they had to run and take refuge in America. She went to the university and became a doctor, which was unusual for girls of her generation. All in all, the Sidis story is the typical Russian Jewish story. Why, then, astonishing?
Because in her autobiography she gives not even the smallest indication that she is a Jew, that all her family is Jewish, that they spoke Yiddish and kept kosher at home, that they had to escape Russia because they were Jews, in fact, she forgets to mention (that is, she hides) the most basic, most defining facts of her life. Amazing.
The Sidis were idealists/Socialists/Communists and so, atheists. They believed that their own tribal past is irrelevant - that they were essencial human beings without any other - atavistic - identity.
These were the most intelligent people ever born. They hated themselves. Unfortunately, the world agreed with them. They hated them. Sidis the son had problems all his short life - was sent to jail, was beaten by his collegues at Harvard, was sacked from his job and could never keep one. They wanted passionately be only human beings, to forget that they were Jews, but the world would not let them.
Update (June 28, 2010): I retract my former opinion that he spent his life irrationally. The man learned very early that he could earn a living without problems, so he looked for jobs suited to him - undemanding jobs he could navigate effortlessly and leave him much free time to pursue his own interests. He got a calculating job on Wall Street, but he escaped as soon as people discovered who he was and expected more from him. This lifestyle is more or less the one I adopted - I am designing systems that are ridiculously simple for me, so I would have time to study the market. Unfortunately I accept too much work and spend less than necessary time on the market. I dreamed spending days on the Ehad HaAm street coffees paying attention to what people was saying, yet not once I got there. Secondly, Sidis spent time thinking about the transfer problem, how to reach from one point in a big city to another point using the minimum transportation transfers and minimum time and/or money. It is a diabolically complex calculation, which was solved only after the invention of cheap computing. People is doing this mental calculation all the time, so an universal/general solution would have been very useful.
Sidis's problem was that surviving was no challenge for him, and he felt no need to conquest any difficult goal that would occupy his forces. In Wall Street he could have applied himself to make a fortune, but he didnt feel like he needed it. My case was very different, coming from the post-war generation that had no relatives nor money nor security, I always forced myself to pursue long term very difficult projects. Which I completed (and that is another problem).
17 comments:
Funny, but you have the exact same writing voice as Eli Shkrob, UC biochem professor and savant, whose blog, Shkrobius at livejournal, is one of the most unique and informative out there.
We are all products of our times, even the most brilliant. In his time, assimilation was in vogue and many American Jews sought to blend in and de-emphasized their Jewish identity. Many of the famous Hollywood studio heads, Irving Berlin, etc. - all rarely if ever referred to their Jewish backgrounds.
This was partly just "good business" for people seeking to cater to a mass audience (most of whom were not Jewish). To this day my wife, who has many Catholic patients (she has a practice in educational testing - IQ tests for school admission, etc.) goes out of her way to keep her religious identity ambiguous. She does not deny her Jewishness but neither does she publicize it. She attends synagogue more than I do but she believes religion is a private matter. To some extent I think this is just rationalization - she is on some level ashamed of being standing out as "different" or obviously "ethnic". I myself have a very obviously Jewish name (although my first name is used more often by Hispanics - hint- it is the name of a country with a blue six pointed star on its flag) and have no desire or intention to conceal my Jewish identity (such as it is - I am not frum) even if it were not so obvious to begin with. I have tried to tell my wife that her patients would not care that she was Jewish, in fact might prefer it (the Popes have usually had Jewish doctors) but she won't hear of it.
What really changed things in America was the "Black Power" movement. Before ethnic/racial identity was something to be hidden, now you were supposed to be proud of your ethnic roots. This spread to all groups in US society, including Jews (except my wife - my children tease her that Gestapo is not coming to arrest her). I don't know how many Hollywood movies and TV programs I've seen in recent years that have scenes of Jewish weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs, etc. Sometimes I wonder if the goyim really want to see these, but they have no choice.
One of the funniest Jewish references I have seen in recent years was the character "Les Grossman" played by a heavily disguised Tom Cruise (look it up on YouTube). In one scene, he is insulting an action movie star, telling him he is washed up (Les Grossman is a crude, hairy chested Hollywood producer who curses a lot - years ago such a caricature would have been considered anti-Semitic, but since the movie's actual producers were Jewish and the intent was humorous it was not). He tells the downfallen star that "next year the children won't even wear your costume for Purim". I'm sure that 95% of the non-Jewish audience didn't get the reference (the main costume dress up holiday in America is Halloween, not Purim) but I though it was hilarious.
K
If Dr Sidis was writing her autobiography in Stalinist Russia, where religion was forbidden, I could understand her ommisions. But she was in the free USA, where no stigma nor harm would come to her if she mentions that they kept Shabbath at her parent's home or they fled Russia because of the pogroms. She had the common identity neurosis of the Galuth, which Zionism came to cure.
As I said before, the cure for identity neurosis for most American Jews was not Zionism (though the '67 victory made it fashionable to be on the winning team) but Black Power and the subsequent identity movements that spun off from it. To some extent this radicalization even had echoes in Israel - Kahane was a product of that confrontational era in America.
I once heard an interview with Philip Roth, the noted Jewish American novelist. He said that growing up in an all Jewish section of Newark in the 1940's , not one person of his generation wore a yarmulke outside the synagogue - these were considered to be relics of the past.
K
I should also add that anti-Semitism was once more widespread in America than is widely known today. From the late 19th century to the mid-20th, many hotels, especially fashionable resort hotels, were "restricted" which was code for "no Jews allowed" (blacks staying in such hotels was so far out of the question that there was no need to even mention them). Many large corporations did not hire Jews - my mother in law obtained a job at a large plant in Philadelphia during WWII only because the Federal government enforced an anti-discrimination policy against companies holding government contracts for war production. Golf clubs, etc. were segregated into Jewish and non-Jewish clubs. There were quotas on Jewish university admissions. The immigration quota for Jews from E. Europe was reduced to almost zero. Etc. SO while it was not Stalinist Russia, neither was it like today either.
I should also add that the assimilationist attitude cost possibly millions of Jewish lives. Read the story of Karski here:
http://remember.org/karski/kexcrpt4.html
Supreme Ct. Justice Frankfurter refused to believe Karski, because if he believed him he would have had to "come out" publicly as a Jew and do something to save the lives of those who were dying by the thousands every day. He therefore had no choice but to NOT believe him, so he could continue doing nothing.
K
There is, however, no acceptable way to identify oneself as a WASP ethnic; we are the last group required to deny our identity.
This too, will pass.
Anon.
I didnt know about Karski. What a tragedy.
American Jews threw away the "relics" of their past in their frantic desire to make good in America. They did. Now what?
Karski's story is beyond tragic. If it were fiction you would not believe it. I recall hearing him tell his tale on film (I think it was Shoah) and it was even more moving. I want to weep tears of bitter frustration each time I hear it - a story like this makes you lose faith in mankind. Where are the 36 tzaddikim for whose sake God does not destroy mankind? They must be humble workmen or farmers and not the snakes to be found in Washington who would sell their own mothers if it advanced their careers.
K
Now what? It depends - if you believe that physical comfort and wealth are the ultimates, then the Jews have achieved their goals. If you believe that spiritual values and identification with something bigger than yourself, connection to your roots, etc. are important then they have driven themselves into a dead end in their Mercedes and BMWs.
Maybe you can have both - my cousin became a wealthy home builder (and inherited even more millions from his father). His son became a Lubavitcher rabbi and has just married another baal tshuva girl (the Lubavitch won't match their "own" with "converts") and his father's and grandfather's millions will provide for at least a couple of generations worth of Torah study. So the circle has closed again - from bearded great-great grandfather (my grandfather did wear a beard but it was a neatly trimmed modern beard, not a rebbe's beard, but his father surely wore a full, uncut Jewish beard) to bearded great great grandson (and soon to the 12 or so children he will have). I would not want this for my own son (not that he has any inclination in this direction) but on some level I am glad that somewhere on earth there will be Jews bearing my family name in a few generations - I can't say I can be sure they will be in my direct line.
K
I have no family name worries. Thousands of Jews and Germans share my family name. You know: Schwarz, Weiss, Roth, Braun, Gluck, Green, Wiener, Singer, etc. And I have only daughters, so we are doomed. Vanity of vanities.
Strangely, on my mother's side of the family, the family name is unique - all the people who have this name are my relatives. Our best guess is that the name was recorded as a misspelling of a similar name - it is a couple of letters off from Weber or Verber, which are common enough.
My father's surname (and mine) is quite common among Jews but this is not the same as having blood descendants. Of my paternal line, one brother was killed by the Poles in the war before marrying, one survived in hiding but his children were killed by the Germans and though he remarried after the war (and moved to Israel) he never had children, one brother had only a daughter, one had two sons but one son never married and the other had only daughters, and my father had me and I have one son - he is the only male offspring out of 5 brothers.
K
Speaking of yehudim, I visited Ariel and Kdar Tapuach today. Never seen a Jewish trailer park before. The inhabitants were very nice to me, partially because I represented a great opportunity to explain to an unbiased stranger what cocksuckers their (Jewish) neighbors were. Also met the Samaritans, who reminded me of the Yezidis of Iraq in all ways, and also of the Russian Jewish joke about the Armenian patriarch on his deathbed whose final demand is that his progeny preserve the Jews, since "when they're done with the Jews, they'll start in on us!"
Dargot is pretty cool.
K, you should have had 10 children.
President Zuma will advise you on the details.
Anon.
Yes, counting all the boys and girls together, our clan has not yet recovered from the effects of the Holocaust 70 years later (there were 2 more sisters too) - there are far fewer in this generation than there were then. My sister had 3 children but all the others had none or 2 - instead of 14 in my generation and 28 in the next (just to maintain replacement), there are 5 in my generation and only 7 in the next - we are 75% behind. And the coming generation is marrying mostly non-Jews so far (2 out of 3 that have married), so the next generation will be even worse. So sad.
K
More than one way to go extinct.
Anon.
@J In your Update form June 28. of 2010 you imply that fulfilling ones longterm goals is a problem. How so?
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