Why is it that great people so rarely produce great offspring?

Great Debates
1

This is one I mull over quite a bit. Why is it that genius seems to be so brief, something that is rarely passed on to offspring or descendants? Of course, different people have different definitions of “genius” or what makes someone “great”, but I’ve noticed that rarely do famous persons usually referred to as “great” have impressive offspring. A sampling:

Napoleon I Bonaparte, Emperor of the French: his only legitimate son was the hard-won Napoleon II Francis, who certainly had the pedigree to be a great European leader. Napoleon Francis’ mother was an Austrian Archduchess; he was descended from Spanish Habsburgs, French Bourbons, and Holy Roman Emperors. But after his father’s defeat, exile, and death, Napoleon Francis was brought up as an Austrian Archduke with the title of “King of Rome”. He never did much of anything worth noting, and died a young man from “weakness in the chest” (whatever that is).

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: okay, so his sons did poccess some musical talent which might even have been considered quite impressive had they not the example of their infamous father to live up to. Both died young, never married, and one’s tombstone read: “Let his veneration for his father be his epitaph, as it was his inspiration in life” or something to that effect. Even in death he couldn’t get out from under his father’s shadow.

Johann von Goethe: his son Auguste had a wretched marriage, and died a drunkard in his thirties, predeceasing his father, who by the way was having an affair with his daughter-in-law, Ottilie.

Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollenstonecraft Godwin: Their only child to survive to adulthood was Percy Florence, who wasn’t really a bad man, just not a very notable one. Shame, for he had quite the legacy to live up to – his father a famous poet, his mother an equally famous author, his maternal grandfather a radical, his maternal grandmother a famous feminist.

There are exceptions to this, of course; one example in which I believe the child to be as important as the parent would be Ada Byron, daughter of poet Lord Byron. Ada invented the first computer language, and had a much more successful marriage and relationship with her children. Then again genuis (however you define it) sometimes skipped generations. Sigmund Freud’s daughter Anna was a devoted children’s psychologist. Lucien Freud, Sigmund’s grandson, was a famous artist. Ghenghis Khan’s grandson Kublai Khan conquerored China and other descendants became il-khans of Persia and Mighals of India, to name a few. Maybe not geniuses, but certainly successful in the family business, so to speak.

So what is it about genius? Is it a white-hot spark that burns out too quickly to be passed on, or do the influence and shadow of the parental accomplishments simply smother it before it can manifest?

2

Genius is the combination of a special collection of genes along with the right environment and being at the right place at the right time. It would seem that you could cure this to a great extent by cloning and repeating the genes part of the equation, that is still to be proved. My bet is that cloning will still not produce a great number of geniuses from geniuses, either.

3

I’ll go for the combination of things required for greatness - including the times and conditions in which you are trying to become great at your given talent. Schwarzenneger has a son right? Assuming he had the identicle genetics (which he doesn’t) as pop, and follows the exact same footsteps and choices dad did, would he acheive the same status for the same reasons as Arnie? No way. No one’s gonna be able to bring bodybuilding into the light and get famous through it the way Arnie did again; it’s been done. Geniuses and really great people seem to be, well… freaks in this world. There is no guide to becoming one, nor has anybody come up with an explanation that applies to all as to how they come about. Greatness generally not running in the family does at least show us it’s not passed on through Mendellian genetics or simple encouragment alone.

4

The main reason for this is the statistical phenomenon of Regression to the Mean.

And speaking of statistics, a good counter-example would the the Bernoulli family, who produced eight brilliant mathematicians.

5

Well, if you look at it a slightly different way, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin managed to produce a pretty impressive child.

6

Regarding the post by mmmiiikkkeee, i never expected to see Arnold Schwarzenneger’s name come up in a thread devoted to the issue of genius. I think the term has now been stretched about as far as it can possibly go.

Hasta la vista, baby. :slight_smile:

7

Quite often great men become great because of how hard they had to work to become recognized and revered. If they achieve fame and wealth their offspring may be pampered and have little interest in attempting to outdo their father (they may want to, but think it impossible so don’t try). Certainly the family environment has much to do with it, since great men are often too busy to raise children. What can result is a child who loathes his father or what he stands for.

That’s all just speculation.

8

Napoleon’s children might not have ever surpassed their father, but Napoleon III, the nephew of Napoleon, had a huge impact on France. He laid the basis for fundamental laws in France. He even got himself proclaimed an Emperor.

9

Most people who achieve ‘greatness’ do so because they are incredibly driven by a single issue, to the exclusion of other things around them including their families.

So the kids of great people may not get the same kind of attention that dad or mom got.

10

All of his kids were musical geniuses. Or at least semi-geniuses.

11

For the purpose of this discussion, can we use the word genius to mean very high intelligence, and greatness to mean… well, greatness?

Great men and women sometimes posses genius level intellegence, but being below that level certainly does not preclude greatness. And being a genius by no means guarentees greatness. IMO, greatness is far less common then genius level intelligence.

Kniz said, “Genius is the combination of a special collection of genes along with the right environment and being at the right place at the right time.” If you substitute the word “greatness” for the word “genius” I would agree.

Greatness is a rare thing. It isn’t inheritable.

Intelligence level, OTOH, is passed on to one’s decendents, to a certain extent. If it appears otherwise, IMO, it’s mainly because of the great variation in how much of his/her potential any individual achieves.

12

Greatness in politics is usually thrust upon people and has a lot to do with being in the right place at the right time and having been brought up in a manner that lends itself to taking care of the problem.

I spent most of yesterday thinking about George Washington (no children). When I was very young, I thought he was the greatest because he was the first. I got older and concluded he was merely first. I got older still and understand not only the temptations that a man faces alone and with his own soul, but also the temptations of competing with lesser persons against the public good and personal ambition.

Washington was clearly an ambitious man. He was a smart man and reasonably well educated. He was one of the wealthiest men, if not the wealthiest man, in America during his life. When he was a junior officer, he personally started the “French-Indian” war by firing the first shot. He went to the first Continnental Congress not asking to be named Commander in Chief, but wearing his military uniform to advertise his interest. (It was an important cultural phenonema of the era to emulate Cincinatus, and not seek power. This is important to understanding Washington.) He had an enormous temper, when in an informal group swore with far saltier language than any other man (and in the military this is saying something) and he was quite an athlete, being an enormous 6’4" and not skinny, and a renowned rider during a day when that was the chief measure of physical prowess for a gentleman.

He competed agaist insubordinate junior general officers who sought to usurp his command at any opportunity, and who criticized him for not winning enough battles and almost always beginning battles by retreating. His manhood must have been constantly and gravely insulted, but Washington endured these insults for seven awful years of mostly losses and retreats because he understood what he junior generals didn’t: you couldn’t and shouldn’t frontally assault a superior foe when you can retreat and skirmish before this was considered a serious military strategy as contrasted to a tactic. Only Washington had the physical and moral machismo credentials to get away with this, and in spite of his temper, he carried through, standing to fight when he had advantages. He was clearly in it not only for the glory, but also for the long haul.

When his officers planned a coup to establish a military dictatorship because they weren’t paid and things were going badly after the war, they asked Washington to be their king. In a roomful of people who could be considered traitors, and may have killed him, and when he did want to be the head of state, Washington talked them down, saying he wouldn’t do it and he would stand against any of them who persisted.

Shortly thereafter, he gave his farewell to the troops address, looking to retire forever.

Several years later, after the Articles of Confederation government failed, the government he had fought for, Washington subverted the authorized convention to form a Federalist Constitution, agreeing to chair the convention. When his best friend, George Mason, refused to endorse the new Constitution because it would destroy states as individual nations, Washington, having once championed this position and seen its failure, choose never to speak to Mason again. He then agreed to be the first President (ran against a fellow named Clinton who had no serious chance I seem to recall) and then formed a government including all the most important political opponents of Federalism, including Jefferson, and got them to work together. He concluded his public career with his Farewell Address (which was written by Hamilton to his specifications) and probably gives the best insight into who Washington was politically. This speech (Washington sent it to newspapers, but did not speak it) asks Americans to avoid factionalism, which was a wonderful sentiment, but obsolete even among men like Hamilton and Jefferson who had been through the war together, but disagreed completely on politics (and then served Washington as his left and right hands: only Washington had the stature to pull this off.)

So to un-hijack this post, perhaps monarchs can equal their predecessors and even surpass them, but in politics, a democracy does not lend itself to this sort of thing. And thank you for letting me hijack and pay tribute to one of the most complex and greatest men in history.

13

Read “Strange Brains”

Greatness among geniuses is sometimes the result of untreated mental illness combined with great aptitude. OCD is well over-represented among the great scientists. Bipolar disorder is over-represented among the great artists. Which isn’t to say that mental illness is required, but something that drives the person to achieve greatness beyond their aptitude is. I also give the converse, a room-mate in college who was brilliant but drug-addled. All the IQ in the world wasn’t going to help him accomplish a durn thing. The kid had no drive, no passion.

14

It seems that many great people didn’t have adult offspring at all. Off the top of my head, George Washington, Shakespeare, Captain Cook… none of these men had grandchildren. Infant and childhood mortality rates were higher in those days, but it seems that many great people either had no children or lost all their children young. I’ve wondered about this too.

15

I can think of several great/geniused people who had similar children, but it is a bit of a strain on the brain:

  1. Phillip of Macedon, who did what the Persians never did - conquer the Greeks, and his slightly better known son Alexander;

  2. Pliny the Elder. Pliny the Younger.

  3. George Bush I. George Bush II. (US Presidents automatically become great, don’t they?)

…without giving more examples, I think that the statement that greatness depends upon events is correct. The events can include hereditary acquisition of title, or events which thrust someone forward into the role of greatness.

16

Wow, DPWhite! Thanks for a fascinating account.

Cazzle, as you say, fewer children lived to grow up in past eras. As to great men who had no kids, I have to suspect that some of them may have been so caught up in, or obsessed by, whatever things led them to greatness as to care little about anything else, including having kids. Some may have been fairly indifferent to things we lesser mortals consider important, including having kids.

17

[nitpick] Actually, Shakespeare had four grandchildren. Three of them died in childhood; the fourth lived to a ripe old age, but had no children of her own.[/nitpick]

18

[pointless speculation]Any supposedly childess great man of the past may actually had a few that history knows not of, due to their having been born out of wedlock. Likewise, those that are listed as having kids, may have had more then we know of.[/pointless speculation]

19

Seems like many overachievers came from very humble beginnings. They clawed their way to the top and overcame
great obstacles. Maybe life is just too easy for the children of the great.

20

speculation but…

I know this guy, well, I worked with him once. We’re both musicians, and we played together for a show. This guy is genius. Apparently he was teaching music at the university level before he was twenty. He played incrediably, sightread the score and was just fabulous. He travels around the world playing piano.

He was, I believe, a sincerely nice guy, but lacked almost all sense of social grace and skill. He was condesending, rude, and often a jerk, but you got the feeling that he was really trying to be liked. It seemed that having his childhood devoted to becomming the genius he certainly is meant that he never learned how to interact with folks.

So, my guess is that a lot of people who grow up to be genius-types miss out on a lot of the learning that happens when you grow up with peers. And so, they often tend to be asocial and may not know how to deal with children. The kids of geniuses may often not get a first-rate upbringing becuase their parents lack the social skills to get along in life on anything but their genius.

warning --> This post was written over the course of 2-3 hours during which I was busy with work related things. Any incoherency on the part of the poster is directly related to that fact.