libertarian worlds collide

Last night I posted the email my mother forwarded me.

This morning, Gary North opened his LRC column with the same bit of trivia.

Last week, I got caught up on all the podcasts I listen to. That's a lot of hours of listening, trust me. (I also tried out several science fiction podcasts, about which I hope to comment later.)

The first thing I "tune" to when I need audio accompaniment to manual labor is the PennRadio podcast.

Gary North is a paleoconservative theonomist with a strong libertarian background.

Penn Jillette is an outspoken libertarian, but he's an even more outspoken atheist. (Whereas I am a quiet atheist, an outspoken agnostic, and an even more outspoken libertarian.)

Gary North recommends the Chris Bliss juggling video.

Penn Jillette blasted it almost every day for a week, and got his friend Jason Garfield to do a Chris Bliss Diss video.

Gary North writes of the second video:

He is a much better juggler. He uses five balls, not three. Yet his performance lacks something fundamental. He is not an artistic creator; he is an imitator. He is not a skilled amateur; he is a professional. He stands in front of a video camera. If he drops a ball, he can re-shoot the video. There is no audience. He risks nothing."

Gary North continues:

The comments by people who have posted this video indicate that they resent the first performer's success. They judge in terms of technical competence, not audience satisfaction.

"This is a common failure of skilled people."

Gary North is right.

Not only do I share his judgment about the 2 videos, but also his assessment of why people with talent resent people with creativity.

It reminds me of a footnote I encountered while editing something yesterday:

Otto Weininger wrote at the beginning of the century: "Someone may have a talent, for example, the mathematical talent, by birth and to an extraordinary degree; he will then be able to digest the most difficult chapters of this science with but small effort; but it does not follow that, for this reason, he has any genius, which is the same thing as originality, individuality, and condition of his own productivity. Conversely, there are great geniuses who have not developed any special talent to a high degree. Just think of Novalis or Jean Paul. [...] Talent is hereditary, it may be the common good of a family (the Bachs); genius is not transferable, it is never general, but always individual (Johann Sebastian)." Geschlecht und Charakter (19th ed., Vienna: Braumüller, 1920), part II, chap. IV, p. 126.