It’s one of the iron rules of history: the smartest men in every generation will also be the stupidest.
Our case in point is Elon Musk, who once said that we’re “most likely living in a simulation.” According to Mr. Musk, “If you assume any rate of improvement at all, games will eventually be indistinguishable from reality.” From there, he naturally concludes that we’re all already trapped in some massive computer program.
Yes, that’s quite the leap. And yet Neil deGrasse Tyson says he’ll give “better than fifty-fifty odds” that Mr. Musk is correct. “I wish I could summon a strong argument against it,” he told an interviewer, “but I can find none.” Of course, by that logic, we may also be living in a massive hallucination created by alien witch-doctors using special extraterrestrial herbs which they distribute via chemtrails.
I wish I could summon a strong argument against the Martian Shaman Theory, but I can find none.
It’s bizarre, I know. But it’s hardly surprising. Extremely intelligent people have always been tempted by hokey intellectual fads. That even goes for Augustine of Hippo, one of the greatest and most influentual thinkers of the Western canon.
In his Confessions, Augustine recounts how he—along with most of Rome’s bright young things—fell in with an illegal sect called Manicheanism. “I was drawn into that Manichean twaddle,” writes Augustine,
Into believing that a fig weeps when it’s plucked, and that its mother the tree sheds lacteous tears. And there’s more: that if some “saint” gobbled the fig—provided that plucking it was someone else’s crime, not the saint’s!—he could then exhale the angels he’d concocted into his guts. No, wait: it would be little crumbs of God coming out whenever he groaned or belched in prayer.
That, of course, is loopy. And yet St. Augustine was even smarter than Mr. Musk. If he were alive today, he might also be tempted to model himself on Keanu Reeves in The Matrix. But Augustine didn’t live in the Silicon Age. He lived in the late Roman Empire, when mystery cults were all the rage. Kids then were into those weird rituals and complex mythologies. (Now, they give themselves Tourette’s over TikTok.)
Likewise, the Scientific Revolution was accompanied by the rebirth of alchemy. Looking back, it’s hard to imagine a genius like Isaac Newton buying into that bunk. Then again, the second-richest man in the world today thinks Tron is real.
Or what about Dr. John Harvey Kellogg? Dr. Kellog was a devout Seventh-Day Adventist who lived in the late 1800s. He was also a devoted eugenicist who believed the temptation to masturbate could be suppressed by a strict regimen of corn flakes and circumcision. (“The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic,” said Dr. Kellogg, “as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind.”)
Whacky? Of course! But, like Adventism, his theory of “biologic living” was perfectly suited to the Temperance generation.
Still, we shouldn’t be too hard on Mr. Musk. He’s looking for his Theory of Everything: some way to explain the universe and his place in it. Augustine was after the same thing. So was Newton. So was Kellogg.
The trouble is, a Theory of Everything has to be large enough to be comprehensive yet small enough to fit into one mortal’s brain. Any man who tries to cram the whole cosmos into his head is bound to go mad. And even if he succeeds, who’d want to live in such a sad little universe?
Anyway, it’s natural that Mr. Musk would grab at whatever theory happens to be at hand. Computers are the current thing, you know, and Mr. Musk is a computers guy. He’s at the forefront of that ultramodern (and ultra-lucrative) industry. He built a car, and then built a rocket, and then used the rocket to launch the car into orbit. It’s all very in, very now.
Still, Muskism is hardly less ridiculous than Manicheanism. It’s all pseudo-science. Corn flakes don’t cure onanism, trees don’t cry breast milk, and we’re not living in a computer simulation. (Sorry, Dr. Tyson, but we’re not taking bets.)
There’s a lesson to be learned from all this high-brow quackery. Learning and cleverness are fine, but they’re no substitute for plain, old common sense. While geniuses come in handy, they’re better off in their own lane. They’re for making cars or inventing breakfast cereals, not for unraveling the mysteries of Creation. For that, we’re better off turning to the common man.
Again, we have the example of St. Augustine. Over and over in the Confessions, he credits his mother, St. Monica, with saving him from the “Manichean twaddle.” In one especially moving passage, he remembers how she begged a certain bishop—himself a former Manichee—to deprogram her son.
The bishop told her that Augustine had to find the truth on his own. “Let him alone with it,” he said. “Only entreat the Master on his behalf.” Monica still wouldn’t relent. Finally, the bishop snapped. He told her to leave him alone and stop worrying. “It’s impossible that the son of these tears of yours will perish,” he assured her.
It’s amazing when you think about it. Looking back, we can’t possibly calculate Augustine’s influence on civilization. He’s the most important theologian in the Christian church, and one of the most important philosophers in the Western canon. The whole Medieval order was founded on his book The City of God. He was the chief inspiration behind the Protestant Reformation. Yet here we have a pious widow and a surly churchman talking about him like he’s a wayward teenager who’s fallen in with some sort of New Age sex cult. Which… uh, is sort of what he did.
Augustine was born clever. He’s one of the cleverest men who ever lived. But before he could be wise, he had to come to his senses. And that means his mom had to take him in hand.
It’s true, geniuses like Isaac Newton, John Harvey Kellogg, and Elon Musk change the world. But it’s ordinary, common-sense folk (pious widows and surly churchmen) who make sure they’re changing it for the better. We should be grateful for them—as grateful we are for those brain boxes.
So should the brain boxes, for that matter.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider buying my book The Reactionary Mind. Peace and the Good!