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Notes -
-- Nietzsche
To this list we can of course add Nietzsche himself. Finding bachelors with eminent achievements in the sciences is not difficult either: Newton, Tesla, Turing (for obvious reasons).
I have never been comfortable with the notion of being "taken seriously". As a purely utilitarian consideration, I need people to take me seriously enough to pay me, but beyond that, I think there is something wrong with being overly-concerned with it. (I detect something peculiar in the notion of being "taken seriously" that is orthogonal to other notions that I do place a higher value on: the acceptance of responsibility, the fulfillment of obligations, perseverance in the face of adversity).
He said business, not general accomplishment, especially not in the sciences. I.E. He's asking if there is a *social *restriction in areas that aren't pursued solely through personal ability.
It should also be noted that Nietzsche here is very much speaking in the Aristotlean and Te Tocquevillean paradigm of gentlemen scholars working alone, rather than the modern science-as-business (one might argue) where there is a greater focus on gruntwork and ready intellectual liquidity in the system, rather than a focus on individual genius, which would thus be more likely to have possible social impediments to achievement.
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Wasn't Socrates married twice? And within the Cynic tradition Crates and Hipparchia famously had a "dog marriage" and lived as philosophers in the streets as is the Cynic way. And Pythagoras was married as well, come to think of it.
While I do agree that the "bachelor genius" is a notable archetype within humanity, there are plenty of examples of married geniuses as well.
Certainly. Marx, Grothendieck, Gauss, Gödel, just to name a few.
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It’s probably worth noting that all of those high achieving men were huge weirdos.
Absolutely. I don’t doubt that there is a correlation between the two things.
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Being taken seriously was poor phrasing. I was referring to a general advantage that married men might have in successful business relationships or other social interactions. I have no doubt that there are domains where marriage is not helpful. Perhaps 99th percentile philosophers or physicists are two examples. There are no doubt more.
One would expect that successfully navigating business relationships/social interactions would track closely with navigating successful romantic relationships, not to mention simply being exposed to more opportunities to meet and pursue potential love interests.
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Yeah. I wasn't trying to criticize you or anything; just musing about a concept that other people do bring up relatively often.
I do agree that it would be a benefit in certain domains to be married, as you've observed yourself.
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