Functional socialism

CHAPTER VI GENIUS

Ir now we can glimpse, no doubt vaguely, the constitution of a functional society, with its formal relations to the State, partly defined through the mechanism of taxation, we may inquire what provision is made, within the functional boundaries, for men of genius, artists, craftsmen, for men and women who prefer to live on their wits or their special endowments? If we are, one and all, to be subject to mass or group control, if genius will not or cannot be graciously recognized, then we may assume a fatal defect in the functional principle.

The problem of first distinguishing genius and then giving it sympathy and support has been present to all communities for thousands of years. As “senius to madness is allied,” it is not surprising that, at all times, our ancestors ignorantly missed priceless things by mistaking the one for the other. For genius does not run in harness. One thinks of Fra Lippo Lippi:

Don’t you think they’re the likeliest to know,

They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage, Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint

To please them—sometimes do and sometimes don’t. F