“In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous” this has been quoted by Robert green Ingersoll. I think mediocrity means average intelligence that resents and envies its betters. It’s like the Japanese saying: A nail that stands up gets hammered down. If you’re different, especially in a better way, you will likely not be appreciated by others (at least until the superiority of your ideas has been demonstrated so that even the unimaginative can understand their merit). Further, people scorn what they don’t understand and envy what they fear might indicate superiority in others.
As Elbert Hubbard says: To mediocrity, genius is unforgivable. Genius is dangerous because mediocrity requires little, if any, effort. Genius requires sweat and ideas. It requires vision, taking chances and tenacity in the face of adversity. Most people, whether they admit it or not, are like sheep. They want to be fed and watered and they are content. We all know what ultimately happens to sheep. Who remembers the mediocre people? I remember Sir Isaac Newton, but no one person who knew him. A genius basically has two choices, either to flee the city or country and lives in exile, or become a mediocre himself.
But there is another choice, which not many people have the strength to pursue, and that is to remain a genius and try to bring forth the truth! These geniuses suffer at the hands of mediocrity, but still working relentlessly towards a greater good. But unfortunately this “greater good” is unrecognizable to mediocrity who finds the genius a threat to themselves. And when nothing worked they put an end to the genius. Jonathan swift said: “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. ” Galileo is a prime example from the past.
He was charged with ‘having held the opinion that the earth revolves around the sun’ for which he was sentenced to formal imprisonment at the pleasure of the church’s inquisition which at that time controlled the whole state and believed in just the opposite of Galileo’s opinion. Another flashback from the past is Socrates who was condemned to die by drinking hemlock, for the expression of his ideas against those of Athens and of corrupting the minds of the youth. Socrates had the choice to go into exile and give up his philosophic vocation or be sentenced to death. Socrates chose death!
Mediocrity is a drug worse than opium. It numbs you and makes you care only for your drug. Let us take an example of our own country. The best brains in the world can be found in Pakistan! It can be such a rich country if only it would let the geniuses survive. They are constantly being viewed as a threat by mediocrity, who wants to put an end to the threat! But has anybody stopped and thought that what will the world be if all the geniuses disappeared? Surely such a world won’t survive for long! Dr. Abdul Qadeer was a genius scientist often called the father of the Islamic bomb!
Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan is the undisputed hero of Pakistan’s nuclear saga. He found resistance from mediocrity and finally after his death when mediocrity took over, the decline is nuclear technology had begun. Albert Einstein was among the victims and he has said: “great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds” another example is hakim saeed who was one of Pakistan’s renowned and top medical researcher in the field of eastern medicines who established the Hamdard Foundation in 1948, prior to his settlement in West-Pakistan.
Saeed was assassinated by the group of unknown assailant while he was on his way to attend a medical experiment at the Hamdard Laboratories. Now who would want to hurt a man who did nothing but good in his life? The past and the present are quite the same. In the past it was hemlock in the present it is target killing! The rules of the game maybe changed but the game is still there!
