Article #4906

The three-time Olympic champion is brilliant, charismatic, relatable, basically the best British athlete of all-time. But he’s also a victim of the decline of minority sports

The Austrian philosopher and novelist Robert Musil once wrote a lengthy meditation on human capacity based around seeing the phrase “a racehorse of genius” in a newspaper sports section. Musil was disturbed by this idea. His basic question was: can a horse really be a genius?

If we are to ascribe the label of genius to a horse, based on its ability to run fast and successfully eat oats, where does this leave the unmapped capacities of the actual human genius? What is consciousness? What is a human? Should the question in fact be: will there ever be a human of sufficient genius they are able to actually perceive the genius of a horse?