Mozart was a Space Alien!

There are a few humans whose accomplishments seem so many standard deviations from the rest of us that it seems like they can hardly have been made of the same stuff. Archimedes, Leonardo, Newton, Shakespeare, and Mozart must have been made of some special metal, or so it would seem. I greatly admire the music of Haydn, Beethoven, and Wagner, but somehow Mozart is at another level. Similarly for the others on my list.

Evidently there is something in human nature that makes us pick out special heroes and promote them beyond ordinary mortality. The ancients promoted dead heroes and live emperors to demi-god status. You don't really need to be an all-time genius to get demi-god points, though. Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods made it too.

My own guess is that there is some evolutionary hardware installed in humans that makes us tend to exaggerate the virtues of our heroes. On a few occasions I have found myself in the capacity of leader in a potentially perilous situation. Never have I felt more confident. On other occasions I've been the follower while someone else led, and my reaction was very different. I felt timid, fearful, and dependent on the leader's judgement.

All of which is preamble to my distress at the American people's willingness to keep following a leader who values seem out of step with most Americans, who makes blunder after blunder, and seems bent on leading the nation to economic catastrophe in his zeal to destroy Social Security. On the other hand, maybe Mozart really was a Martian.