David Foster Wallace and "The Weasel, Twelve Monkeys and The Shrub".

Author David Foster Wallace hung himself this past Friday. I had never heard of him nor read anything he had written. This excerpt is taken from his Rolling Stone article, "The Weasel, Twelve Monkeys and The Shrub", dated sometime in 2000 when John McCain was making a bid for the White House.

"Probably the last real leader we had as U.S. President was JFK, forty years ago. It's not that Kennedy was a better human being than the seven presidents we've had since: we know he lied about his WWII record, and had spooky Mob ties, and screwed around more in the White House than poor Clinton could ever dream of. But JFK had that weird leader-type magic, and when he said things like, "Ask not what our country can do for you - ask what you can do for our country", nobody rolled their eyes or saw it as just political bullshit. Instead, a lot of them felt inspired. And the decade that followed, however fucked up it was in other ways, saw millions of Young Voters devote themselves to social and political causes that had nothing to do with getting a great job or owning nice stuff or finding the best parties; and the 60's were, by most accounts, a generally cleaner and happier time than now.

So it's worth thinking about why, when John McCain says he wants to be president in order to inspire a generation of young Americans to devote themselves to causes greater than their own self-interest, a great many of those young Americans will yawn or roll their eyes or make some ironic joke instead of feeling totally inspired the way they did with Kennedy."

The media and critics keep alluding to his genius. Maybe he was. But if people are so smart (genius) why do they take the easy way out? What do they know that most of don't know? And is that what makes them a "genius" - in part?