OPINION:
Visiting the Supreme Court in 2008, students from Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax County, Virginia, heard Justice Antonin Scalia, then in his 22nd term, launch an impassioned defense of the Founding Father — already under attack from progressive revisionists — for whom their school was named, followed by an intriguing observation about human history.
Aired live on C-SPAN, the justice’s comments came in response to a question from graduating senior Olivia Bonin, who asked which thinker most influenced his philosophy on government and constitutional interpretation.
Scalia urged the students to read The Federalist Papers; only then, he said, could they “really appreciate how brilliant the men who drafted the Constitution were.”
Scalia saw the Framers as unique, but not without parallel.
“I truly believe that there are ages and places in the history of mankind when genius just bursts forth,” he told the students. “Athens 300 B.C. for philosophy. Florence for art in the Cinquecento. One of those places was America in the 18th century. Brilliant perception of the principles of political science … James Madison, Alexander Hamilton … John Marshall … Why don’t I just say the Framers, OK?”
Was Scalia right? Is the advance of human civilization fueled by explosions of talent in certain times, places, and disciplines? The justice, who could sing and play piano and favored opera and show tunes, would not have liked my answer.
When I asked the Rev. Paul Scalia if his father enjoyed any pop music outside of Broadway, the answer was swift: “No. No.”
Pressed on the Beatles, Father Paul said his dad “may have liked a Beatle song or two” — and did discover Ricky Skaggs and bluegrass.
Bryan A. Garner, the legal scholar who co-authored two books with the justice and lectured around the world with him, once tried to broaden Scalia’s horizons.
“Perhaps I’ve finally found a rock song you might like,” Mr. Garner recalled telling his collaborator in “Nino and Me: My Unusual Friendship With Justice Antonin Scalia” (2018).
When Mr. Garner played a raucous live version of “Too Many People,” the 1971 rocker by Paul and Linda McCartney, it drew Scalia’s harsh judicial rebuke: “Turn that off!”
How the course of history might have shifted if Mr. Garner had chosen “Let ’Em In” or “Silly Love Songs.”
I agree with the justice about the periodic emergence of pockets of genius. Unlike him, I consider the Beatles, and the time and place known as Swinging London, first described as such in the Daily Mail in 1964, as the most recent of these explosions of talent in human history — and in some ways, the most impressive.
If it were just the Beatles under consideration, Liverpool alone would qualify as an epicenter: What were the odds that four composers, singers, and musicians as gargantuan in genius, as prolific and revolutionary as John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, would grow up within 7 miles of one another — and find one another?
The works of other Liverpool acts, such as Gerry and the Pacemakers, Cilla Black, and the Searchers, also endure.
When we widen our lens to include London and surrounding areas, we are forced to confront a truly staggering array of geniuses, many of whom produced works of high caliber, and million-selling popularity, over decades’ time: the Rolling Stones, the Hollies, the Kinks, Donovan, the Animals, the Who, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton and Cream, Traffic and Blind Faith, Rod Stewart and the Faces, the Moody Blues, David Bowie.
Again, if judged solely on sales and cultural impact, this cohort would eclipse against any previous grouping of artists — the Impressionists, say, or the Bloomsbury Set, or the Beats — none of whom ever drew 80,000 people to a stadium.
What sets the Swinging London cohort apart further still is the multidisciplinary nature of their triumphs. These were genius poets (think of the lyrics to “Eleanor Rigby” or “Can’t Find My Way Home”), genius composers and instrumentalists, and genius singers — already a conglomerate of talents unequaled in members of any previous cohort.
Finally, many of them were the Beautiful People — adored the world over as sex symbols (a claim seldom advanced on behalf of the Founders).
Some might cite the Laurel Canyon/San Francisco scenes of the late 1960s, or the incubation of hip-hop in the Bronx. Perhaps an enterprising graduate student will tackle, in a dissertation, whether these clusters of genius in different arts and endeavors shared characteristics that can be recreated to spark new eras of creativity and consequence.
Maybe the next talent explosion is already forming in your neighborhood, or on the streets of Justice Scalia’s beloved Queens. Or maybe, in a twist and shout, it won’t be a group of humans at all.
• James Rosen is chief White House correspondent for Newsmax and the author of “Scalia: Rise to Greatness, 1936-1986” (Regnery).
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