Che Guevara=great genius?

[Gustaf]

I saw this BBC program the other day that Swedish State Television had imported, which is a series called Great Geniuses of History, or something like that. It previously featured people like Aristotle and Descartes/Cartesius. The latest episode was about...Che Guevara. I found this a little bit odd. The speaker was a member of, I think, the Socialist Worker's Party, and basically seemed to base his idea of Guevara on that movie that came out a year or so back and claimed that it was good to buy T-shirts with Che on because it demonstrated a protest against the capitalist society, etc.

So what do you all think? Was Che up there with Einstein and the boys?

[Gustaf]

I mean, who really gives a crap about Descart

Mathematicians find him fairly important.

As do philosophers!

[Gustaf]

I guess it all depends on your definition of genius.  A salesman who is smart enough to figure out how to sell people a load of crap could be called a genius ... and I kinda think if you look at it that way figures like Che or Hitler could be called geniuses.  It doesn't necessarily mean they were good people.

Well, I wouldn't include good manipulative skills in genius. That's probably why you would say things like "he's a genius when it comes to selling things" or something like that. It indicates that it isn't the natural use of the word.