Beavis and Butthead were geniuses?

               It really resonated with me when I read William James’s quote “The essence of genius is to know what to overlook”.  For a matter of days the quote bounced around in my brain for a while as my imagination applied it to different situations in life.  I would chuckle to myself as I thought of reasons I may get the chance to use it.  Finally, on a long car ride from New York City, my sleep deprived brain had finally come to a conclusion that it had long suspected was true.  Beavis and Butthead are truly geniuses.  They are not geniuses in the sense that they will discover a medical breakthrough or become pioneers in quantum mechanics.  They are a variety of genius that sees everyday things just a little more clearly and describes things a little more succinctly than those around them. 

                In the world of Beavis and Butthead most things are either described by “this sucks” or “this rules”.  They never offer further detail why something sucks.  They may continue by making fun of the appearance of the band or some other aspect of the video, but never an explanation of what sucks about the music.  It is in their genius of overlooking these details that enables them to perfectly describe a video with two words.  A music critic can write pages about a song but never capture the essence of why the song is bad.  With two short words spoken with their dismissive tone they are able to tell me that a song has no soul, no teeth, no integrity and no balls.  It offers nothing of value.   On the other side of the coin when they declare that a song rules, they make a statement that no proper critique could ever capture with all the words in the English language.  They do so with an implied joy of the primal human spirit that is hardwired in each of us that draws us to listen to music in the first place.   In the end it just isn’t important why one band’s drummer is better than another band’s.  The only thing that matters is if what comes out of the medium of choice and into a pair of ears is enjoyable or not.  It either sucks or it rules and only a true genius overlooks all the nonsense and can capture the essence in so few words.