Today’s topic is iconoclasm. An iconoclast is someone who destroys old images, icons, or idols. Every true entrepreneur is also an iconoclast; there is simply no other way.
My statements are based on the book ‹Iconoclast› by Gregory Berns. Berns is an American neuroscientist. He argues that the ability to be an entrepreneur or iconoclast can be systematically learned and trained.
Berns gives many examples of iconoclasts who have sustainably changed the world in which we live. Berns believes that a successful iconoclast/entrepreneur is distinguished by three qualities:
1. The ability to perceive things differently
2. The ability to deal with fear differently
3. Social intelligence
For all three qualities, he explains what forms their basis in the brain. This allows us to understand these qualities better and observe them directly in ourselves.
Let’s come to point 1 – Perceiving Differently:
Whatever appears in our consciousness is already the result of a process. This process, this lens through which we view the world, is determined above all by the experiences we have had with the world in the past and to which we owe our survival. Our habits determine what we perceive. The curse of habit is that we become incapable of seeing the world with new eyes.
The good news is that we can practice keeping things open. Instead of always gliding over things and saying, “That is this, that is that,” we could, for example, start asking: “What is that?” and “How do I know that this is what it is?” If we learn to endure this not-knowing, then there is at least a chance that we will discover something new that immediately unsettles us.
And here we have already arrived at point 2 – Dealing with Fear:
If we live only within our comfort zone and our habits determine our reality, then fear does not appear in our lives. We have successfully avoided or numbed fear. There are many ways to distract ourselves from the uncertainty that arises when we begin to ask questions.
If I had no fear, I would already be dead. But if, on the other hand, I allow fear to freeze me and inhibit my creativity, then I am a victim. So first, we would have to learn to feel fear at all—and for that we need courage. Then we have to learn to live with fear or even transform it into a driving force.
If we succeed in freeing our perception from what we have been told and what we are accustomed to perceiving, and if we also manage to become students of fear—as Søren Kierkegaard puts it, in essence—that is, to use fear as fuel, then we have created good conditions for truly creating something new.
“The transition from ape to human being is us.” (Konrad Lorenz)
Thus we have also arrived at point 3 – Social Intelligence
Many geniuses died misunderstood and only became famous after their deaths. Others were already legends during their lifetimes. What distinguishes these two classes of iconoclasts—what ultimately makes them successful or causes them to perish in misery—is the ability to make the new perspective they have achieved plausible to their fellow human beings.
Picasso was a star during his lifetime who poked fun at the art world. He took this so far that one day he simply scribbled a line, which can today be admired in the Barcelona Museum as ‹La Linea›. The work was sold for millions. Picasso laughed himself silly over it.
Van Gogh, by contrast, had so little money that in the end he even bought paint instead of food. Then he was hungry and—as the story goes—ate the paint. On top of that, he drank far more absinthe than any of us could tolerate today. This also led to interesting experiences with color, for which his paintings are famous today. Van Gogh knew what he was doing; he knew that he was laying the foundations of modern painting.
This becomes clear in the long correspondence with his brother Theo, which fortunately has been preserved for the history of art. Unfortunately, throughout his life he was unable to make his perspective understandable to other people, and so he eventually died impoverished and largely unrecognized; he had already cut off his ear earlier, after his dream of an artists’ colony with Gauguin and other painters had fallen apart. What can we learn from this?
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