What?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...iot_savant

I am not trying to troll here, or making fun of the person Prince, i am just chargating a bit to start a discussion.

The reason why I bring is thing up, is that the more I think about him as an artist and person (a 'person' as far as i know him trough his music, his lyrics, his actions, the stories etc.) the more it occurs to me that Prince shows quite a lot of resemblances to persons who are labeled 'Idiot Savant'.

I mean: the savant skills of Prince truelly seem to lie in the 'musical field'.
- He is an autodidact.
- He seems able to capture all kinds of musical styles very easily
- He loves his 'guitar' more then he loves his women.
- His musical abilities far overshine his abilities to 'feel' what his fans want, his abilities to retain a long relationship or marriage, or his abilities to relativate his own sense of self-importance / narcism.

The key-characteristic of an Idiot Savant is, that while he is or might seem to be a genious in his own specific 'niche' (wether its music, painting or maths) he is very obviously 'lacking' when it comes to other aspects of his intelligence or personality.

Some examples i see in Princes case:

An almost childish stance when it comes to defending his own views and believes: His battle against WB, the 'slave' thing, the battle against Youtube and co, Him stopping 'growing' as a person since 1987. Even when it reaches the point that people start to ridiculise him, it doesnt seem to occur to him that he isn't very empathic and thoughtfull.

The narcastic idea that people take you serious, just because youre going 'your own way': The princebonics he uses for example, nice when your 19 years old or so, but gee, Prince, what were you thinking when you were writing a letter in Princebonics to Madonna, a letter in which you asked her to support to 'fight' the record industries? Honestly, i think Madonna was thinking: why does an grown up man act like that?

The severe stuborness that is holding him intellectually and emotionally captive since 1987: Really folks, i think if Prince does an IQ-test he will not even score above the average (100 that is), mindfully dumb lyrics like Ronnie, talk to Russia and many of the shit on The Rainbow Children are proof of it. I see a person 'acting' like a wise man, when i have seen a majority of people on the org that are much wiser then him. People who can react on an empathic level, who can be ironic to show the absurd.
Prince, don't forget youre 'savant qualities' keeps people interested, otherwise you would have been some stubborn, irritating prick.

Finally, his obvious lack of emotional growth. I must admit i never really 'loved' the image Prince gave us with Dirty Mind, 1999 and Purple Rain: the ambitious sex-satyr, using his stockings and explicit lyrics for 'shock value' in the first place. But i was interested, sometimes intrigued, by his abilities to program Linn-drummachines, the level of energy and urgency in his music, the ease in which he combined 'white' and 'black' forms of music.
With the three albums that came after that, ATWIAD, Parade and Sign, i really had the thought: that guy is on the roll! He became some 'american dream' type of superstar with Purple Rain, and he plunged into musical creativity after that, sounding quite relieved and free.
My 'problem' is that after "Sign of the Times" it appeared to me he stopped growing as a person: Sorry, but a 'mentally normal' person wouldnt make such a fuzz about feeling sorry for taking an XTC-pill, while Prince was cancelling The Black Album and manically asking for 'forgeviness' on the Lovesexy album.
A mentally 'average' person isn't so confused about his life and career as Prince, who tried to combine the commercial appeal of Purple Rain and vague, nonsensial, new-age meanderings in the Graffiti Bridge movie.
Another 'clue' for me that Prince wasn't developping as a person (something that was quite obviously reflected in his musical output), was the interview with Oprah Winfrey. Here you see some 'smoothtalking artist' who has just lost his new born child, promoting his Emancipation-set and declaring he has two personalities, while he should give himself the time to grief, and really get psychological help.
Unfortunately. that doesnt happen. While his career drags along, and only his die-hard fans seem to care, he stays stubborn, not looking for help to deal with his 'lack of perception', instead committing himself to the movement of the Jehovah Witnesses: another mistake, another way to prevend him to getting in touch with himself and deal with his issues.
And there we are in 2004. Prince seems to realise that dogmatic, smallminded religion doesnt deliver him the bucks to maintain a lavish lifestyle that helps him to blind himself. So, he waters down the JW dogma's, he copies some of his past songs and sounds, and puts them on CD. He is strategically 'smart' enough to hide that he is only offering shadows of the past.
So, here we are, its 2008: the lyrical themes havent changed, his music isnt developping artistically, but somehow his 'savant' characteristics make us believe that he is more then an almost autistic, stubborn, narcistic fellow with a lack of intelligence.

I am curious about your thoughts and views on this.

Riverpoet31 said:

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It seems to me you would have to know someone on a personal level to make such statements. We do not know him on a personal level.

laurarichardson said:

Agreed.

Riverpoet31 said:

dont wanna make fun of you,but are you Princes psychiatrist? cant tell all that about the man,you dont know him on a personal level.Sorry dont agree whith you at all.

Riverpoet31 said:

For you to be able to think or write a statement such as this about anyone, let alone Prince, smacks of complete ignorance. While there is little denying a semblance of potential similarity between Prince and what you are claiming here, it's nigh impossible to engage in a serious conversation with you given that you are capable of thinking so ignorantly. It is possible, afterall, that what you see in Prince here is, in fact, an unconscious defence against that which you dislike in yourself.

River Poet, you're talking about a lack of personal and intimate growth. But since we don't really know much about what's going on in Prince's mind, the only thing we could judge is his artistic growth, which in a sense, reflects part of his personal one.
He's always been very personal in most of his work, everything he did reflects a state of the soul and of the mind, especially in the 1987-1990 period. The fear of a nuclear bomb in 1999 and Purple Rain, the sympathy towards humanity (Around the world in a day), a little self-indulgence in 'Parade' but then he gets an intellectual view of things with 'Sign O' The Times'. From 'Lovesexy' on, the true journey begins, the search of truth.

He's still searching today.

His entire career is a personal adventure and all we can do is share it with him. I'm pretty much sure that's all he wants in life.

Riverpoet31 said:

I think you have written a very interesting thing!

I am an idiot savant

however I am also clairsentient, clairaudient, and clairvoyant

so that makes me smarter than the average bear

Genius and brains and grown emotions

dont always go hand in hand

I want my mommy to make the sun shine

then everyone is happy.

Militant said:

Co-sign. I can't believe you spent all this time trying to figure out all of this, which is all hearsay anyway. Until you meet the man and get to know if for a while, what you're saying is just null and void.
[Edited 6/11/08 13:47pm]

I can not help myself! Sorry but you need to take the word savant out and you got something. Look that word up on the web

Y'all read that mess?

Genesia said:

actually not me. I have been called an idiot or savant so many times that i know exactly what it means.

"truth receives most opposition"

Well, that solves that then

It seems to me you would have to know someone on a personal level to make such statements. We do not know him on a personal level.[/quote]

I agreed too

i dont know him either , but his career and music do give hints into weakness and strengths in his personality-but guess what we all have them. narcissism is pretty rigid, and you dont have to be a shrink to identify it in prince, you also dont have to be his best friend to notice his startling ability to articulate about women/sex in music yet find them so transient, disposable and hard to reconcile in real life relationships.but,this birdseye view will never give any of us the truth about who he is. i live in mpls. and i once dated a woman who had an uncle who knew him. while looking through a photo album i noticed a picture of a barbecue (circa 1980's) that he was at. What was odd is he was in pictures with a big smile on his face, arm around the person he was posing with.... IN FULL 1999 video attire!! LOL. i was like hmmm?. regular black folks back yard cookout (complete with big mamma an nem) and PRINCE. We dont know what he would enjoy (prince can chill at a barbecue), yet like Kathy Griffith likes to say it was just like we imagined (the 1999 get up he wore to the barbecue).

Hmmm, interesting topic,
but I'm gonna have to get back to it later.
I'm not in the mood to use my brain so much.

dreamshaman32 said:

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"i dont know him either , but his career and music do give hints into weakness and strengths in his personality-but guess what we all have them"

Not really P could be putting us all on with an outlandish image that is not his real personality at all. In addition, the whole I am dressed up like a star at a family BBQ has more to do with image I really do think from statements P has made that he really believes one should live their image I bet he is always dressed up when he thinks a camera or the general public is going to around. The whole idea is to stay in character all the time. Do I think it is nutty sure but, it is Hollyweird so my expectations for sane behavior are low.(LOL)

I did read it all.

Interesting idea.

Talented and artistic people are often not bound within the usual or 'normal' confines that the majority 'ordinary' would like to place them in. Unusual behaviour in all its forms when grouped together, in fact out weighs 'normal behaviour' which is the world of the unimaginative who need to have strict guidelines to live by.

I do not think there has ever been any suggestion of Prince lacking intelligence. People who are talented are usually above average IQ. The use of his princebonics to madonna is hearsay, as i dont recall ever actually being shown the said letter and if he does use them all the time how does that show he is an idiot?

His style and dress sense reflects anything but 'usual' or 'normal' why would he also subscribe to the 'average' or 'normal' when communicating?


I also for the record think Idiot Savant is an outdated and outmoded expression. I believe it came about by ignorant people in a world that had not grown or experienced the multi-facets that human beings are, that we now, today, understand better.

We, non of us fit into neat boxes with neat habits, neat personalities. What is idiotic to some is right and correct and even genius to others.


I think it is idiotic to even use the term idiot, for real, obviously in jest or to be cruel etc is fine. I mean as an actual term to describe another persons development or IQ. It too is an out moded description from ancient times to explain behaviours in misunderstood people.


So no he is not an 'idiot savant' but an extremely unqiue individual.

It's made him rich and famous. Maybe we all need to be one.
[Edited 6/12/08 8:52am]

<-----wants to know what dreamshaman scored on an IQ test

Prince, dood, if you're reading this bull, please drop an album. I don't care if it's 40 minutes of you hitting a cowbell. Do something. When you take a break, the org is littered with threads like this.

btw

The only resemblance between P and anything I see is P and a middle aged power lesbian.

what is the motivation of this pointless thread?

Dance said:

speaking of this...am I the only one that thinks he looks like Rembrandt from The Warriors



I swear I look really hard whenever I watch that movie and I keep expecting him to stop punching someone in the face and do a few splits.

Dance said:

Yes you are!

apart from having a fro what else is the same?

syble said:

Um, the whole damn face...and the fact that they're both big girls

syble said:

Very well said Syble! Idiot Savant does sound like something terribly outdated and was created in a world of ignorance and small-mindedness.
I think the original author of this thread didn't mean any harm, I just think that he or she tried their very best to super analyze Prince which is impossible.

The only way to do that would be to know him face to face, hang out and talk to him on a regular basis. Although the author described Prince in such a way I'm sure we've all thought of from time to time.

I certainly do not think Prince lacks intelligence, however in his younger years it seems he was very stubborn, impulsive and a player.

He's a very intersting study.

Prince is our man and at this point in his life never needs to prove himself. He is a musical legend.

toots said:

I have no idea, the last time this subject was brought up it went downhill. Why rehash this to stick a label of sorts on him?

Prince just happens to have talent, right?

A lot of people I've met have this opinion of Prince, I remember telling one girl that Prince could be surprisingly accomplished if she investigated his music beyond what what was on the radio, a true awe inspiring workhorse, and she replied "Like an idiot savant?" That was in 2002.