A guy named Derek Sivers draws lessons on leaders, followers, and the growth of movements from this video of a lone dancer who slowly and then more and more rapidly draws a group of fellow dancers. Unamuno would say this is a man who is following his Dulcinea, the “sublime madness…the magnanimous purity of intention with which he purified the world, his world…forgetting himself, he found his own great depth…”
This comes via Kottke, who connects such theorizing to Kurt Vonnegut’s three types of specialist present at any revolution, from the novel Bluebeard.
The rarest of these specialists, he says, is an authentic genius — a person capable of having seemingly good ideas not in general circulation. “A genius working alone,” he says, “is invariably ignored as a lunatic.”
The second sort of specialist is a lot easier to find: a highly intelligent citizen in good standing in his or her community, who understands and admires the fresh ideas of the genius, and who testifies that the genius is far from mad.
The third sort of specialist is a person who can explain everything, no matter how complicated, to the satisfaction of most people, no matter how stupid or pigheaded they may be