I have read quite a-lot about the "Geniuses" mentioned in this series. It baffles me to see the amount of ignorance the makers of the show has about the relevance of the thinkers mentioned in this series. All three of them belong to the school of suspicion which to put it crudely had a very cynical view of the human condition and human society. They are the ones who provided the tools and analysis to deconstruct the social relationships of the society they were born into. Here Freud takes an approach focused on the individual. Regarding the applications of their ideologies and philosophy, two of them (viz. Marx and Nietzsche) greatly influenced the regimes that mass murdered their own people in the 20th century and at times these sufferings can be traced back to the writings these geniuses. For those who are curious about those regimes, they were the Communists and the Nazis. We know what happened to those regimes in the end. As for the writings of Freud, since he worked in a rather stringent scientific discipline, he analysis were soon discarded or greatly modified by the later practitioners of his field. Carl Jung being one of them which is ironic since he was his student once.
Very few of the Marx and Nietzsche writings can provide an insight into the native societies and people other than the european contingent which is reasonable as they never attempted to. It is their students who insist and then go on to great lengths to make their works universally applicable. Freud is an exception here since his work was centered on the human mind rather than societies or cultures.
As it with reality not being black and white, they do provide some penetrating insights into some aspects of the human condition but those aren't enough to put them on a pedestal as the show attempts. This show is a continuing example of modern writers and scholars having a leftist bend in their outlook which certainly doesn't provide a complete picture. The thinkers mentioned in the previous iteration of this show (Genius of the Ancient World), which too has its flaws of taking a western perspective on Buddha and Confucius, all had arguably a more positive view and impact on the human society at large than the thinkers mentioned in this series which is disappointing as I had high hopes for this iteration. The choice of thinkers between the two iterations really shows the sad state of affairs of today's modern world. Overall, very disappointed with the choice of thinkers and the narrative of the show.
