A famous physicist gets into a public feud with a colleague over the design of an experiment. The feud lasts years. Each side mobilizes their network. Papers are withdrawn. Careers are damaged. The actual experiment becomes secondary to the dispute. Both physicists are brilliant. Both are also, by K's definition, profoundly unintelligent in this exchange. The intellect is dazzling. The intelligence is absent. The brilliant brains are defending their fragments with peer-reviewed weapons.
K's observation that genius and intelligence are different is sharper when you watch geniuses defend their image. The same brain that solved equations in graduate school is now reorganizing literature reviews to defend a position whose primary value is keeping the fragment intact. The intellect is fully online. The intelligence — the seeing of what's actually happening in this dispute, including one's own role — is absent.
Brilliance can serve any master. Brilliance defending an empire builds the empire. Brilliance defending a religion builds the religion. Brilliance defending a fragment of self builds elaborate justifications for the fragment. The intellect is morally and structurally neutral. It does what it's pointed at. Intelligence, in K's sense, isn't pointable. It sees what the pointing is in service of, and frequently refuses.
The body of a brilliant person defending a fragment is the same body as the not-brilliant person defending a fragment. Same clench. Same chest. Same defensiveness. The brilliance gives the fragment better arguments. It doesn't change the underlying mechanism. Watching a smart person defend an unintelligent position has a particular flavor. You can see the intellect serving the fragment and the fragment serving itself.
A genius defending a fragment is still a fragment. The IQ is decoration. K met a lot of brilliant people. He thought most of them were defended in ways their brilliance made worse, not better. The intelligence he pointed to had nothing to do with how smart you were. It had to do with whether the smart was on duty for a fragment.