Insufferable Genius/Headscratchers

• Ever since House came out, it's as if all geniuses must be smart assholes. Seriously, would it hurt to have a smart guy who isn't or act like an asshole? Is anti-social behavior is the only Fatal Flaw the writers can think of?
  • No, but many people with high functioning autism like House have higher than normal intelligence and anti-social tendencies.
    • Anti-social =/= asshole.
    • It very easily can, however, or to be fair can at least be construed as such; anti-social tendencies are by definition those tendencies which make it difficult for those possessing them to incorporate into society, and, regardless of what television or the movies might teach us, except in relatively rare situations society as a whole doesn't exactly fall over itself to incorporate arrogant, abrasive and socially inept dickheads no matter how clever they are.
    • The only mention of House having any form of autism is in the episode Lines in the Sand, and it is dismissed quickly. Just because someone is anti-social and extremely intelligent does not automatically mean the person has any autism spectrum disorder. Don't let television teach you about psychology.
  • Plus, there's the ever present factor of Follow the Leader.
  • Actually, that's a very subtle form of anti-intellectualism, the message being: "Don't try to be too intelligent or instructed, it makes you an insensitive and contemptuous person who will end up having no friends."
  • What makes me curious is that shouldn't the experts in their fields know that what they know is only fraction of all there is in their fields and therefore know more of humility? In my country, there's saying, "An empty cart makes more noise."
    • Never underestimate the power of Opinion Myopia, Fan Myopia (it's not just limited to fan-bases) or just plain good old-fashioned egotism; for too many experts, their field of expertise is literally where All The Important Stuff Is Happening and everything else is just an interesting but useless curiosity at best or absolutely worthless at most. That way, it makes it easier for them to deal with or ignore the fact that they actually don't know absolutely everything and never will by reasoning that what they don't know isn't important anyway, and so it doesn't matter that they don't know it. There's a joke in The Big Bang Theory that reflects this, where Sheldon, lording it over everyone as always, pompously remarks that he has a working knowledge of the entire universe, at which point Penny asks him to describe who Radiohead are. Several seconds of undone twitching later, he snottily changes it to a working knowledge of everything important in the universe -- the joke partly being that Sheldon's particular field of expertise (theoretical physics) is something that many people find just as (if not even more) unimportant, trivial or incidental to their day-to-day lives as music.
  • To be fair, this isn't without basis in real life. We tend to over-use the term 'genius' to mean 'anyone who does something great' but an actual genius -- as in someone who is quantifiably brilliant in a way that elevates them above other people -- oftenhas difficulty accommodating into society; they find it difficult to connect to people because they operate on a wavelength that most people can't relate to. Furthermore, things that a lot of people struggle with come very easily to them; it's not hard to foster a mindset of superiority under such circumstances, especially if you can't understand why it doesn't come easily to them (they must be idiots!). And, of course, describing someone as a genius is inherently placing them on a pedestal above other people, which is very flattering to the ego.
  • With House, it's not just that he's an insufferable genius but that he's also a Bunny Ears Lawyer taken Up to Eleven. And his "eccentricity" just happens to be massive, raging assholishness. And yeah, most of us aren't nearly as assholeish as House, but for a lot of people, it's still something of an escapist fantasy to be able to get away with completely ignoring or disrespecting your boss or your more annoying co-workers because you're just that good at your job.