Recovering Insufferable Genius (working title)
So, I was on TV Tropes creating an article, and I thought maybe you guys could help me add fictional as well as notable Real Life examples to the trope. Here’s a copy of the description:
Some kids who are more intelligent than other kids the same age might grow up acting their intellectual age, forsaking interaction with other children their age which they deem to be boring and unfulfilling, if not outright painful or worse. This can be especially bad if they make a habit of pointing out to other kids what they think they are doing wrong, asking uncomfortable questions, or acting smug and superior. Instead, they prefer the company of books which can either efficiently and consistenty entertain them either by allowing them to escape the dreary world they think they live in or by actually answering their questions, or that of adults who can actually teach them stuff and provide an interesting feedback.
When those kids grow up they might end up being very disappointed by those adult figures they used to respect enough to discuss stuff with. If they have outgrown the Insufferable Genius phase they might go through a backlash face where they undertake Man Child activities as they rediscover (oftentimes with the aid of scientific material) how to interact with the vast majority of mankind as well as their peers[[hottip:*:these characters tend to be as different from each other as they are from the mainstream, connecting through each other through common interests, often of a geeky nature, or through work]]. Having no practice, no natural social skills, they can still become fascinated with societal behavior, and actively strive to learn a lot about them, in a quest to feel “together” with everyone else and to be loved and appreciated for who they are. Cognitive Sciences are a very favoured way for them to understand how people behave in ways that don’t seem to make any sense, and learn some humility on the way. Evolutionary Psychology helps them understand that there is a perfectly good reason these systematic errors were hardwired into the human brain. Pick Up Arts are they way they try to apply that knowledge to succeed in their romantic lives, or at least to understand exactly why they don’t and others do. There’s also other fields of psychology and sociology, political sciences, economics, graphology, neurolinguistic programming, body language.., However, it’s all book knowledge, and these characters are usually poor at application, at least until the get more practice done. And there are rather big holes in their knowledge.They might genuinely not realize how rude they can be. However, given that they tend to have few friends and that it often took them much effort to acquire said friends, you can expect them to be fiercely loyal and supportive to them, Characters who achieve success in their journey might become A Gentleman/Lady And A Scholar. Examples:
Amy Farrah Fowler from The Big Bang Theory is this trope incarnate, and is an interesting foil to Insufferable Genius Ambiguously Autistic Jerk Ass Sheldon Cooper who despises all of the rest of humanity and wants no part of it, yet always wants to assume roles of leadership and be obeyed and followed by all those unworthy people. Many other characters in the series struggle with this.
Promethean The Created’s Pilgrinage shares some themes with this trope, to the point one might wonder if it isn’t a metaphor.
Genius The Transgression’s main, overarching theme can be said to be that this trope is doomed to a Foregone Conclusion of complete and utter failure sooner or later, and the bitterness that resutls from this.
The Less Wrong blog seems to have this as part of its interests. It even provides an answer to “How To Be Happy”, based on a number of scientific studies.
I mentioned this place by name because I got the impression many guys here do fit this trope to an extent. As such, I’m sure you’d have paid more attention than others to fictional embodiments of the trope. I also think it’d be interesting fodder for discussion. I apologize in advance if the article is inadvertently offensive: I tend to be Innocently Insensitive myself, and would gladly welcome help to improve on this article’s accuracy and range.
PR-wise I don’t think you should include LW.
I don’t think that we’re all recovering, insufferable, or geniuses.
Encountering people smarter than you is a good antidote to the ‘insufferable genius’ syndrome.
Only for minor cases. For the others it makes them worse.
I’ve been the smarter guy like a dozen times and I’m still waiting for my turn.
If you don’t mind Orson Scott Card, his Homecoming or Memory of Earth series involves a scientist character who fits this in many ways.
Shedemei, or somebody else?
That sounds right. I can’t reread her story because, well, if any other author presented an African-American character who needs his DNA magically changed to resemble a white man’s—and if this happened because of a situation that only makes sense within the story, involving the threat of violence—then you’d quite rightly laugh at the suggestion that the author meant this as a model for real people to follow. But with Orson Scott Card you have to ask the question, because of the way he treats homosexuality in Homecoming.
What? I don’t think anybody’s DNA got changed. Shedemei marries a gay dude and he stays gay; he’s out to her but otherwise in the closet.
The analogy isn’t perfect. But when I first read Homecoming, the conception of their child did not seem like a model the author could possibly believe in following.
Why are you linking to a page about the Alvin books? Homecoming is a different series.
Buwah? I linked the source of the analogy, which as I implied earlier also comes from OSC.
I’m pretty sure I have no idea what you are talking about. If you wish me to understand you, please start over from the beginning and be very careful about clarity. (If you don’t care if I understand you I suppose that’s fine too.)
Well, we are getting pretty far afield. But I feel mildly curious as to why I didn’t get my point across before, so here goes.
Orson Scott Card wrote the scenario I described with the African-American character. I compared this to his Homecoming series in order to illustrate why my view of his writing in general has changed in the time since I read the two stories. Today I have no wish to read Card and cannot fully enjoy stories I enjoyed before. (Hence I did not recall Shedemei’s name.)
Immediately after reading the other series I would have rejected any claim that the DNA scene had a racist message. Clearly, the author constructed the scenario that made that scene possible in order to convey an anti-racist message. No reasonable person, I thought, would approve of the bigoted society (replete with legal violence and threats) that led to the events in question. It seemed to follow that no reasonable reader could take that scene as a model for society to follow.
I had exactly the same reaction when I read Homecoming for the first time. It seemed self-evident that Shedemei’s marriage etc could never happen without violence, and other oppression, of the sort that the gay character describes. “Therefore” (I might have said) the author plainly did not intend it as a model or as the One True Moral Path for gay people.
It turns out Card sees the matter differently. The link has him explicitly making a host of statements inconsistent with my previous impression, including an endorsement of legal violence to discourage homosexuality. (“Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those whoflagrantly violate society’s regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society. ” Emphasis added.) After discovering this I lost all trust in his thinking.
Okay. (The fact that I didn’t until just now remember the scene you describe in the Alvin series hindered understanding; I think mostly your inferences were presented out of order for my ease of understanding and that explains the rest.)
That understood, why does it matter what’s going on in the author’s head, as long as the book is good? Are you concerned that you will be propagandized by a laughable-if-present, subtle-if-intended-at-all attempt at a “utopian” society where gays are mistreated? I don’t think the society which persecuted the gay character was supposed to be presented as a generally good one at all (Card may have approved of some of its features, but there’s no independent textual evidence to suggest which ones. Notably, the culture views marriage as temporary, which is probably about as strongly against Card’s religious views as is homosexuality itself.) The gay character himself was handled well and was one of the most likeable people in the books once his initial obsequiousness was explained and toned down.
… Does this site allow the use of spoiler tags?
No. Do you think I should go back and ROT-13 something? I don’t have good instincts about that at all.
It’s okay, it’s just that you sort of spoiled the plots to me, but I guess I don’t mind that much.
Awesome. Now why are we getting downvoted?
Most of the plot points went completely unmentioned. I doubt this will significantly affect the novelty of the books. (We didn’t even talk about, f’rinstance, the main character.)
Anyway, what would you guys say about the part on whether it’s a bit of our stated goals to achieve this and ultimately become Gentle(wo)men and Scholars
Gregory House from House seems to apply. I stopped watching a while ago, but he was in the middle of a season long arc about trying to learn to be less insufferable when I stopped watching.
He’s pretty insufferable again now.
So he’s a lapsed Recovering Insufferable Genius? That might be too specific even for TV Tropes.
Such a suggestion for an article would indeed be shut down with haste
If he ever stops being insufferable, I’m pretty sure it will mean the show is over.
Oh, come on, he can be polite and gentlemanly and still make the show interesting. Anybody here watch My Little Pony? He could also be The Dumbledore, which is another way of being an insufferable genius while being nice and caring at the same time.
The ponies could stop being ponies and still make the show interesting. However, the show is about ponies. So even though the show could still be interesting if the ponies were permanently changed into penguins, the creators are unlikely to do that. Similarly, Buffy the Vampire slayer would still be interesting if the supernatural events were ended and Buffy became a teenage detective like Veronica Mars, but the creator was unlikely to do that. Shows tend for the most part to keep being what they are about, even though a show about something else would still be interesting.
Oh. You mean if House became a decent human being the show would reach its conclusion.
Well, it might be a nice Aesop. Too many series suffer from excessive Sequelitis anyway. Although I don’t know if there was a drop in House MD’s quality as of late. Was there?
Seriously? Didn’t expect that of him.
LessWrong is also becoming a more frequently cited example work on TVTropes, starting from strong interest in HP:MoR. The cites I’ve seen look like good and accurate advertising.
That’s because MoR is the awesomest fanfic to have ever been written under the sun besides Shinji and Warhammer 40k, and by that I mean besides, not after.
I think Yukari from Rosario + Vampire, fits the trope perfectly.
Tangential, but with anticipation of recovery: Enrique Borgos, the obnoxious bio-geek from A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold. Martya Koudelka, who becomes his girlfriend, notes that nerds tend to mature well into quite suitable husbands. Perhaps examples of the latter may be relevant.