A Word on Genius: Balzac's The Two Brothers, Again

The two brothers in Balzac's Two Brothers are Philippe and Joseph Bridau. From early on in life, because of how they look and how they handle themselves, everyone expects great things for Philippe, and nothing for Joseph, with this confirmed by the choices of career each makes--Joseph's becoming a painter seen as a disaster by his mother, in contrast with Philippe becoming a soldier, and while frankly a mediocre one happening upon a succession of unlikely opportunities that see him a colonel after only a few years' service.

At least early in life Joseph accepts the assessment of his brother if not himself, mistaking Philippe's "patronizing manners" and "brutal exterior" as reflective of his being a "solider of genius," such that Balzac quips that "Joseph did not yet know . . . that soldiers of genius are as gentle and courteous in manner as other superior men in any walk of life" (and Philippe, distinctly, not one of those). "All genius is alike, wherever found," Balzac adds.

The idea that the person of true genius is "gentle and courteous" would seem unknown not only to the young Joseph, but to people generally these days--be it in how the courtiers who lionize "geniuses" in public life sing of their oafish and nasty conduct as if it were a common, predictable, even necessary part of a package of which we should all be awestruck and admiring. This is, if anything, reaffirmed by the depiction of "genius" in fiction, which often has them thoroughly unpleasant, arrogant people (like the supposed scientist of "genius" as written by the hacks who crank out our pop culture).

Why is that? I suppose it is because a great many people, in line with the prevailing belief that the world is some perfect meritocracy where people get what they deserve, such that it is assumed that those who hold high positions are more meritorious and deserving than others, quite stupidly equate position with capacity. They associate Authority with irascible, impatient, bullying individuals ever tearing into those they see as their "inferiors" (not unreasonably, given that there is never a shortage of this kind of thing), and associate superior intelligence and talent with that (entirely unreasonably, given that there is ever a shortage of these kinds of things in high places), producing a characteristic example of the kind of muddle into which the "conventional wisdom" leads those benighted enough to believe in it.