"Method to His Madness"

I have always disliked the phrase "method to his madness" and the assorted variations on it. This has, I think, nothing whatsoever to do with the remarks of Polonius in Hamlet from which the usage has derived ("though he be mad, there is method in't"), as they never bothered me when I was reading the play or seeing it performed.

Rather they seem to me to have had to do with the particular variant of the phrase that it seems we hear so much "There's a method to my madness" (emphasis added).

This is, I think, because I have a pretty low tolerance for braggarts, and for obnoxiousness, and this is a particularly obnoxious brag.

"What I'm doing looks crazy, but really it's genius! You're just not smart enough to see it because you're not a genius like me!"

"I'm playing 4-D chess and you can't grasp that with your 1-D mind!"

"I'm thinking on a whole other level than you!"

This behavior would be pretty bad even if it were absolutely true--graceless in a way (contrary to our pop culture's stupidities) probably not characteristic of those who might actually be geniuses. However, it is worse than that because the supposed 4-D chess-playing, whole-other-level geniuses just about never prove to be anything but persons of sub-normal intelligence setting themselves up for disaster. So does it also tend to go with cheerleaders for such persons, passing off foolishness as if it were genius. (Admittedly that was not what Polonius was doing, but at this moment I can't help thinking of how things did not go too well for Hamlet . . .)

Hopefully people will start associating this reality with the phrase, and stop using it. But one might as well hope that they would stop tossing around that other famous phrase of Polonius', "To thine own self be true"--and, alas, here we are, enduring the ceaseless warping of the meaning of those words involved in that other cliché.