Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

Is Dr House an objectivist?

Rate this topic


Recommended Posts

Good god... the idiocy that gets into these forums...

You really shouldn't insult someone without ana rgument to back it up.

Dr. Cuddy is the one character in the show who is consistent in her pursuit of values. Be it her career, her staff, her family or even obtaining a nicer place to live. besides she is a businesswoman, and quite a ruthless one at that. See the show where Foreman gets his job back.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Hello, everyone,

It strucks me that Hugh Laurie as the main character in the popular tv series Dr House has much of an objectivist personality at several regards. I got to be a fan of this series, indeed, and each time I watch it I think of Dr House as a personage who shares much in common with characters such as John Galt and Hank Rearden.

Sound preposterous?

I am curious to see what your opinion is about it.

House is a great character to watch; brilliant writing IMO. Dr. House is a brilliant but emotionally and socially dsynfunctional man. While he does show narcissistic traits, I would not go so far as to say that he is one. But he doesn't believe in God, doesn't really believe in morality (at least not when it gets in the way of his chief passion - solving puzzles), doesn't enjoy human relationship outside of a very select few, and behaves towards the non-select with a special, superior, elitist and impatient attitude. And it has cost him big. He has come to discover over time how big it has cost him, and he is trying to change (at least as of the end of Season 6). The show is a saga of a fascinating character from the first season as amoral and anti-social, to subsequent seasons where he suffers from alienation from others, to more recent seasons where he tries to fix what's wrong but has a hard time figuring out how.

So I'd say that he is a genius and potentially prime "superman" material, who is trying to confront his demons which make him feel unfulfilled.

Edited by Chris Cathcart
Link to comment
Share on other sites

House uses people and discards them at need. That's contrary to Objectivism, since he obviously doens't mind collecting sacrifices.

If any one character in that series is close to Objectivism, it's Dr. Lisa Cuddy.

Yes. I thought that episode showing the typical day in the life of Cuddy was like watching someone with an amazing will to excel - much like Ms. Objectivism herself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank to all you for your interest in the subject I brought upon. I find your opinions pretty interesting.

Ben Archer, you raised a point I was thinking about, when you said “I always like Dr House, but of course they had to bring him down with a drug addiction and a misanthropic personality.”

…and a cane, just in case it wouldn’t be enough. :rolleyes:

As a matter of fact, this drug addiction and the cane have been added on purpose, doubtless. How Dr House could enjoy such popularity as a flawless man?

But what I find pretty interesting about this last point is that these flaws overcome a popular dislike for gifted, talented, superior, personages, even in leftist France where Dr House is ranked, not only as the top rated tv series, but as the most successful tv program far beyond anything else. In true life in a country such as France, a Dr House would be kicked off anywhere he would go for a job - as for anything else. But as a fictional character, he literally mesmerizes the masses… On this basis, let me hazard the guess that in this country, Hank Rearden the tortured mind would enjoy more popularity and sympathy than John Galt.

Now beyond the peculiarities of the character Dr House, if you take a careful look at the series you’ll notice that the scenario and dialogues never spare anything to the leftist discourse. As examples, I have a vivid recollection of an episode in which a patient is a tree-hugger activist who is unambiguously taken as a gentle naïve all along, which is rather uncommon in a time when ecology is a touchy matter. In another episode, Dr House resolves to give preference to performance and competence over his fancy for a pretty female doctor, and he fires her, contrary to everyone's expectation. I took this couple of examples among many others.

One thing House is an expert at, is exposing hypocrisy or lack of reasonableness in patients. He is blunt and brutally honest. And usually the patients don't throw up much of a fight when he exposes them, because they know he's right.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

Castle is certainly an admirable character. Very smart guy, good father and son, courageous. There's nothing really explicitly Objectivist about him though. The themes of rationality, religion, etc that come up in House just aren't really part of the show Castle.

Also, there was one episode where he actually thought he might be cursed by some mummy. That kind of irked me, from an otherwise awesome character.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...