Hugh Laurie, übermensch
Unlike Adam, I’ve been quite enjoying the police investigation sub-plot on House; but I’m worried that at this point they’ve given themselves nowhere to go. After last week’s episode, it seems inevitable that House will have to “learn” something from the experience, and thereby doubtless “grow” as a “person.”
If there’s one thing I don’t want from House, it’s learning and growth, which completely misunderstands what is so compelling about House as a character. House of course is very unhappy, but it would be quite wrong to take the pop-Platonist-therapy route of saying that this is because of ignorance on his part. On the contrary, House knows exactly why he is unhappy, and continues to do it anyway, precisely because if he ceased to do that, he would no longer be him. There is no “real” house separate from his depression and pain. I’m reminded of Deleuze’s gloss of Nietzsche: “The eternal return says: whatever you will, will it in such a manner that you also will its eternal return.” It’s hard to think of a more consistent, a more terrible, or a more cheering, self-knowledge.
In other House news, it appears (from the faith-healer episode repeated last night) that Dr Cameron is a Spinozist. How splendid.