Somebody might come across as arrogant because he can anticipate arguments other people come up with and understands their position better than they do, and disinclination to engage them from what is in the other guy’s perspective an honest and satisfactory fashion could easily be interpreted as arrogance. I’m imagining someone like House MD (fictional evidence, I know). In such a case the “arrogant” academic might not perceive himself that way.
There is also the real life case of John Nash who IIRC others described as highly arrogant, but was nevertheless brilliant. He still had his capacity to produce useful work damaged by schizophrenia but that was probably due to genetic causes seeing as his son suffered similar problems.
Perhaps arrogance impacts different people differently? If you’re brilliant to begin with, you may be able to do great work regardless of your arrogance, whereas arrogance in someone who is merely bright might cause a severe reduction in effective intelligence.
Somebody might come across as arrogant because he can anticipate arguments other people come up with and understands their position better than they do, and disinclination to engage them from what is in the other guy’s perspective an honest and satisfactory fashion could easily be interpreted as arrogance. I’m imagining someone like House MD (fictional evidence, I know). In such a case the “arrogant” academic might not perceive himself that way.
There is also the real life case of John Nash who IIRC others described as highly arrogant, but was nevertheless brilliant. He still had his capacity to produce useful work damaged by schizophrenia but that was probably due to genetic causes seeing as his son suffered similar problems.
Perhaps arrogance impacts different people differently? If you’re brilliant to begin with, you may be able to do great work regardless of your arrogance, whereas arrogance in someone who is merely bright might cause a severe reduction in effective intelligence.