Assholes
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Compare the jerk or the schmuck. We blame him for his particular failures of seeing, and we take them to be exacerbated by his more general failure to make an effort at improving his moral sight. In that sense, what might otherwise be a normal lapse does reflect the person’s jerky or schmucky nature. He may even be incorrigible in this. He may not defend this lackadaisical attitude and may even apologize for it—before being just as carefree over the next day or week. But it is not that we blame him for his particular failures of seeing only because we blame him for his more general way of being. We simply blame him for both.
Like the jerk or schmuck, the asshole fails to recognize the particular moral claims of others and he makes no general effort at coming to better see what people are owed. The asshole is to blame for his particular failures of seeing no less than we are to blame for our particular moral lapses. As with the jerk and the schmuck, the asshole’s particular errors are exacerbated and possibly explained by his general failure to make any effort at improving his moral sight. In the case of the asshole, however, the general failure reflects his entrenched resistance to moral learning. It reflects his (perhaps inchoate) sense that he doesn’t have to make those sorts of efforts. Given his special standing, it is only natural that the special advantages of social life should flow his way. We thus blame the asshole for his situational errors and for the basic error that defines his very way of being.
Of course, the occasional asshole does change his way of being. Dickens’s Ebenezer Scrooge eventually undergoes a dramatic moral transformation.19 It is an interesting question whether assholes ever wholly transform, or whether being an asshole is more like a being an alcoholic: one is always gratefully in recovery and never finally cured. Nor would an eleventh-hour “transformation,” as death approaches, clearly qualify; it may be better to say that the dying man is understandably just not being himself. I would guess the transformation can be and sometimes is total. This is not, however, why assholes are properly blamed: assholes aren’t to blame because they can potentially recover. They are to blame simply because they think like an asshole, whether or not they will, or even can, ever change.
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1. “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior,” Wall Street Journal, January 8, 2001, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html, and Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (New York: Penguin Press, 2011).
2. And in any case she quite rightly takes objection to recent, approval-obsessed Western styles of parenting, which have made kids tend toward either self-destructive anxiety or narcissism and the desperate need to experience something real (e.g., through college binge-drinking experiences).
3. As Simone de Beauvoir puts the point, “Social discriminations … produce in women moral and intellectual effects so profound that they appear to spring from her original nature.” The Second Sex (1949; repr., Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972), 18.
4. On the diversity of cultural influences, see Elizabeth V. Spelman, Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought (Boston: Beacon Press, 1988), and Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (New York: Routledge, 2000).
5. For a Marxist take, see Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour (London: Zed Books, 1998).
6. According to Judith Butler, in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1999), however, even biological sex categories are socially constructed. As a component of socially constructed gender, “maleness” isn’t off the causal hook, but rather not a distinct causal variable. Instead of coming to the aid of maleness, this view denies its existence as natural.
7. The whole story is nicely documented in Bustin’ Down the Door, www.imdb.com/title/tt1129921/.
8. This is according to a University of Michigan study, described in “Empathy: College Students Don’t Have as Much as They Used To,” May 26, 2010, www.newswise.com/articles/view/565005/?sc=lwtr;xy=5017391.
9. The foregoing is roughly a version of the skepticism defended by Galen Strawson in “The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility,” Philosophical Studies 75 (1994): 5–24, if we substitute “full control” for a kind of conscious choosing (which he specifies).
10. This view is defended by Roderick M. Chisholm, “Human Freedom and the Self,” in Free Will, 2nd ed., ed. Gary Watson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 26.
11. Gary Watson, “The Trouble with Psychopaths,” in Reasons and Recognition: Essays on the Philosophy of T. M. Scanlon, ed. R. Jay Wallace, Rahul Kumar, and Samuel Freeman (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). See also Watson’s “Responsibility and the Limits of Evil: Variations on a Strawsonian Theme,” in Perspective on Moral Responsibility, ed. John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), 119.
12. Watson, “Responsibility and the Limits of Evil.”
13. Watson, “The Trouble with Psychopaths.”
14. Some philosophers find it intelligible that a person could have moral concepts but stand unmoved by his own moral judgments, perhaps because he does not see them as supplying him with any reason for action. I’m inclined to classify this character as a psychopath rather than as an asshole. The asshole not only uses moral concepts but is motivated by his use of them, albeit in a deeply egocentric way.
15. For this general kind of argument, about moral incapacity due to upbringing, see Susan Wolf, “Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility,” in Watson, Free Will, 372–87.
16. This is T. M. Scanlon’s view in “Blame,” in Moral Dimensions: Permissibility, Meaning, Blame (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008). Our suggestion is that this view fits the asshole, which might be true even if Watson is right that it doesn’t fit the psychopath. For a related view of “attributability,” see Angela M. Smith, “Responsibility for Attitudes: Activity and Passivity in Mental Life,” Ethics 115 (2005): 236–71.
17. Which is not to say Watson is right that an asshole could not be properly held accountable if he suffered from local moral blindness. (I myself am not sure.) We sidestep that further issue here.
18. For a version of this argument in light of “Jeff the jerk,” see Manuel R. Vargas, “The Trouble with Tracing,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 29 (2005): 269–91.
19. Three different Jack Nicholson characters, in As Good as It Gets, About Schmidt, and Something’s Gotta Give, eventually come into self-knowledge that mitigates their assholish condition.
[5] ASSHOLE MANAGEMENT
We have said that an asshole can be beyond moral correction and yet still be the appropriate object of blame. That is not yet to say how he is best handled. How, aside from merely placing blame, should we respond to the annoying man who has just interrupted, or woven across three traffic lanes, or created a giant political mess?
Much of the rest of this book is about asshole management, or, more accurately, why asshole management is unavoidably difficult. In chapter 6, we look at the difficulty of limiting the profusion of assholes throughout society. In this chapter, our topic is personal asshole management and the special way assholes destabilize small groups.
SELF-UNDERSTANDING AS SELF-HELP
When it comes to personal asshole management, there is unfortunately very little useful to say by way of self-help—certainly nothing like an eleven-step guide to an asshole-free life. The asshole is deeply bothersome because we find it difficult to even understand what a good, constructive response would be, let alone to actually produce it on the spot. Despite many hard lessons about what did not work, and perhaps even the odd success, it takes only a fresh kind of asshole—or just the same old sort of asshole, encountered at a bad time—to catch one unawares, throw one off balance, and spoil one’s whole day.
One’s day is spoiled because one feels forced into either of two unpalatable respo
nses: a demeaning acquiescence or a personally disappointing and ineffectual fit of rage. That is, on the one hand, we have the option of resignation: we give in to what is plainly mistreatment, allow ourselves to be taken advantage of, and find reasons to somehow make this feel okay. On the other hand, we have the option of resistance: we stand up for ourselves and fight to be morally recognized. But fighting back can seem an exercise in futility. No amount of angry protest will get a true asshole to listen. As we explained in chapter 1, he is entrenched in his outlook; he is exceedingly good at walling out complaints, and, in this, he will most likely never change. Although neither resignation nor all-out resistance seems finally acceptable, we often have only the faintest sense of an ever-elusive better way.
Our best hope for finding that better way is to better understand ourselves. Why do we find both resignation and all-out resistance ultimately acceptable? The answer lies in the importance we attach to the kind of treatment the asshole deprives us of—that is, the importance of being morally recognized as an equal in the eyes of others. As we will now see, this explains why neither resignation nor all-out resistance is the best course, and in a way that points us toward more productive ways of seeking to be recognized.
RESIGNATION AND THE LOSS OF SELF-RESPECT
To begin, we might ask, What was so bad about resignation? To someone frustrated, one might offer the following counsel: “Take it easy. The guy is just an asshole. Why be so worried about what an asshole thinks?” One might elaborate with counsels of productivity: “And in any case, you’ve got better things to do with your time. Just give the asshole what he wants, what he thinks he deserves, and be done with it. It helps in this to temporarily buy his view of the world. Throw in an ego stroke, just for good measure. An asshole who feels that you completely understand him is much more likely to leave you alone.”
Unless of course he doesn’t leave you alone, which he often won’t. (Perhaps he now feels he can take more and more of what he was anyway after.) There is good advice in these counsels of productivity, yet the stated version cannot be entirely right. For one thing, in the face of a persistent, wearing asshole, the advice is exceedingly difficult to follow. Our feelings of revulsion, of anger, and of a thirst for retribution are not consciously chosen or readily set to one side. They come unbidden. Reactive feelings do not simply arise in the moment of confrontation. They can intrude upon a pleasant sunny day, in a flashing image of the man in question suddenly breaking out in a rash, of his losing bladder control in a public place, of his convulsing from having eaten poisoned food, of his being mowed down by a truck, of his being crushed by a meteor, or of fluids spraying spontaneously out of all his orifices (onto his friends standing nearby).1 Until of course one realizes, on second thought, that a person staring into the abyss may not be reflecting on his lack of concern for others, which may in turn prompt either a more elaborate scheme of revenge or, instead, a natural understanding of how a Day of Judgment in the afterlife should have such enduring human appeal and, relatedly, of how there could be a moral basis to most religious metaphysics. We don’t have to believe that the asshole will actually get his in the end to find ourselves, passively and disappointingly, wrapped up a fantasized vengeful plot. Perhaps that isn’t so bad, because we of course would never go through with the fantasy. Or would we?
Being overtaken by obsessive rumination can seem like a personal flaw or, in the extreme, a psychological disorder. Yet it isn’t. The retributive feelings are a natural if extreme way of affirming one’s right to better treatment, a way of reassuring oneself of one’s equal moral status. Ultimately, reactive feelings reflect good and proper self-respect. We do well to tutor how they are expressed, perhaps by reminding ourselves that there is nothing good, as such, in human suffering, even an asshole’s human suffering. But there is nothing regrettable or reproachable in a natural affirmation of basic self-worth. If we could somehow ease ourselves out of that affirmative disposition—whether through years of patient mediation, a brutal process of cognitive psychotherapy, or by rewiring the limbic brain and basal ganglia—we’d be well advised not to go through with it. We’d be carving away at something not all too human, but only human, and therefore something properly respected or even cherished.
In much the same way, and for the same reasons, people strongly, often violently resist being played for a sucker: better to fight than be someone’s lackey. The trouble, especially for men, is that resistance is easily overdone, bringing its own set of problems. Consider a man who has laser clarity that “no one fucks with me,” given an expansive definition of the “fucking with” relation, which includes such things as looking at him wrong, turning one’s head in the general direction of his woman, or being too tall (and so in need of being taken down). This view finds sophisticated expression in the great political theorist Thomas Hobbes’s expansive right of self-defense, which includes a right of anticipatory strikes against anyone one deems a potential enemy.2 Much the same view finds more recent expression in the Bush doctrine of preventive war and its use in justifying the invasion of Iraq, on the basis of what turned out to be whispered rumors of WMDs. Morally, these versions of the right of self-defense are a stretch.3 Yet we can certainly appreciate their source: no one wants to be a sucker, and, from a moral point of view, we just don’t have to stand by and allow ourselves to be taken advantage of by an asshole.
When we are at risk of being exploited, we can at least take ourselves out of the asshole’s way. Which suggests a strategy of vigilant avoidance: if one plans with sufficient foresight, one can systematically avoid putting oneself in a position to encounter an asshole. One can be exceedingly careful about whom one befriends, dates, and marries; one can work for oneself and forgo business deals with anyone who might be suspect; and so on. Yet this surely goes too far. Should one avoid or leave Italy, along with all its bounteous joys, simply because one can be pretty confident that an asshole will cut you off in traffic or drive behind an ambulance to save time in traffic? Should one pass on one’s favored career in banking or academia because one will be stuck dealing with an asshole from time to time? Surely not. We all manage our associations to some extent already. The single-minded pursuit of asshole avoidance would come at a too high a cost.
In that case, one will invariably have to cooperate within social interactions that the asshole exploits. But how can one cooperate without being a sucker? We surely don’t have to stand up to every asshole. This is, again, a good counsel of productivity: it isn’t worth it to fight every good fight; as the point is often put, “you have to pick your battles.” But to never stand up for oneself, to always acquiesce, also seems mistaken or, for most, even impossible. We can and should fight for our rights at some point. The question, then, is in what way. The question is how to fight for recognition without lashing out.
RESISTANCE WITHOUT WAR
Let us turn then to our second and opposing reaction: all-out resistance. Here we immediately face a difficulty. How could fighting for moral recognition possibly be a worthy cause if the asshole will not listen, by his very nature, try as we might to get through? How could an exercise in futility be worthwhile?
It might be said that we often won’t be certain that the man in front of us is a proper asshole who will not or cannot change. He could be a borderline case and might be moved by one’s protest. Calling him an asshole could give him pause. It could be that he has never thought of himself in that light and, now being forced to look at himself in a different way, feels ashamed. If there’s a chance he’ll listen, why not try?
While this is fine as far as it goes, it mainly postpones our problem. When a first effort is made and rebuffed, should you now continue to seek recognition, persisting in the good fight? Or should you simply give up? Especially when we are stuck in repeated encounters with an asshole who wears on our nerves, we presumably should stand up for our rights instead of simply letting the asshole have his way with us. But how could that be worthwhile if any quest for rec
ognition is bound to fail? Why aren’t we left with an unacceptable choice between resigning ourselves to being a sucker and an arduous and probably futile struggle to uphold our rights?
The answer to this question is that we are not forced to choose between acquiescence and all-out resistance. One can stand up for one’s rights in many constructive and fruitful ways short of trying to do the impossible—get the asshole to listen and change.
To see this, consider why we swear out loud at the asshole in traffic. We often know that he cannot hear us in his car. Indeed, we are especially prone to do this while driving alone (because passengers may be disturbed or offended), knowing full well that no one else can hear. Is there a point to this? Is it simply that there is pleasure in venting, the gratification of a cathartic, ejaculatory burst? No, or at least not entirely. We do this, rather, in order to recognize ourselves, as a proxy for the recognition of others. We are reassuring ourselves that we do deserve better treatment and that this is something that any reasonable onlooker, were one present, would agree with.
The phenomenon reflects our more general need to keep ourselves intelligible to others. Consider, by comparison, “response cries” such as aha, bleh, eeuw, goody, hmph, oh, oops, phew, whee, yikes, or yuck. Why do we spontaneously blurt out these words, often in a moment of awkwardness? As psychologist and linguist Steven Pinker explains, we do so with others in mind: