Assholes: A Theory

Our theory is simply this: a person counts as an asshole when, and only when, he systematically allows himself to enjoy special advantages in interpersonal relations out of an entrenched sense of entitlement that immunizes him against the complaints of other people.

Assholes are a given fact of life. They are a fact of life we must somehow make peace with if we are to be at peace with life itself.

If we look at global trends, though, asshole production seems to be on the rise.

To summarize, then, our three requirements for a good theory of assholes are as follows. We are looking for (1) a stable trait of character, (2) that leads a person to impose only small or moderate material costs upon others, (3) but that nevertheless qualifies the person as morally repugnant.

If someone treats you disrespectfully or speaks unkindly about you, remember that he or she does so from [his or her] impression that it is right to do so. It is unrealistic to expect that this person sees you as you see yourself. If another person reaches conclusions based on false impressions, he or she is the one hurt rather than you, because it is that person who is misguided.

The asshole, by contrast, traffics in and is moved by moral justification—except that moral justification, for him, leads to an entrenched sense of special entitlement

As we will see, assholes threaten to destabilize whole societies, especially capitalist societies of the particular sort that we increasingly have.

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.

the asshole’s “entrenched sense of entitlement” leads him to systematically think or assume that he has special entitlements that, from a moral point of view, he does not have.

Should you devote your life to asshole aikido? While that would not be entirely unworthy, there are probably better things to do with the limited time one has in life, things such as learning to paint large canvases in the abstract; refining one’s taste in jazz; or, indeed, learning the martial art of aikido for the sake of the practice itself (rather than for the few occasions one will ever use it in a fight). Life affords only so much time, and there are better things to do—sweeter spots to hit—than perfection in the asshole management arts.

of view, may show that he is not getting the respect he deserves. Although our theory is a definition of the term “asshole,” we should emphasize that it is not necessarily a dictionary definition. It is not necessarily a claim about how the word “asshole

The fight can become extraordinarily frustrating because the asshole usually wins: his sense of entitlement is entrenched, so there is usually no getting through.

Fully cooperative people, we may say, see themselves as equals, as having grounds for special treatment only in special circumstances that others will equally enjoy at the appropriate times.

However misguided, the asshole is morally motivated. He is fundamentally different from the psychopath, who either lacks or fails to engage moral concepts, and who sees people as so many objects in the world to be manipulated at will. The asshole takes himself to be justified in enjoying special advantages from cooperative relations. Given

The key is to understand why we are easily tempted to fight on the asshole’s terms: we are fighting for moral recognition in his eyes.

Assholes are found daily on cable news, where hosts repeatedly interrupt their guests, and also on talk radio, where airtime is given to commentators who thrive on falsehood and invective. Even

All too often, fair is foul and foul is fair. Yet the witches of social life cannot foretell our fates. Social life can be fairer and less foul, if, but only if, cooperators of the world unite.

Those who are already cooperatively disposed can hold out in cooperative faith and adopt the attitudes that encourage it—attitudes such as tolerance, mutual understanding, and long-suffering.

Grounds for reasonable hope don’t have to be conclusive or decisive. Reasonable hope, again, isn’t predictive confidence.

We might put the idea this way: much of what is given, including our fleshly nature, is, in a certain sense, to be respected. It is to be respected for what it just is, and therefore not to be wholly shaped or controlled (at least not without a pretty good justification).

Quite far along a certain continuum there sits a man who is surveying his own fleshly parts, that is, those of his parts which are still made of flesh, which includes some of his brain-flesh parts, and he is replacing defective bits of his flesh by perfect artificial substitutes, made out of whatever best serves, such as silicon, tungsten, reprocessed dung, and so forth. The man has been doing this for some time, and a lot of him is already artificial. That is surely a ghastly scenario.

Wishful thinking does not require basic credibility, whereas reasonable hope depends on having good enough reason to support efforts toward reform over the longer haul. When reasons for hope aren’t “good enough,” resignation is justified.

financial markets worked better from a crisis-avoidance point of view before they became mathematically sophisticated),

They’ve got a set of Republican waiters on one side and set of Democratic waiters on the other side, but no matter which set of waiters brings you the dish, the legislative grub is all prepared in the same Wall Street kitchen”).

According to Rousseau, healthy self-love does not require comparing oneself to others at all; feeling worthy does not necessarily involve feeling superior to someone.

It is not the maleness of males per SE that explains the proliferation of masculine assholes. It is not that men are assholes, as though non-asshole men have somehow overcome their inherently asshole tendencies. Rather, the influence of gender culture is just very deep. Deep gender culture, not maleness, is primarily to blame for the fact that assholes are mainly men.

When anyone seems to be provoking you, remember that it is only your judgement of the incident that provokes you

That is why otherwise coolheaded people fall into a fit of rage or lash out at the asshole: they are fighting to be recognized.

one of our basic moral responsibilities is to hear people out, to at least take seriously the reasons they give for wanting to be treated differently, even if we ultimately object. The expectation, in other words, is for us to recognize the person objecting, in something like the way a deliberative body grants someone in the room the right to speak before the group. This is, as we might put it, part and parcel of basic moral respect—that is, respect not simply for the person’s complaint but for the person who makes it. The