Some guys are assholes. I learned this very early on in life, and it’s still true. I’ve known some women who were assholes, but on balance, assholes tend to be men.
So what exactly is an asshole? Assholes are mean people, highly aggressive, and frequently bullies. In men, this makes for macho, domineering behavior that’s physically and emotionally exhausting to others. They make terrible bosses, showing favoritism to those who succumb and raining terror down upon those who resist. Assholes are beasts.
And yet, assholes often rule, and when they do it’s trouble. Adherents of the “might makes right” school of leadership, history is replete with assholes who’ve caused wars, pogroms, terror campaigns and genocide. Their names: Caligula, Napoleon, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Saddam…you get the picture. Maybe might does make right, albeit through the cruel exercise of raw power.
I won’t speculate too deeply about what creates assholes; that discussion inevitably leads to the topic of Nature vs. Nurture, notoriously difficult to parse. Suffice to say that trauma spawns trauma, what psychologist Sue Grand calls the reproduction of evil. In this way, being an asshole gets passed down from generation to generation, making the debate about Nature vs. Nurture moot. When it comes to people, causality is never simple.
My older brother was an asshole to me while I was growing up. Because his ego never recovered from having his first-born, only-child status changed or just because he was wired that way I never figured out and he never explained. Suffice to say, being under the thumb of an asshole was an instructive experience. At minimum, I learned how to spot assholes at an early age and developed ways to avoid them.
Some people are such big assholes they’re impossible to avoid, particularly when they’re job bosses, political leaders or family members. Imposing themselves on others often includes finding other assholes to join their team so together they can push people around and tell them what to do. They form gangs, clubs, political parties, and social groups through which they can bully and intimidate. Ironically, assholes like to be around each other where they can test boundaries, compete for power, and improve their asshole skills. Go figure.
Our founding fathers did not like assholes, what they politely called tyrants or demagogues, and created a system of government specifically designed to marginalize them; the likes of Adams, Jefferson and Washington were gentlemen of the Age of Enlightenment, well-educated and astute. In a time long before the availability of electricity, the telegraph, radio, television or the internet, their reliance on the lessons of history and a classical education could never have prepared them for the way assholes rule today. That said, an asshole is an asshole, no matter the age.
Avoiding assholes is one thing, opposing them is yet another. The risk of opposition is in becoming an asshole; having to resort to the same behavior is at best a pyrrhic victory. This is a difficult calculation; appeasing bullies gives them power, but aggressively resisting tyranny is a slippery slope. The Rule of Law has been our American refuge, but assholes want to make up their own rules. What’s to be done? It’s a question for the ages.
That this too shall pass is undeniably true. The I Ching advises that perseverance furthers. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” said Martin Luther King, this despite assholes. Sigh.
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