For starters, I think there are two kinds of assholes:
1) Those who get you closer to the truth.
2) Those who try to keep you from the truth.
Clint mentioned sarcasm being mistaken for assholism. In my lexicon, that's merely the first brand of assholism—the for-a-higher-cause kind.
I consider myself the first kind of asshole. The truth, no matter how it reflects on me, is Priority #1. I write about all sorts of unpleasant truths and get called an asshole about it all the time. Note that they never DISPROVE what I'm saying—they just call me an asshole for saying it.
But I am NOT the second kind of asshole. I respect the space of others. I never foist myself on people. I'm very, very polite until faced with serious provocation. And invariably when people meet me, they're shocked that I don't act like the sort of asshole they'd been primed to expect.
In Shit Magnet, I make a distinction between "righteous assholes" and "petty assholes":
It’s all about being the right kind of asshole. I mean the type who tells the ugly truth even when it causes pain and lays waste to cities. The righteous asshole is always a sociopath, because society only exists to tell comforting lies about itself. To the righteous asshole, truth is more important than approval. Truth can slay entire civilizations. But truth doesn’t exist to make the righteous asshole look better—looking better is the sole concern of petty assholes. The righteous asshole realizes that the truth is often unkind to him. But he’d rather shake hands with the truth than fight it, or else he’d fall into the pit of petty assholes.
The petty assholes have tiny sphincters which scatter their rabbit pellets atop things they’ll never be able to comprehend. They act out of socialized fear, often with no sense of self beyond a patchwork quilt of ideas which others have fed them. The petty assholes invariably tag the righteous asshole as the problem, not realizing it is he who cleans the bottom of their cages and provides them with fresh water. The petty assholes are incapable of grasping their subordinate role in the fecal food chain.
By telling the truth about himself, the righteous asshole sets himself free. By telling the truth about the petty assholes, he enslaves them.
I used to be a petty asshole. But more and more, as the shadows stretch longer on the sundial, I grow righteous. I look better and better because I no longer desire to look better.
When I resort to calling someone an asshole, I always mean the petty kind.
1) Those who get you closer to the truth.
2) Those who try to keep you from the truth.
Clint mentioned sarcasm being mistaken for assholism. In my lexicon, that's merely the first brand of assholism—the for-a-higher-cause kind.
I consider myself the first kind of asshole. The truth, no matter how it reflects on me, is Priority #1. I write about all sorts of unpleasant truths and get called an asshole about it all the time. Note that they never DISPROVE what I'm saying—they just call me an asshole for saying it.
But I am NOT the second kind of asshole. I respect the space of others. I never foist myself on people. I'm very, very polite until faced with serious provocation. And invariably when people meet me, they're shocked that I don't act like the sort of asshole they'd been primed to expect.
In Shit Magnet, I make a distinction between "righteous assholes" and "petty assholes":
It’s all about being the right kind of asshole. I mean the type who tells the ugly truth even when it causes pain and lays waste to cities. The righteous asshole is always a sociopath, because society only exists to tell comforting lies about itself. To the righteous asshole, truth is more important than approval. Truth can slay entire civilizations. But truth doesn’t exist to make the righteous asshole look better—looking better is the sole concern of petty assholes. The righteous asshole realizes that the truth is often unkind to him. But he’d rather shake hands with the truth than fight it, or else he’d fall into the pit of petty assholes.
The petty assholes have tiny sphincters which scatter their rabbit pellets atop things they’ll never be able to comprehend. They act out of socialized fear, often with no sense of self beyond a patchwork quilt of ideas which others have fed them. The petty assholes invariably tag the righteous asshole as the problem, not realizing it is he who cleans the bottom of their cages and provides them with fresh water. The petty assholes are incapable of grasping their subordinate role in the fecal food chain.
By telling the truth about himself, the righteous asshole sets himself free. By telling the truth about the petty assholes, he enslaves them.
I used to be a petty asshole. But more and more, as the shadows stretch longer on the sundial, I grow righteous. I look better and better because I no longer desire to look better.
When I resort to calling someone an asshole, I always mean the petty kind.
posted by Sean Bedlam at 8:31 PM
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