After the last section, I spent some time writing and rewriting what I wanted to say next about assholes. What are assholes…why are assholes…and then I wanted to write about how assholes do what they do.
But the more I wrote, the more I realized that it’s probably too soon to write about the overall picture. When you look at what assholes are doing overall, it can feel kind of like there’s a mastermind at work and it’s pointless to resist. We’re seeing that reaction right now in the U.S. as more of the plan behind Shitler comes to light.
Shitler…he’s just some asshole famous enough to get name recognition. He’s not a fucking mastermind. That much should be fucking obvious by now.
He’s a loser.
He’s a front for people too chicken to stand in front of a camera on a regular basis.
Most of the people involved in Shitler’s regime are straight-up losers. (I was going to say “most of the guys,” but wow, it’s not just men, or even straight men, or Christian men, or even white men. The corruption going on now stretches across race, gender, and orientation—although there’s definitely a preponderance of straight white Christian men.)
Anyway, losers. Not masterminds. Losers.
It can be hard to reconcile the brutal web of deceit that’s going on versus the unappealing, spineless assholes who are doing it. Often, people end up making the assholes outside their circles into “the bad guys,” and stronger than they really are, and the assholes inside their circles to be “not a big deal, really.”
Eh. It’s the same behavior. It’s just harder to see when it’s inside your defenses.
Training the eye to see and the ear to hear—and the nose to literally smell—shitty behavior when it’s part of our own inner circles, that’s the real work that needs to be done.
Mitigating assholes starts with first holding ourselves, then the people around us, accountable for shitty, secretive, “justified,” blink-and-you’ll-miss-it behavior.
It is difficult.
Most of us are hypocrites when it comes to dealing with assholes. It’s often a matter of survival, and anything assholes touch quickly turns into a gray area where nobody gets out feeling “clean” or “good.”
Ach, we’re not ready. Not even me.
So instead, let’s talk about a secret that all assholes know but usually don’t want to talk about: apex predators.
That is, what every asshole wants to be, but most aren’t.
Psychology has been trying to define the difference between the regular, lame assholes and the legit scary ones for a while, then trying to erase the difference, then finding a different way to state the difference, then erasing that difference, etc.
Bear with me, this is gonna sound nuts for a bit.
There are garden-variety assholes, and then there are apex predators.
Garden-variety assholes are broken.
They try to hide who they really are; they feel themselves to be superior, but that’s a defense against how weak they really feel.
Garden-variety assholes are essentially childish shitheads whose consciences and consciousnesses get stuck in a poisonous pre-adulthood, possibly through a combination of horrible childhood trauma and an innate inability to anticipate the consequences of their actions. They do stupid brownnoser shit and screw themselves over regularly. “Why did you do that? What made you think that was a smart idea?!?” “But I waaaaanted to do it, so that makes it important!” They are expendable foot soldiers. When challenged, they puff up to look bigger than they really are—or smaller and more in need of protection. These are people who struggle to resist their impulses and have a million excuses.
Apex predators are not broken.
When they walk into the room, people get quiet because they sense a threat. A charming threat…but still a threat. Apex predators don’t try to hide who they are.
They do not see anyone other than themselves as human; they see objects that either do, or do not, belong to them and that they can control. They generally treat the things that are “theirs” with care, making sure they’re provided for, maintained, and reasonably happy. (Although they will quickly take action to make sure that their possessions know their place as possessions if any of them start copping an attitude.) They aren’t wise as such, but they will tend not to shit where they eat and do understand basic consequences. They do tend to enjoy punishing others, but their main focus is achieving larger goals of control and domination.
They are rare.
I have only met a few people I’d consider apex predators; my grandfather was one of them.
He didn’t “love” people; he “hired” them (including relatives) and put them in positions where they could benefit him and the people under him, sorta like a CEO.—Most CEOs aren’t apex predators, by the way. Most of them are garden-variety assholes puffing themselves up to look big and strong, even if most of their actions are driven by feeling attacked or criticized or weak.
People liked him, thought he was charming, and looked up to him. He also regularly spit tobacco into his second wife’s flowerbeds and woke up babies just to make them cry, for fun. I’ve heard some stuff about him I can’t prove so I won’t write it down here. People mostly don’t mind if what you do is illegal or unethical, as long as they benefit. The end tends to justify the means.
At any rate, people like him help define the limits of what an asshole is. On the one side are people with a conscience. On the other side are apex predators: no morals, but able to anticipate consequences.
People with a conscience can be driven to become assholes. (It’s possible to break almost anyone.) If you can think of times that you’ve acted immorally or without a conscience, well, that’s not unusual. It’s important but I’ll talk about that later.
Contrariwise, it is possible for most assholes to train themselves to avoid actions that are likely to produce negative consequences. (You can tell it’s possible because of the way they brownnose anyone likely to give them what they want, and save the abuse for people nobody will believe.) It can almost *seem* like they’re aware of their actions and can be held accountable for their behavior.
In short, unless we’re talking about apex predators, the line between assholes and non-assholes gets messy. Part of that is the nature of living in an asshole-optimized society; part of that is the way trauma fucks us all over; part of that is the blame-shifting assholes do to try to conceal their own behavior.
Learning how to mitigate the assholes in your life will not make you feel “good” or “righteous” or “clean” or “justified.”
Or, rather, if it does, then you’re probably part of the problem.
You can find the Asshole Mitigation Plan series outline here.
