Assholes (17 page)

So swearing is, in a small way, a means of upholding one’s rights, seen as a kind of public status or standing. In that case, one can equally take a performative stand without harsh words. When an asshole is loudly talking on his cell phone for a long time with others around, one might say out loud: “Sir, given your
cell phone behavior, I’m tempted not simply to ask you to keep it down but to inject a cutting remark or perhaps speak of you in less dignified words.” When the asshole chuckles and brushes the comment off, and even when he lashes out, it won’t undermine the point of having spoken up. (Some intelligent assholes will respect and appreciate a clever or stylish response and perhaps even feel greater respect for the person, if perhaps only for a short while.) Speaking up will be worthwhile in itself, if only to affirm the fact that speaking up is indeed now within one’s rights and a reflection of one’s standing, as a moral equal, to stand up and complain. Moreover, the others in line will appreciate having
their
rights publicly upheld for all to hear. Everyone (except the asshole) is then reassured that everyone sees that everyone deserves better and that everyone can reasonably complain. With that shared understanding reaffirmed, it can even then make sense to forgo efforts to change or stop the asshole. There may be better things to do with the time, such as have a fun conversation about what an asshole that guy was, about whether there are more assholes than there used to be, and so on.

In short, the good fight for recognition is as much a fight for a
public status
as for anything else. It is not simply a struggle to get this particular man, on this particular day, to recognize one as an equal. Even when that isn’t in the cards, working to publicly uphold one’s rights or the rights of others
is
often worth fighting for, in any number of large and small ways.

The point of speaking up is much like the point of nonviolent protest, for instance, as during apartheid in South Africa (where Gandhi first developed the practice of nonviolent civil disobedience). The goal of peacefully taking to the streets was not
simply
to persuade the entrenched white minority in power,
who had already shown an extraordinary ability to wall out any reasons for racial desegregation. The goal was also to invite the larger South African public, including many potentially sympathetic whites, to appreciate the rightful claims of segregated minorities without using violence in a way that would trigger their defenses and close their ears.

To be sure, the protests against apartheid wanted major institutional change, and that required actually bringing around a certain number of elite asshole whites (or at least a sufficient number of
borderline
asshole whites, so that the proper and deeply resistant assholes were marginalized). Yet protest would not have been entirely pointless, even if major institutional change was assumed to be hopeless. Peaceful protest might make perfect sense as a last stand. So might self-inflicted violence. The South Korean rice farmer who stabbed himself to death at the 2003 Cancun World Trade Organization meeting, in order to protest rich-world farm subsidies that impoverish developing-world farmers, needn’t have thought that his desperate act would usher in major institutional change. Public recognition of the plight of poor farmers might have been his whole point.

Such dramatic interventions are not the normal mode of asshole protestation. It will be unreasonable and unwise to take to the streets every time one is slighted. Nor will there always be an audience to protest for. Even swearing out loud, for oneself, may be less effective than stony silence, an averted gaze, or conspicuous failure to cooperatively engage when one otherwise would (for instance, by refusing to bend over to pick up the asshole’s pen or paperwork dropped at one’s feet after he has cut in the post office line). A small silent protest may speak loudly, even if not to the asshole who refuses to hear. It may succeed
as a self-affirmation as much as swearing out loud. Indeed, while swearing out loud puts one’s own dignity at risk, perhaps as much as doing nothing at all, a dignified protest in the small is nearly always possible and often worthwhile.

All this is to say
that
there is space between acquiescence and all-out resistance, not
how
one is to reliably hit that sweet spot. There is no general recipe or procedure for actually doing this, even once we know that moral recognition is what we are after. Still, for what it is worth, here are two suggestions.

The first is: don’t try to change the asshole, and cooperate only on your own terms. The second is: take a stand at the right time. We take each suggestion in turn.

According to a Stoic principle, one must always accept what is given. One can hope for good things and work toward them, but one should not strive for what is not within one’s power. As the wise Epictetus explains, “If [a way things appear] concerns anything outside of your control, train yourself not to worry about it.”
⁶

Among things not within one’s control Epictetus explicitly includes the recognition or lack of recognition by others. He writes:

Since one can’t change an asshole, then, one shouldn’t try. One shouldn’t seek recognition in his eyes.

Now, the Stoics arguably take this too far. They famously counsel that one can retain happy equanimity even while being stretched on the rack or in the face of the death of your own child. One need only adjust one’s interpretations of how things appear. It should then be relatively easy to accept being taken advantage of by an asshole. As Epictetus explains:

Indeed, as Epictetus elaborates, it is the provocateur who is mainly injured:

So we are to own our perceptions
as our own
. If nothing else, this is a good way of mellowing oneself out. Still, having mellowed, one might well finally conclude, on due reflection, that this guy is a serious asshole and that some response—perhaps a quick riposte—is indeed called for. It is only if there really is
nothing
one can do by way of reply that full disengagement becomes the wise course (as in “Here he goes again; let us observe whether his technique is changing, perhaps even improving!”). When constructive replies are in the cards, we will rightly take our chances on action. Epictetus might well agree, as long as action flows from full acceptance that the world may not cooperate. We should act decisively but stand ready to let go. Trying is fine, as long as it is not fruitless striving for what is not in our power.

What, then, should one try for? For the Stoics, the flip side of our lack of full control over the world is that we have correspondingly heightened personal responsibility for our
attitudes and interpretations
, which
are
within our power. A responsible reply to the asshole will seek after what is achievable and worthy. The practical challenge is to seek that and nothing more. The Stoics tell us how: we appropriately judge the appearances, through clear thinking. As Epictetus explains, “It is through
clear thinking that we are able to properly direct our will, stick with our true purpose, and discover the connections we have to others and the duties that follow from those relationships.”
¹⁰
As we might put it, we are to seek
self-clarification
. We might start by mindfully considering how we are now feeling; what we are tempted to strive for; what seems difficult to let go of; and what the alternative thoughts, feelings, and plans would be. We then consider which reactions are ultimately just and worthwhile, settle upon that course, and stay with it. If a goal such as
getting the asshole to listen
or
teaching him the error of his ways
is tempting but unachievable or unworthy, we first identify that we are indeed, right now, drawn to acting for the sake of that particular end. Without self-judgment, we then let go of that particular goal and adopt a more worthy and more achievable aim, such as upholding our rights or the rights of others in a public way, without expecting the asshole to listen or change.

The possibility of self-clarification helps explain why we do not have to completely avoid the asshole, which we earlier said was often too costly. It can easily seem that, in cooperating with the asshole at all, one becomes complicit in one’s own exploitation—a sucker—by sustaining the cooperative interactions the asshole takes advantage of. But this is not inevitable: one can cooperate on a footing of self-respect as long as one cooperates
on one’s own terms
. One might allow oneself to have a conversation with the asshole, for instance, but without giving him the openness or the time that one would give to a friend or a nice stranger in a coffee shop. Such terms are
one’s own
when they reflect one’s own clearheaded judgment about the sorts
of engagements that are, for one’s own reasons, worthwhile. If you have a light chat with the asshole because you think this helps to uphold a tone of civility at work, then, as long as you believe that
upholding civility is worthwhile
, you are not necessarily being co-opted into the asshole’s normal ways—even as you may well be supporting one general form of cooperation that the asshole cheats.

We have said that one shouldn’t try to get the asshole to listen. But now it might seem that this
could
be worth trying for. If one can cooperate with the asshole, why not at least
try
to get the asshole to eventually change? We usually won’t know that
this
asshole won’t give us the recognition we are owed. He is resistant—he is an asshole—but he might well budge, and there is always room for hope, perhaps against hope, that his walls will come down. Perhaps a failed stratagem will work the next time. Perhaps some new tack will get through. Perhaps persistent, patient resistance will eventually pay off. Shouldn’t we at least then try? Even if it failed, wouldn’t such an effort be worthwhile?

We suggest not, for reasons our initial counsel of productivity provided: for many of us as regards most assholes, the appropriate maxim is: “Don’t waste your time.” To adopt asshole reform as one’s personal cause may well be fruitless. It will invariably mean forgoing more valuable things one could be doing instead, things such as listening to music, having coffee with a friend, or helping the poor. Add to that the persistent frustrations and struggle to stave off despair, and asshole reform will not make a lot of sense. To be sure, for some of us and some assholes, the cause might be sensible or indeed the only choice. Perhaps the asshole is one’s husband or the father of one’s child. Here Stoic wisdom suggests biding one’s time and devising a cunning
plan, a plan that finds a way of getting through while not simply enabling the asshole—all while steadily reminding oneself that success is ultimately not within one’s power. For those in this difficult position, something more useful than a philosophical book about assholes will probably be required. It may help to love and forgive the asshole, to the extent that this is possible, perhaps in hope of his moral reform, assuming one can do that without losing one’s self-respect.
¹¹
Even so, it will be wise not to insist upon or labor for his reform.
¹²

We thus have our first piece of advice: don’t try to change the asshole, but feel free to cooperate on one’s own terms. Our second piece of advice is: take a stand at the right time. We should speak up in protest, on behalf of oneself or others, but only (or at least mostly) at the right time. When is the right time? Our answer is “often enough”—that is, often enough to preserve one’s self-respect and to uphold the rights of others when duty calls.

That answer isn’t especially helpful. How often is often enough? When does duty call? But it is not clear that there can
be a more general rule, given that people have such different circumstances. Certain issues may require special vigilance by all; if the asshole is sexist, as many are, both women and men will need to reliably uphold the boundaries of respectful treatment, for example. But most cases are more complicated. Whether one should take a stand now might depend on what else one has going on that week. Someone dealing with a family crisis won’t have time to stage a protest. Someone in a slow spell at work might. Moreover, people often have very different temperaments. Those stable in their sense of self-worth will find it easy to blow off the asshole’s slights and only occasionally sound a protest. More sensitive types will need to persistently speak up.

If we can do little more than offer general rules of thumb, which we have to use our best judgment to apply to the situation presented to us, we might at least explain why this should be so. This is to be expected: asshole management is less science and more art. It is less like following a procedure than having the knack for an art or a craft in Aristotle’s sense: it can be learned only by doing, not by following rules that one could fully grasp ahead of time. Ideal asshole management is akin to the martial art of aikido, which allows one to absorb the force of one’s attacker, by turning his own momentum against him, in order to protect oneself (and the attacker) from injury. Like asshole management, aikido cannot be fully grasped by any set of formulae; it must be learned by practice, usually over many years.