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
PROTEST, BUT SELECTIVELY
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 canbe 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.
THE MANAGEMENT ARTS
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.
This also explains why hitting the sweet spot with the asshole is so difficult. We are surprised to see the aikido black belt swiftly disable a knifeman. The act shows a real possibility of reaction that otherwise wouldn’t have seemed to be there.One can learn to see and seize the possibility ahead of time but only with much practice over time. When we repeatedly fail to get our own response to the asshole correct, then we rightly give ourselves a break. In aikido, to demand that a yellow belt perform like a black or brown belt is unkind and unrealistic: it fails to appreciate how difficult learning the practice is. So we shouldn’t expect perfect asshole management, even when we have given it more than a college try. Nor should we necessarily preoccupy ourselves with the mastery of this particular art. Here, again, the good counsels of productivity apply. 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.
POISONING THE WELL
We have been considering asshole
PROTEST, BUT SELECTIVELY
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 canbe 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.
THE MANAGEMENT ARTS
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.
This also explains why hitting the sweet spot with the asshole is so difficult. We are surprised to see the aikido black belt swiftly disable a knifeman. The act shows a real possibility of reaction that otherwise wouldn’t have seemed to be there.One can learn to see and seize the possibility ahead of time but only with much practice over time. When we repeatedly fail to get our own response to the asshole correct, then we rightly give ourselves a break. In aikido, to demand that a yellow belt perform like a black or brown belt is unkind and unrealistic: it fails to appreciate how difficult learning the practice is. So we shouldn’t expect perfect asshole management, even when we have given it more than a college try. Nor should we necessarily preoccupy ourselves with the mastery of this particular art. Here, again, the good counsels of productivity apply. 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.
POISONING THE WELL
We have been considering asshole
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