Assholes Read Free Page A

up in the special circumstances are permitted to take special benefits, advantages, or treatment, but not because they are themselves special. All are seen as, at bottom, equals. Each will have days of special privilege, as the occasion (e.g., birthday) arises in the normal course of things. And as long as we each take special advantages for good reasons of the right kinds—there really is a grave emergency—no one will be terribly bothered about how the exact distribution of benefits and burdens falls out. We say, “It will all work out in the end,” not as a
prediction
about the future (when is “the end”?) but as a vote of confidence: if we really are working together in good faith, accommodating one another for what we can each regard as good reasons of the right sorts, that would in and of itself realize a kind of relationship we could really value, quite aside from the outcomes that fate and circumstance ultimately bring.
    The asshole, by contrast, sees no need to wait for special circumstances to come his way in the normal course of things. The asshole feels entitled to allow himself special advantages as he pleases systematically, across a wide range of social interactions. He cuts in line,
and
interrupts often,
and
drives without particular care,
and
persistently highlights people’s flaws. He rides people with wearing comments—veiled criticisms, insinuating questions, or awkward allusions to topics not normally discussed in polite company. He is often rude or more often borderline nasty. One feels he has just been intrusive or inconsiderate, though one can’t always pinpoint the norm of courtesy he has tread upon. Most important, the asshole gains specialadvantages from interpersonal relations, not by stroke of continuous luck, but because he regards himself as special. His circumstances are special in each case, in his view, because
he
is in them. If one is special on one’s birthday, the asshole’s birthday comes every day.
    None of this is to say that the asshole never shows restraint. Some assholes are indeed scrappy, acting unreflectively on any inclination and whim, though with varying degrees of success. The witty and charming asshole, however, will get away with more than a dull asshole can. A quite different stripe of asshole shows “principled” restraint when the advantages come too easily. Taking every last advantage, without at least a slight challenge, may seem beneath him, even undignified. He may, so he says, have better, perhaps nobler things to do with his precious time. The “dignified asshole” will share our displeasure with the scrappy asshole and may even hold a special contempt for his lax and unprincipled ways. Yet the dignified asshole is not so “principled” as to forgo the systematic enjoyment of special advantages; he may simply be especially good at justifying the special advantages he takes in his own eyes, by concocting “principled” rationalizations on the fly.
    To elaborate on a specific example, consider asshole surfers. Surfers usually have to share relatively few waves and generally do so according to rules of right-of-way that are well understood and more or less the same worldwide. When one surfer is “in position” on the most critical part of a wave, for example, other surfers are expected to yield. Lance the surfer, however, has decided that he should have almost any wave he wants. According to Lance, when people see him paddling for a wave, they should realize that he is the regular, that he’s the better—or at least older—surfer, and that this wave is therefore his wave.It is his wave, even if someone is already in position or up and surfing. Lance lumbers to his feet and surfs anyway, as though he is riding the wave alone. When surfers are “burned” in this way, most complain; they say some version of “Hey, man, what the fuck.” When people complain to Lance, he launches into a tirade. “Don’t you dare fucking fuck with me!” If the