Assholes by Aaron James Page B

ourselves. Why do we find both resignation and all-out resistance ultimately acceptable? The answer lies in the importance we attach to the kind of treatment the asshole deprives us of—that is, the importance of being morally recognized as an equal in the eyes of others. As we will now see, this explains why neither resignation nor all-out resistance is the best course, and in a way that points us toward more productive ways of seeking to be recognized.
RESIGNATION AND THE LOSS OF SELF-RESPECT
    To begin, we might ask, What was so bad about resignation? To someone frustrated, one might offer the following counsel:“Take it easy. The guy is just an asshole. Why be so worried about what an
asshole
thinks?” One might elaborate with counsels of productivity: “And in any case, you’ve got better things to do with your time. Just give the asshole what he wants, what he thinks he deserves, and be done with it. It helps in this to temporarily buy his view of the world. Throw in an ego stroke, just for good measure. An asshole who feels that you completely understand him is much more likely to leave you alone.”
    Unless of course he doesn’t leave you alone, which he often won’t. (Perhaps he now feels he can take more and more of what he was anyway after.) There is good advice in these counsels of productivity, yet the stated version cannot be entirely right. For one thing, in the face of a persistent, wearing asshole, the advice is exceedingly difficult to follow. Our feelings of revulsion, of anger, and of a thirst for retribution are not consciously chosen or readily set to one side. They come unbidden. Reactive feelings do not simply arise in the moment of confrontation. They can intrude upon a pleasant sunny day, in a flashing image of the man in question suddenly breaking out in a rash, of his losing bladder control in a public place, of his convulsing from having eaten poisoned food, of his being mowed down by a truck, of his being crushed by a meteor, or of fluids spraying spontaneously out of all his orifices (onto his friends standing nearby). 1 Until of course one realizes, on second thought, that a person staring into the abyss may not be reflecting on his lack of concern for others, which may in turn prompt either a more elaborate scheme of revenge or, instead, a natural understandingof how a Day of Judgment in the afterlife should have such enduring human appeal and, relatedly, of how there could be a moral basis to most religious metaphysics. We don’t have to believe that the asshole will actually get his in the end to find ourselves, passively and disappointingly, wrapped up a fantasized vengeful plot. Perhaps that isn’t so bad, because we of course would never go through with the fantasy. Or would we?
    Being overtaken by obsessive rumination can seem like a personal flaw or, in the extreme, a psychological disorder. Yet it isn’t. The retributive feelings are a natural if extreme way of affirming one’s right to better treatment, a way of reassuring oneself of one’s equal moral status. Ultimately, reactive feelings reflect good and proper self-respect. We do well to tutor how they are expressed, perhaps by reminding ourselves that there is nothing good, as such, in human suffering, even an asshole’s human suffering. But there is nothing regrettable or reproachable in a natural affirmation of basic self-worth. If we
could
somehow ease ourselves out of that affirmative disposition—whether through years of patient mediation, a brutal process of cognitive psychotherapy, or by rewiring the limbic brain and basal ganglia—we’d be well advised not to go through with it. We’d be carving away at something not all too human, but only human, and therefore something properly respected or even cherished.
    In much the same way, and for the same reasons, people strongly, often violently resist being played for a sucker: better to fight than be someone’s lackey. The trouble, especially for men, is that