
A Theory of Jerks (2014) - hownottowrite
https://aeon.co/essays/so-you-re-surrounded-by-idiots-guess-who-the-real-jerk-is
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wisty
I don't agree that jerks are people who don't care about other people's
individual circumstances. Jerks are people who think that everyone else is a
jerk, which is how they excuse their behaviour.

It's not that they don't care why the waiter messed up their order, it's that
they think the waiter messed up because they're a jerk.

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revscat
This strikes me as circular.

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danans
> the waiter messed up because they're a jerk

That's a subordinate clause where "jerk" is referring to the waiter, not the
main subject, hence it's not circular.

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ams6110
And people think singular "they" is OK in writing.

Try:

the waiter messed up because he's a jerk.

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PrunJuice
"They" is generally accepted as a singular gender neutral pronoun.

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jon_richards
And has been since the Canterbury Tales! It's a modern development that it
isn't considered "correct" English.

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Normal_gaussian
600 years is long enough for me

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stcredzero
One interesting quip I've heard from a psychologist recently, is that
communication only really works well going down the dominance hierarchy. (I
think it can work across.) I see a lot of the outrage driven viral media of
today as being "punching down" by aspirant upper-echelon socioeconomic people
onto lower-echelon people.

Also, if communication only really works well going down the dominance
hierarchy, doesn't this suggest that power is contextual, so that it can
change directions and allow communications to flow in different directions?

EDIT: Relevant to the article -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVTogKE25aQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVTogKE25aQ)

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dilemma
It's known that "communication can only happen between equals." Otherwise it's
order giving no matter the semantics.

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52-6F-62
I don't mean to sound too crass, but maybe you should keep calm and hit the
pub for a pint, read some literature... something.

"It's known" sounds a little final.

In a more level tone: there are venues for equalizing communication, because
of course in society there are hierarchies that we've struggled with for ages.
The charge for any individual is being willing to expose themselves to those
environments and being willing to engross themselves in the mess of what that
kind of interaction can turn up.

Then again, I kind of side with Bohm about the connectedness of people, and
yet...

I raise you Bohm on communication problems:

> _If each one of us can give full attention to what is actually ‘blocking’
> communication while he is also attending properly to the content of what is
> communicated, then we may be able to create something new between us,
> something of very great significance for bringing to an end the at present
> insoluble problems of the individual and of society._

Scratch all the drunk talk that follows and I also raise you this:

[http://www.nytimes.com/1974/02/17/archives/the-irish-pub-
is-...](http://www.nytimes.com/1974/02/17/archives/the-irish-pub-is-a-great-
equalizer-the-irish-pubwhere-drawing-a.html)

There traditionally (in some cultures, anyway) venues where people from
various social hierarchies were equals when they passed the threshold, and
communication is then wide open. They still exist -- but if you're North
American don't count on finding them on the strip.

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stcredzero
I've been in places all across the US billing themselves as Irish pubs, and
this is corroborated by my experience particularly in Ohio and Houston. (Yes,
I know I went from a state to a city.) I've literally been at sessions where
left leaning doctors, devout Christians, gun shop owners, republican judges,
wiccan radicals, Discordian internet hipsters, polyamorous librarians, liberal
engineers, and libertarian programmers can all bond over a love of music and
even be friends. The level of actual Irish Pub authenticity can vary. The
actual communication from different points of the socioeconomic ladder and
political spectrum is real. What's more, it seems to work better in red states
than in blue. In Red states, there's enough left leaning in the music
communities, such that a left-right balance of power occurs in such places. In
Blue states, there's an overwhelming left lean, so sometimes people far enough
on the right are shunned. (And the center-left is labeled "right.")

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52-6F-62
I agree with just about everything you said excepting your implication that
communities that lean further left are not as welcoming to communication
(shunning opposing views).

I don't argue that doesn't happen, but I don't think it's isolated to one end
of the spectrum. I would bet the symptoms are the same at either extreme --
right or left.

If you mean "center-left" when you say right, I think what you're actually
implying is communication is better tolerated in communities with more balance
between political viewpoints, and less given to extremes.

But traditionally, outside of movements, it's been somewhat bad form to bring
politics into the pub at all.

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woodandsteel
I found this article very insightful.

However, let me make one important addition. The author says that the person
who is not a jerk is a sweetheart. However, following Aristotle's theory of
the golden mean, let me point out there is also a third type, namely someone
who discounts their own perspective and always thinks the other person is
right, and so goes around feeling guilty and inferior.

~~~
autotypo
That seems to be a type of negatively expressed sweetheart, in these terms.

There is a magical center of action, greatly to be desired, where one neither
runs over others nor lies down to be overrun.

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adrianratnapala
It is interesting that the meaning of"jerk" has moved very recently from
meaning something like "bumpkin" to something closer to "arsehole". As the
author points out, this is similar to the change in the meaning of "villain",
along with several other words where a class-based insult eventually became
moralised.

But most of the words he mentions are old words that changed their meaning
back in the days when litteral aristocrats, kings, dukes and princes ruled the
English speaking lands and their neighbours. "Jerk" changed recently and I
wonder if the change hints at a new class system.

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nerdponx
Jerk has been synonymous with "rude person" as long as I've been alive. If
there was a shift, it wasn't all that recent.

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cperciva
And yet "rude" itself has also changed -- from meaning "unsophisticated" to
meaning something more along the lines of "obnoxious".

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wfunction
Is not saying hello when you see someone that you would normally be expected
to say hello to not considered "rude"? It is to me, but it's not obnoxious...

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cperciva
There's a reason I said "more along the lines of" \-- I was having trouble
coming up with a definition which was precise without being circular.

In any event, I'm sure you can agree that "rude" no longer means simply
"unsophisticated".

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toomchsauce
"Third, I’ve called the jerk ‘he’, for reasons you might guess. But then it
seems too gendered to call the sweetheart ‘she’, so I’ve made the sweetheart a
‘he’ too."

Absolutely hilarious. I guess one point he's making is that men have a problem
with noncompliance, but seems to have forgotten the upside entirely

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yakult
I think the reason is that if he had used 'she', there would have been a
shitstorm.

If you do a word-replace of all instances of 'he' with 'she' and 'his' with
'her', it becomes an entirely different article.

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adrianratnapala
Maybe, but actually a masculine avatar is fine here. The whole thing would
have worked just as well if, instead of "sweetheart", he'd used the term
"nice-guy" as in the claim "nice-guys finish last."

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Noos
feminists have totally discredited nice guy though, turning it into a passive-
aggressive hanger on who hopes to get rewarded with sex from being nice.

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dragonwriter
I've seen that image of “nice guy” far more from MRA, PUA, and other anti-
democratic than from feminists, despite having a lot more interaction with the
latter.

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dragonwriter
Missed the edit window, but “anti-democratic” should be “anti-feminist”.

Stupid “smart” auto-correct on the phone keyboard...

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Animats
Compare "Assholes, a theory", which is a serious book.[1] It could be
subtitled "Why Sociopaths Get Ahead".

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Assholes-Theory-Aaron-
James/dp/080417...](https://www.amazon.com/Assholes-Theory-Aaron-
James/dp/0804171351)

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everyone
Is this article what a professor of philosophy considers work? I hope not. I
skimmed it, seemed to have little to zero content.

1st half, longwinded exploration of semantics. 2nd half, making some random
assertions based on no data.

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OnlineCourage
Are you a jerk though?

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HillaryBriss
This is the heart of the professor's theory: _the jerk culpably fails to
appreciate the perspectives of others around him, treating them as tools to be
manipulated or idiots to be dealt with rather than as moral and epistemic
peers._

so, a sociopath?

is this theory really new or interesting?

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woodandsteel
No, a sociopath is someone who lacks a conscience, and so they work to get
what they want, even if it harms other people.

Some sociopaths are very good at understanding other people's perspectives,
and they use that understanding to trick them, as in the case of con artists.
Other sociopaths, the thug-types, instead use force and threats, and so they
are not so concerned with understanding other people's psychology.

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user982
This theory is regularly independently rediscovered by jerks.
[https://www.pftq.com/blabberbox/?page=Three_Tiers_of_Mind](https://www.pftq.com/blabberbox/?page=Three_Tiers_of_Mind)

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kelukelugames
please add 2014 to the title

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dang
Done.

