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Assholes: A Theory Paperback – April 22, 2014

by Aaron James (Author)

4.0 818 ratings

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The perfect graduation gift for every young adult entering the real world.

In the New York Times bestseller Nick Hornby calls “helpful, stimulating, and very timely” (The Believer), philosopher Aaron James presents a theory of the asshole that is both intellectually provocative and existentially necessary.

What does it mean for someone to be an asshole? The answer is not obvious, despite the fact that we are often personally stuck dealing with people for whom there is no better name. Try as we might to avoid them, assholes are found everywhere and in multiple iterations: smug assholes, royal assholes, the presidential asshole, corporate assholes, reckless assholes. The list goes on.

Asshole management begins with asshole understanding. Much as Machiavelli illuminated political strategy for princes, this book finally gives us the concepts to think or say why assholes disturb us so, and explains why such people seem part of the human social condition, especially in an age of raging narcissism and unbridled capitalism. These concepts are also practically useful, as understanding the asshole we are stuck with helps us think constructively about how to handle problems he (and they are mostly all men) presents. We get a better sense of when the asshole is best resisted, and when he is best ignored—a better sense of what is, and what is not, worth fighting for.

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240 pages
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English
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Anchor
Publication date

April 22, 2014
Dimensions

5.2 x 0.72 x 7.9 inches
ISBN-10

0804171351
ISBN-13

978-0804171359
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Convincing and often quite funny. . . . James neatly unpacks the basic features of the most loathsome individual. . . . [He] makes a rigorous case for why we should take the problem of the asshole seriously.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books

“James’s keen intelligence overwhelms you, and you realize that Assholes is helpful, stimulating, and very timely.”
—Nick Hornby, The Believer

“Enjoyable. . . . Light-hearted yet thought-provoking. . . . Importantly, [James makes] us confront a crucial question, which, I believe, we ask ourselves all too infrequently: How much of an asshole am I?”
—Alex Balk, Slate

“James neatly does what philosophers must do: he defines his terms, organizes and codifies, declares his own loyalties; he locates himself on the spectrum of assholery and suggest origins both psychological and sociological. The result is a delightful combination of the demotic and the technical.”
—Harper’s Magazine

“James’s volume is equal parts philosophical meditation and historical survey, but its true value lies in his attempt to precisely define the term.”
—New York Magazine

“The times are right for a follow-up [to Frankfurt’s On Bullshit]. . . . James’s volume is in roughly equal parts a philosophical meditation, a pop historical survey and a practical guide to negotiate the treacherous rectal waters in which we swim; but, its true value lies in his attempt to define the term precisely. . . . In Assholes, he is doing more than poking fun at all the people we like to despise.”
—The Innovation Journal

“Intriguing. . . . To put meat on the bones of his theory, James names names.”
—The Chronicle of Higher Education

“Aaron James provides us with a delightful philosophical romp through the world of assholes. I was especially tickled by his analysis of different types: smug assholes, royal assholes, the presidential asshole, corporate assholes, the reckless assholes, to name a few.”
—Robert I. Sutton, Stanford professor and author of the New York Times bestsellers The No Asshole Rule and Good Boss, Bad Boss

“[James’s] witty and accessible study of the personal and social problems the asshole creates draws on his lucid and brilliant accounts of the best in contemporary moral and political philosophy. James’s analysis of asshole capitalism is a tour de force of philosophically astute political analysis and criticism. This is a book that should appeal equally to the general reader and the philosophical specialist.”
—Marshall Cohen, founding editor of Philosophy and Public Affairs and university professor emeritus, University of Southern California

“A serious and sometimes whimsical treatment of a common epithet.”
—Publishers Weekly

“James’ research is both thorough and imaginative; his impressive source list ranges from obscure philosophy books to popular websites to Rudyard Kipling to Kanye West, hip-hop’s greatest asshole. The author’s enthusiasm for the subject makes it possible to get through the book quickly. . . . There are moments of great insight and outright hilarity.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Convincing. . . . It is in his chapter ‘Asshole Capitalism’ where James hits his stride.”
—Maclean’s (Toronto)

“Persuasive. . . . The thrust of James’s thesis is timely. . . . Energetically argued and provoking.”
—Literary Review (UK)

About the Author

Aaron James holds a PhD from Harvard and is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Fairness in Practice: A Social Contract for a Global Economy, and was awarded the Burkhardt Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies, spending the 2009-10 academic year at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. He’s an avid surfer (the experience of which has directly inspired this book) . . . and he’s not an asshole.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

[ 1 ] a theory

¶In the summer of 2010, Stanley McChrystal, U.S. army general and Afghan war commander, reportedly trashed the U.S. civilian military leadership, in effect forcing President Barack Obama to ask him to resign. The display of disrespect was striking, but more telling were the details about McChrystal’s handling of smaller matters. According to one story, McChrystal was once apprised by his chief of staff that he was obliged to attend a dinner in Paris with NATO allies—if not to shore up flagging support for the war, then simply because, as the chief of staff put it, “the dinner comes with the position, sir.” McChrystal held up his middle finger, retorting, “Does this come with the position?”

For brazen disregard, General McChrystal pales in comparison to another general, Douglas MacArthur. During the Korean War, MacArthur was a law unto himself, in matters both big and small. He quarreled defiantly in public with President Truman, agitating for nuclear war. In their eventual confrontation at Wake Island, MacArthur went so far as to arrive first and then order the president’s approaching plane into a holding pattern. MacArthur’s commander in chief would thus arrive on the landing strip appearing to be MacArthur’s supplicant.

In explaining why he subsequently relieved MacArthur of his command, Truman said, “I fired him because he wouldn’t respect the authority of the president. I didn’t fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that’s not against the law for generals.” Truman was arguably pulling his punches. He could easily have called MacArthur an asshole.

That would not be an exotic charge: assholes abound in history and public life. Aside from runaway generals, we might think of such contemporary figures as former Italian president Silvio Berlusconi, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, or Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. We might think of the self-important developer-entertainer Donald Trump, the harsh pop music critic Simon Cowell, or the narcissist actor Mel Gibson. Assholes are found daily on cable news, where hosts repeatedly interrupt their guests, and also on talk radio, where airtime is given to commentators who thrive on falsehood and invective. Even as this demonstrably degrades the public debate so vital for a healthy democratic society, overheated commentators get rich and famous, while clearly having a really great time.

All of this poses a larger philosophical question: What is it for someone to be an asshole? The answer is not obvious, despite the fact that we are often personally stuck dealing with people for whom there is no better name. Assholes can be found not simply in history and high public office but almost anywhere—at work; in our chosen club; sport; school; religious group; circle of friends; and even, for the truly unlucky, in the home or immediate family. Try as we might to avoid them, we often simply have to manage encounters that come, for most of us, with great difficulty and personal strain. The asshole is not just another annoying person but a deeply bothersome person—bothersome enough to trigger feelings of powerlessness, fear, or rage. To make matters worse, we may be unable to understand why exactly someone should be so disturbing. We may feel certain only that “asshole” is a suitably unsavory name for this particular person.

While most of us could use advice in asshole management, we cannot get far without an answer to our initial question: What is it for someone to be an asshole? If nothing else, a good answer—a good theory of the asshole—would be intellectually interesting. It would give us the concepts to finally think or say why some people disturb us so. That, in turn, would ideally open a window into deeper aspects of morality and social life. We would see what assholes reveal about the human social condition and why assholes are everywhere, in every society. Ideally, a good theory would be practically useful. Understanding the asshole we are stuck with might help us think constructively about how best to handle him. We might get a better sense of when the asshole is best resisted and when he is best ignored—a better sense of what is, and what is not, worth fighting for.

According to our theory, which we will present shortly, the asshole exposes a deep feature of morality that philosophers have sought to understand from the time of Jean-Jacques Rousseau to this day. The asshole refuses to listen to our legitimate complaints, and so he poses a challenge to the idea that we are each to be recognized as moral equals. This explains why the asshole is so bothersome, by revealing the great importance we attach to recognition in unexpected areas of our lives. In later chapters, we will suggest that a clearer understanding of this helps with asshole management. The key is to understand why we are easily tempted to fight on the asshole’s terms: we are fighting for moral recognition in his eyes. We will also explore larger, more basic questions about human social life. Why are assholes mainly men? Can assholes be properly blamed? Why do some societies produce more assholes than others? Are certain styles of capitalism especially prone to asshole production and thus social decline? And, finally, can we ultimately make peace not only with the given asshole but also with a human social condition in which assholes flourish?

what is it to be an asshole?

Our theory is simply this: a person counts as an asshole when, and only when, he systematically allows himself to enjoy special advantages in interpersonal relations out of an entrenched sense of entitlement that immunizes him against the complaints of other people. (Because assholes are by and large men, we use the masculine pronoun “he” advisedly. We will suggest that women can be assholes as well. For the time being, think of Ann Coulter. We consider the question of gender in detail in chapter 4.) Our theory thus has three main parts. In interpersonal or cooperative relations, the asshole:

(1) allows himself to enjoy special advantages and does so systematically;

(2) does this out of an entrenched sense of entitlement; and

(3) is immunized by his sense of entitlement against the complaints of other people.

So, for example, the asshole is the person who habitually cuts in line. Or who frequently interrupts in a conversation. Or who weaves in and out of lanes in traffic. Or who persistently emphasizes another person’s faults. Or who is extremely sensitive to perceived slights while being oblivious to his crassness with others. An insensitive person—a mere “jerk”—might allow himself to so enjoy “special advantages” in such interpersonal relations. What distinguishes the asshole is the way he acts, the reasons that motivate him to act in an abusive and arrogant way. The asshole acts out of a firm sense that he is special, that the normal rules of conduct do not apply to him. He may not deliberately exploit interpersonal relations but simply remain willfully oblivious to normal expectations. Because the asshole sets himself apart from others, he feels entirely comfortable flouting accepted social conventions, almost as a way of life. Most important, he lives this way more or less out in the open. He stands unmoved when people indignantly glare or complain. He is “immunized” against anyone who speaks up, being quite confident that he has little need to respond to questions about whether the advantages he allows himself are acceptable and fair. Indeed, he will often himself feel indignant when questions about his conduct are raised. That, from his point of view, may show that he is not getting the respect he deserves.

Although our theory is a definition of the term “asshole,” we should emphasize that it is not necessarily a dictionary definition. It is not necessarily a claim about how the word “asshole” is commonly used in some linguistic group (e.g., speakers of English). The word is often used loosely and variously, and we aren’t suggesting that every competent speaker of English would agree with our proposal about what the word means. We aren’t even saying that a majority of speakers would agree, in a way that might be confirmed or undermined by opinion polls or psychological experiments. Instead, our approach is the one Socrates explains to Polus in Plato’s Gorgias, when he explains why the dispute between them does not depend on opinion polls (what they call “the company”). Polus asks, “But do you not think, Socrates, that you have been sufficiently refuted, when you say that which no human being will allow? Ask the company.” Socrates replies:

you must not ask me to count the suffrages of the company [. . . .] I shall produce one witness only of the truth of my words, and he is the person with whom I am arguing; his suffrage I know how to take; but with the many I have nothing to do, and do not even address myself to them. May I ask then whether you will answer in turn and have your words put to the proof?

Our definition, in other words, is a constructive proposal. It tries to articulate what we ordinarily mean when we speak of “assholes” but ultimately stands or falls on whether it captures the importance assholes have for us—where the “us” is, in the first instance, you and me. I am proposing the definition in light of importance that assholes have for us. You decide whether you agree.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Anchor; Reprint edition (April 22, 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0804171351
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0804171359
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.3 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 0.72 x 7.9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #410,604 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #328 in Social Philosophy
- #1,175 in Popular Culture in Social Sciences
- #1,282 in Philosophy of Ethics & Morality

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Aaron James

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I'm a philosophy professor (details below) who thinks, writes, and teaches in ethics and political philosophy.

I mainly write for academics (in professional journals and in a recent book on fairness in the global economy). I have plans for a book on social practices and global justice, and grander intellectual ambitions, for the long haul, that run across my research areas of moral theory, political philosophy, and the foundations of ethics.

All of this can be strenuous, so I've also begun to dabble in popular writing, in hopes of contributing to public life in more direct and (if I'm lucky) more entertaining ways. I wrote a book about assholes. I've got ideas for a book about surfing and what it shows about the human condition, how to live, and capitalism. (I've been an avid surfer since my early teens, so a book about surfing and philosophy would join my life's two more central preoccupations.)

Academic details: Ph.D. in Philosophy, Harvard University; Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of California, Irvine; awarded the Burkhardt Fellowship by the American Council of Learned Societies, spending the 2009-10 academic year at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Visiting Professor at NYU for Fall 2013.

Photo credit: James Hammack

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GRiM

Breezy but insightful

Reviewed in the United States on November 27, 2012

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First, this book is really funny. It's quite a page turner for a philosophy text, even a mass market philosophy text. Of course, the frequent repetition of the word a-hole appeals to those of us with a low sense of humor.

Dr. James begins by attempting a definition of the a-hole. He then, amusingly, names a variety of people he considers a-holes in public life. While Dr. James is a self-described liberal, he's pretty even-handed in apportioning a-holiness to the left and right. (He reserves particular distaste for Fox News, which he regards as the "gold standard" of a-holiness; desipte being a conservative myself, I find it very hard to disagree with him). He goes on to offer classifications of various types of a-holes.

The later chapters are more philosophical. He inquires, for example, why a-holes tend to be male, and why they tend to be produced more frequently in some cultures rather than others. For example, he considers Italy, Israel, Brazil and the US to be particularly prone to a-hole generation, while regarding Japan as almost incapable of producing a-holes. I'm not sure I agree with him here - I think the interactional style of Israelis (with whom I work pretty extensively) tends to lead others to believe they're a-holes when they're not. And I suspect (although I have little direct experience to validate this hypothesis) that Japanese interactional styles lead Americans to conclude that Japanese are never a-holes when in fact some of them probably are - we likely just don't understand when a Japanese a-hole is being an a-hole to us.

The question of whether a-holes are begotten or made is further explored - Dr. James concludes that there is some genetic predisposition to a-holiness but that society plays a critical role in forming a-holes. He also comments on a-holes in positions of power. Discussed but left insufficiently explored, in my view, is whether a-holes naturally ascend to those positions, or whether the positions turn individuals into a-holes. This distinction becomes important for the political turn the book takes in the chapter "a-hole capitalism."

Dr. James' thesis is that an a-hole is characterized by feeling entitled to special advantages. In discussing a-hole capitalism, Dr. James turns his sights on those who could be viewed as directly or indirectly exploiting others; those who feel entitled to an ever-greater share of the pie. While not ever quite explicitly saying so, he clearly has the rich in mind, although I don't think he means to imply that being rich necessarily makes one an a-hole. And as I look around myself, I can clearly see that sense of entitlement among some of the powerful.

But interestingly enough, I think Dr. James' focus on entitlement strikes at the heart of the current political division in the United States. The left views conservatives as a-holes because conservatives feel entitled to the rewards they have earned through market mechanisms, even if those mechanisms have given them rewards that are disproportionate to any common sense justification. The right views progressives as a-holes because progressives feel entitled to lay claim to things that they have not themselves earned in the market. So in fact, each side views the other as a-holes because each feels the other is laying an unfair, "special" claim to entitlement.

Does this suggest a solution? No, not really. These competing views of entitlements are subject to quite a lot of analysis in academia, in the press, and around water coolers. But perhaps a good starting point for discussion would be with the injunction, "Don't be an a-hole."

All in all, I found Dr. James' book both amusing and thought-provoking, which is all I could hope for. He brings together some of what I've recently read of Stiglitz on inequality and Tomasi on free market fairness in a way that is arguably more coherent, and certainly funnier, than either of them.

112 people found this helpful

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Michael Kaiser

A Wake-Up Call for America

Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2017

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In some ways it reads like a college textbook but the content makes it well worth the effort when the going gets a little tough. Aaron James for better or worse has produced a handbook for our times and hits the mark when it comes to diagnosing what in the hell is wrong with us, how we have lost the capacity to treat each other in a civilized manner. The book is a wake-up call and how with very little effort we have the power to change society for the better.

50 people found this helpful

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Brenda

No famiy is perfect. Yes

Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2015

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At 68 I decided it was time to determine if I was an A''hole. I found the book fascinating as I thought back through my marriage and picking a partner and my career dealing with A"holes. It's too late for the book to help me manage these types, but I now can avoid them. I have sixteen Grandchildren who range from 19yrs old to 36. I've ordered 13 copies to hand out to those grandchildren who will learn from this book. Something extraordinary about life, people, bosses, professors, and hopefully help them choose their life partners. For the other three, I wouldn't dare to hand them the book, since I found their traits in a couple of chapters. No famiy is perfect.
Yes, after reading the book, I have determined I have been bothersome at times under certain situations, but the book confirmed I am not a certifiable A'hole. Good to know. ;-)

26 people found this helpful

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J. Marlin

A mixed bag

Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2015

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Let's recall some titles from stellar philosophers: "A Critique of Pure Reason" -- "Being and Nothingness" -- "Mind and Cosmos" -- "Principia Mathematica." Somehow, "A--holes" just doesn't fit that mold, does it? There's a lack of Horatian decorum here, which is ironic as the author invokes Horace at a few points, most notably in his appended "Letter to an A--Hole." And if the book is a clever Erasmian or Fieldian attempt to make a point through a lack of decorum, well, for me it just falls flat.

This book is probably too long, or perhaps too short, to fulfill its intended purpose. Parts of it sparkle, but much of it strikes me as the author's attempt to finish over his own biases with a thin veneer of what passes for propositional discourse. And I tried my best to read generously.

At its best, the book develops a solid definition of an A--hole and at least a partial taxonomy of the kinds of them we encounter in the world, and the chapter on coping with A--holes does a good job of going beyond traditional Stoic recipes. To its credit, the author develops his argument from philosophers publishing today (e.g., Nagel), as well as established some classics like Kant and Rawls. The concluding "Letter to an A--hole" is well done (although problematic to his case). That said, the book is rife with blind spots and biases that the author might do well to consider.

Starting with the blind spots: James' notion that women are somehow culturally not predisposed to be A--holes strikes me as rooted in politically correct gender-studies ideology rather than actually observation and reflection. I say this based on 18 years of teaching at a women's college and observing how some "mean girls" (certainly a small fraction of women) never change after middle school. His idea that somehow women in this category aren't fully A--holes because they take a moment to listen to the aggrieved party totally misses their point: this is part of the torture from which the A--hole woman derives much pleasure.

Second, James has a long chapter on A--hole capitalists and bankers (derived largely from the memoirs of aggrieved parties rather than first-hand research), but no chapter on a--holes in government. In his few mentions of such sorts, he brings fire and brimstone down on Dick Cheney, perhaps with justice (I don't know and have never worked for the man so I can't speak to his personal qualities), but risibly refers to Barack Obama as the "anti-asshole." To be fair, when James was writing this book he was probably doing what the rest of us were, and that is projecting our best hopes and values onto the tabula rasa that Obama was shortly after his election. Subsequent events have proven the president to be quite otherwise (and clearly contrary to the positive portrait James presents); the best evidence is the way he seethed and lashed out when confronted with evidence and cogent arguments that conflicted with his world view, perhaps encompassed in his all too frequent sneering. He's insulated from that now, as he's surrounded himself with sycophants. And to ignore John Kerry as a supreme A--hole? Here's a fellow who has publicly invoked, several times, the "do you know who I am" that James confronts in his "Letter to an A--hole".

But that's only the big characters in government. What of the other many A--holes, like prosecutors who refuse to reconsider a conviction even after overwhelming evidence of innocence is presented? What of the purchasing agent who smacks down the lowest bid in favor of a friend or ally? (I live in New Jersey -- it's the way of the world here at county and state level). How about that EPA regulator who said publicly that he likes to go in first and "crucify" a few businesses whether they are guilty or not to set the tone? What of the IRS agents who grind down political organizations out of favor, or police who selectively enforce traffic laws to meet monthly revenue quotas (on the backs of the poor or minorities)? But, as (to his credit) James states, he's a man of the left, so I imagine he hasn't even considered criticizing government.

The other real problem of this book is that its remedy seems to be that we should be a more "cooperative" society, like Japan, and the cooperative norm should prevail. Sorry, but no thanks. My time in Japan has convinced me that I'd rather live in a society where a--holes are possible and very real rather than a society where individualism (which need not lead to becoming an a--hole) is smashed through shame. And, as his own "Letter to an A--hole" notes, there are solid arguments grounded in the philosophy of Nietzsche and others that contest the idea of cooperativeness. Indeed, no field of study has done more to break down (the preferred term is "demystify") cooperative culture -- the institutions of religion, the family, and traditional ethics -- than has philosophy. Derrida has committed propositional discourse to the abyss, Foucault has made all morality to be about power, Marx has made it all about economics, and Nietzsche has made it all about -- well, mostly himself. But there's the archetypal a--hole for you.

James appeals to John Rawls' "A Theory of Justice," which is probably the best moral foil he can use in this case. As appealing as I find some aspects of Rawls, in the end his idea that we divorce our ideas of "fairness" (or its obverse, a--holeness, okay, not a Rawlsian term) from our experience, aspiration, or station in life is naive.

So it was an interesting read -- it made me think about things I hadn't much thought about -- but I found the book wanting.

26 people found this helpful

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Alicia

I was very impressed with the "holes" in my life and put a different perspective on those around you are just really jerks and t

Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2016

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For someone else's "opinion" this book is actually very well thought out. I was very impressed with the "holes" in my life and put a different perspective on those around you are just really jerks and those who are having a bad day. It was a good read and I think worth 4 stars. I gave it to my husband who quickly read it and re-gifted to my Dad and both got a kick out of it. It started out as a joke gift but turned out as a pretty good read

10 people found this helpful

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SM

Ok to read

Reviewed in Germany on January 4, 2020

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It is ok to read this book, especially due to its provocative title, but life can go on the same without reading it.

Frydah

Great book, sociology matters

Reviewed in Mexico on March 19, 2018

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To read this book you have to be opened to read even more because it has so many references (most of them important to understand social issues, history and philosophical answers). It helps to have a better panorama at work and sharing spaces. Absolutely excellent

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Linda Keays

Mirth and Insights

Reviewed in Canada on May 13, 2017

Verified Purchase

One of my all time favourite books. I bought this copy for my attorney to enjoy after a long, complicated court case. This book provides both laughs and insights into some people we have to deal with in our lives. I received my copy, by my request, on Mothers Day years ago.

One person found this helpful

FS

A little heavier than expected

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 11, 2018

Verified Purchase

Excellent read though

Hosatte jean marie

Une lecture utile

Reviewed in France on September 5, 2013

Verified Purchase

Utile et même indispensable,si l'on veut survivre dignement dans l'univers Assholes.
Il ne faut pas se résigner mais si l'on est prévenu que la lutte sera dure.

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