This Stanford Professor Has a Theory on Why 2017 Is Filled With Jerks

[StarryNite]

And it's getting worse with each day the orange foolius is in OUR house!

This Stanford Professor Has a Theory on Why 2017 Is Filled With Jerks
By
Jessica Pressler

We are living in a world full of assholes. To be sure: There are no census figures to back this up, no national registry from which to draw statistics, but one need only look at the headlines to see that the asshole population has not only grown in recent years but also spawned some new and rather alarming mutants. I mean, Martin Shkreli? Travis Kalanick? PewDiePie?

“You can make the argument that we are living in Peak Asshole,” says Robert Sutton, a Stanford professor who, as the author of the iconic 2007 book The No Asshole Rule, is perhaps the world’s leading expert on the species. According to Sutton, the problem of “disrespectful, demeaning, and downright mean-spirited behavior” is “worse than ever,” which, while it may be bad news for humanity, is good news for The Asshole Survival Guide, the book Sutton came to New York to promote. And he has a point, citing the recent “fiascoes” at Uber and Fox News as examples of “assholes running wild.” Then, of course, there’s “the degeneration of American political discourse,” as Sutton delicately puts it. We are sitting, on a Monday afternoon in mid-September, in what may arguably be the red-hot center of an Asshole Heat Map, if one existed: the pink, veined lobby at the base of the colossal penis that is Trump Tower.

Sutton is not a Trump supporter, but, sipping an iced tea from the building’s beleaguered Starbucks, he is hesitant to outright label Trump an asshole, although his definition (“a person who leaves people feeling demeaned, deenergized, and disrespected”), he agrees, “certainly applies.” But Sutton doesn’t want to be, you know, an asshole: “Most of politics is everybody calling everybody else assholes.” And assholism, after all, is contagious. “Nasty behavior spreads much faster than nice behavior, unfortunately,” Sutton says.

[link:http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/09/robert-sutton-asshole-survival-guide.html|

[Gabi Hayes]

1. If it looks like an asshole, smells like an asshole, sounds like an asshole, it is an

Sounds like the good professor lacks the courage of his own convictions

[Hortensis]

2. Fun, but "Most of politics is everybody calling everybody else assholes??

No. The people at the head of our party don't behave like assholes, not publicly anyway and not as a way of life.

That difference between politicians is because some believe in the value of government. They come to office intending, not just to do well by themselves but also genuinely hoping to do well by their country

Others don't believe in progressive government, have great contempt for it, and are sure it needs to be dismantled. They come intending to proudly not perform its duties. Inevitably most get their hands in the public till one way or another because, hey, it's there and better give it to deserving people like them and their firends than spend it on lazy, worthless people. Any surprise this ideology draws assholes to power?

[YOHABLO]

4. I know it's cliche but 'money is the route of all evil' .. and most assholes.

[Sherman A1]

3. My theories, because it is never just one thing

they are:

Income and Wealthy inequality as the fundamental underpinning of what we are seeing. People are angry and afraid (they don't know always who they are angry with, but they are angry) about their ability to achieve (or maintain) just a portion of the so called "American Dream" that we have been sold through countless years of advertising. At one time the Father of a family working one job could achieve that for his family, then it required the second income of the spouse working, then it required credit card debt, then it required home equity loans, then it required student debt, then it required tapping into retirement savings, then it required second and third jobs to keep up with that debt, then it required more and more with less and less.

Sprinkle in the firehose of information that we now receive via multiple sources (how many cable channels are devoted to financial news, sports, entertainment gossip and endless, breathless "Breaking News&quot and much of that either designed to be divisive or simply hate filled and you have a nice recipe for the creation of "Peak A**hole".

Civility in all areas of life is becoming more and more a surprising thing.

Our Esteemed President didn't just appear on the scene, this has been a very, very long time coming and I believe in at least part crafted to occur.

[ms liberty]

5. I agree. n/t

[smirkymonkey]

7. Sound theory.

Is it any wonder that we are at peak stress? It will bring out the worst in almost anyone.

[Danascot]

6. I believe it was John Stewart who said

Trump would be our first openly asshole president.

[StarryNite]

8. My daughter is a banker, she sees it...

Where is used to be infrequent for bank clients to have outbursts of rage, it's becoming more and more common now. It began way before the stock market volatility. It's usually older white men behaving badly, yelling, leaning across her desk and getting in her face for trivial matters that she has no control over. One even yelled as he huffed out the door, "That's why I voted for Trump!" A couple of days ago an older man, probably in his eighties, had some questions for one of the tellers. He was as nice as could be. All of a sudden, the next man in line, in his sixties and a regular customer, steps forward and taps the older man on the back and told him to "move along, you're holding up the line. There are other people here besides you!" The teller told the older man he could come in anytime he has questions. As he walked out other people in line were offering words of comfort to him. My daughter said the man looked so sad as he walked out that she wanted to cry. The teller told the asshole he owes that man an apology. The assholes said, "It's not my problem!" and stormed out. My daughter told me she thinks it has to do with the over all tone of the country due to asshole Trump. She did a little research and hit on this article.

[Hugin]

10. I've seen it, too.

Impatience. Especially, when it's someone the rage hole feels superior to for whatever reason.

A break down of civility and common courtesy.

[StarryNite]

11. The assholes are cowards...

who pick on people they believe to be weaker in some way than they are. I bet he wouldn't have done that to a 35 year old man.

I wish the teller had told the asshole to keep his hands OFF the other customers. He had NO right to say the things he did to the other man let alone to touch him in any way.

[Sherman A1]

12. worked in Retail for years and

it got progressively worse as time moved along. I recall seeing a UK Retail Workers Union video last year about being at least civil to the workers, so it's not just here.

People are angry, they often don't know why they are angry or with whom they are ticked off, but they know that they are angry. I saw it at Union Meetings in the 1980s and 1990s when contracts were discussed and the members vented their frustrations at the Union officers. This has been a long time coming as more and more divide and conquer tactics have been implemented by those who are laughing all the way to the bank as they suppress wages, voting rights and dignity.

[Hugin]

9. My explanation is simpler.

There is a whole class of people in the US who have failed upward.