AC (Asshole Culture) - by David Rothkopf

[CousinIT]

Link to tweet

UNROLLED THREAD: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1043496223259418625.html

Asshole Culture has carved out a very clear, unsavory role in American film, literature and life. Entitled, wealthy, bros who take what they want, treat everyone around them like shit and then rise to positions of power is practically a cliche it's so common.

In films, these jerks usually get their comeuppance. In real life, not so much. They usually just keep working their way up the greasy pole,covering for & enabling each other and rising generations of assholes to come...their paths assured by aging assholes atop big institutions.

Kavanaugh, Judge, the GOP leaders in the Senate and above all Donald Trump embody this subset of the ugliest Americans to such a degree you can hardly believe they are real. Cartoonishly smug and convinced that morality is for poor people...
...except for perhaps the snippets found in Latin on their school blazers or college crests or the platitudes they speak when running for office, accepting awards later in life or presenting themselves to Senate committees confirming them.

Despite their sense they are the heirs to America, raised to take the reins of power, of course it is their moral and ethical emptiness and their greed and ambition that has corroded what's best about the country and led to institutionalized inequality & corruption of today.

Trump, of course, is the ur-Asshole, though he is not, despite what he may think, the alpha asshole. Those are the ones behind the scenes,who not-so-secretly despise him as a wannabe who will neverbe in their world. Spoiled, shallow, self-absorbed, & contemptuous of those w/less.

The battle over Kavanaugh centers on our anger not only what these assholes have done but what in particular that culture has done to women, how it treats them, how they morph into the champions of the patriarchy, of government by for and of the patriarchy.

From Georgetown Prep keggers to Yale clubs where "no means yes and yes means anal" to the Senate to the White House to the Supreme Court, these pigs fight for their ability to behave piggishly not just because it is all they know but because it is their right.

The vileness of it is compounded by the master class level hypocrisy of those who defend Kavanaugh and Trump as champions of "values", by the Franklin Grahams, and Lindsey Grahams and all those other moralistic but two-faced Graham crackers who provide the smokescreen for the AC.

(AC--Asshole Culture. Formerly also found in bastions of asshole culture like men's clubs where it was cultivated and high school bros smoked cigars as their insides decayed literally and figuratively. Like the New York Athletic Club--NYAC.)

Our revulsion at Kavanaugh is therefore compounded not just by his lying to the Senate or his extremism, not just by his callous abuse of women but by the reflexive response of Asshole Culture to come to his defense to protect themselves and their past and future transgressions.

There is no fair and decent treatment of women until we break the grip on power of Asshole Culture, the palace guard of the patriarchy. Let's leave them to literature where they can be suitable villains wearing white tennis sweaters tied over their shoulders.

Leave them to movies where we can continue to laugh derisively at this nation of Doug Neidermeyers. But whatever we do, let's use this moment to just leave them once and for all. They have done too much damage to too many people for too long.

[Nevilledog]

1. K&R

[Guilded Lilly]

2. Another K&R

[Initech]

3. And assholes and abusers are never told they're wrong either.

[Texin]

12. Indeed. They're apologized to for the inconvenience and applauded for their *values*.

[lunatica]

4. Kick'd and rec'd

[shraby]

5. A kick and rec from this quarter.

[Itchinjim]

6. I attended a Catholic HS in the late seventies and knew dozens of guys like Kavanaugh

Entitled, overindulged assholes who got away with murder because their families had money and were bigtime contributors to the school. It certainly didn't help that the school administrators were grown up versions of the same assholes.

[Auggie]

7. K&R ... outstanding!

[spanone]

8. K&R...

[BlancheSplanchnik]

9. K, R, Bookmarking, Following David Rothkopf. n/t

[Kurt V.]

10. my bro & I were just talking about this.

film noir is making comeback i.e. Madmen, and in real life it's always been there

[love_katz]

11. Huge kick and rec.

Thank you for posting, Cousin It. This article says it all.

[Scurrilous]

13. K&R

[KayF]

14. let's name names

Ferris Bueller should be seen as a villain, not a hero.

[proglib217]

23. I don't know what pigeonhole Ferris Bueller belongs in

But he wasn't an entitled asshole of the kind which Kavanaugh and his ilk are. Kavanaugh and his brethren are a totally different breed of animal.

[dlk]

15. It's Time to Retire the A**hole Culture--Past Time, Actually

Although it may have been funny to a few for a short period of time, the harm this culture has caused is immeasurable. Time to retire this outdated and worn way of thinking.

[zentrum]

16. Well said!

[tblue37]

17. K&R for visibility. nt

[mac56]

18. K & R

[smirkymonkey]

19. Hear, Hear!

It's time that assholes are seen for what they are and degraded as much as possible. There are still too many people who worship them as being "alpha men". They need to be exposed for the weak, insecure, pathetic bullies that they are. They are NOT admirable people, they are the scum of the earth and should be treated as so.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

20. They'll always be there as long as we keep feeding them.

A product of trickle-up economics and the primitive selfish gene in humanity.....

[Wednesdays]

21. As I tell my friends,

"In order to be considered a 'success,' one has to act like an asshole."

[7wo7rees]

22. We can hope.

[defacto7]

24. K&R

[ck4829]

25. K&R

[calimary]

26. K&R

[maddiemom]

27. "In their eyes there's something lacking...

What they need's a damn good whacking." George Harrison

[Grins]

28. Well, considering...."Women. You have to treat them like shit." - Trump

From a 1992 New York magazine interview: "Women. You have to treat them like shit." - Trump

[hostalover]

29. Seriously?? He said that???

[Grins]

34. Yup!! And worse. Google it. NM

[maxrandb]

30. I read the title of this quickly and read "Asshole Culture" as "Ann Coulter"...same-diff

[cwydro]

31. "Two-faced Graham crackers!"

Well done! I love it!

[Caliman73]

32. Decent article, but a paradigm shift is needed.

We can look at AC and think that it is perpetuated at the levels of wealth and power, but the reality is that it is perpetuated at every level of society. These aren't just rich Yale and Harvard people acting this way, though they can do it to a greater extent because they can access more resources to protect themselves from consequences.

Aggressiveness is rewarded in men and punished in women at all levels. My dad is a good man and my grandfather was a very righteous man who spent much of his later life trying to bring redemption to people in jail. However, they are men, and they had to be tough, and they told me and taught me that I had to be tough. My friends in school all had to be tough, and confident, and we had to make fun of girls and tease them, and try to kiss them.

I had the fortune (though I thought it a curse at the time) to grow up surrounded by women and girls, who gave me a different perspective. However, if I am being honest, I was a part of "masculine" culture and having any traits associate with girls was bad. I haven't watched too much TV in the past year but I remember the commercials on a Saturday afternoon, or Monday night with the girls in bikinis hanging out with the "average" looking guys because they had a Bud Light or some other scenario that rewarded "bold" actions, which could be considered harassment.

It isn't just rich guys that get taught to be assholes, it is all of us. We benefit from it but we are also trapped by it. You have to be kind of a jerk to get ahead, or at least willing to "take what you want".

We need a society that rewards kindness, that values compassion, and that rewards real service and community work. We need to move away from putting so much emphasis on aggression and taking what you want and more on giving of yourself for the good of others.

[Uncle Joe]

33. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread CousinIT.