House of Eratosthenes

I have a rule against using George Carlin’s “seven words you can’t say” in my headlines (video behind link is not safe for work, in case you need such a warning). In the tiny text, I figure it’s okay to go ahead and say things like “Asshole Maker.” Anyway, I was thinking this morning around five o’clock, heading southbound on I-680…gee, I can’t imagine why…how assholes are made. Isn’t that what really bothers us about assholes? It isn’t that the assholes are there, or that we encounter them. We should expect this. We’re all sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, who got kicked out of the Garden of Eden because they were a couple of assholes. And I think deep down everyone realizes that. So we’re bothered when we meet assholes, but the existence of the asshole is not what bothers us.

The three rules about this, of which I’ve gradually become more and more conscious over a great deal of time…like, the last twenty, thirty years…are these…

1. How to make an asshole. There are certain social-interaction rules that make assholes assholes. They may be poorly-thought-out social taboos, or poorly-thought-out traffic regulations, or poorly-thought-out tax polices. Or lack of such rules. There is some negative-incentive structure that rewards assholes, punishes non-assholes, or fails to punish assholes. This is what makes our teeth grind together; this is what causes us angst. We know, when we meet an asshole, we’re seeing just an echo of the real problem, which is the incentive problem. The asshole-making rules.

2. Who makes assholes. There are certain people walking around who lay these asshole-rules down. These are asshole-makers. They, themselves, might not be assholes at all. A lot of them are actually quite sweet. But they have this problem, you see: They’re not very nice to people who are nice to them. They’re much nicer to assholes. It’s like they have this weird polarity-reversal going on. So they go around making assholes out of non-assholes, because they’re pretty darn hard on non-assholes, and they save all their social-rewards and their adulation and their respect for assholes, so when they’re around, everyone else wants to turn into an asshole, even if they’re not naturally inclined to be assholes.

Asshole 3. The hardcore addiction. I’ve been nurturing a slowly-settling-in understanding that the asshole-makers have a bigger and more deeply seated psychological problem than any of the assholes they make. I have yet to see one even start to change direction, toward the light. Not even close. I can’t say that about the actual assholes. Now and then, you see an asshole say to himself “Oh God, I’ve been such an asshole” and start to reform. You’ll notice asshole makers don’t do that. There’s no reason for them to. It’s probably like alcoholism: First step toward healing is to admit you have a problem. You lay down just one single incentive that goes in the right direction, makes life easier for non-assholes or provides a much-needed challenge or rebuke to the assholes — the assholes are fine with it, but the asshole-makers start squawking. They do more than that, they’ll gouge your eyes out if you’re not careful. Starving wild animals being kept away from the beef steak. Asshole-makers will not quit the asshole-making lifestyle. And the older I get, the more certain I am that they, more than the assholes, are the real problem. Think of Count Dracula going around biting people turning them into vampires. The “freshman vampires” are not the real problem, Dracula is the real problem. These are Asshole Dracula people.

And we see this in politics. There’s a certain political party that supports asshole-making-rules, across the board; it is the one thing that their domestic policies have in common with their foreign-relations policies. At home, and overseas, assholes are to be rewarded for being assholes, and non-assholes are to be punished for not being assholes. You’ll notice, as new issues arise, adherents to this certain political party continue to sustain the trend: The incentive systems are to be kept cockeyed and FUBAR’d. They’re absolutely consistent on this. They’ve made a way of life out of this. They won’t give it up. That’s the way asshole-makers are.

I don’t think any of these realizations are especially ground-breaking. I mean, it’s just common sense, right? If a toddler starts acting like an asshole, that may be regrettable, but it’s really part of the definition of “toddler,” isn’t it? Isn’t that why we call them “toddler rules”? It’s the getting-away-with-it, the growing into age five, ten, twenty and still behaving the same way, that’s a disgrace. And the disgrace is for the parents. Oh sure, by the time the asshole is thirty-five or so, or maybe fifty, possibly being elected President of the United States, you have to think — you know, poor upbringing excuses only so much. But be that as it may, when the two-year-old is acting like a complete creep, polite society still expects the parents to intervene. Prevention is cheaper than cure.

We can survive our assholes. They’re called “assholes,” in the first place, because everybody has one. Isn’t that it? I’ve always thought so. We’re all assholes at some time or another. It’s the people who reward the assholes for being assholes, that are the real problem. Their behavioral aberrations are more destructive, more definable, more dysfunctional; and, their addiction runs much deeper.

“when the two-year-old is acting like a complete creep, polite society still expects the parents to intervene”

But…but…this asshole club made a law forbidding “intervention”, calling ME an asshole, and confiscating my lunch money!

Ah…but they aren’t familiar with polite society, ARE they?

non-sequitur
Oooo…just saw #letstalk on tee vee.
Would anyone who “does” twitter (et al) hashtags please enlighten me?
- CaptDMO | 10/04/2013 @ 08:19
This post is why I’m one of those “nobodies” that reads this blog.

Great stuff, Morgan.

“Asshole makers”…hehe..

Reminds me of the saying – There’s only 10 fat chicks in California, they just happen to get around a lot”. Substitute “asshole” for “fat chick”.
- tim | 10/04/2013 @ 09:48
I was immediately reminded of the following joke, although I’d change the punchline to “vote him into office and send him to DC”:
=====================================
Bob was driving home over the Golden Gate Bridge at about 90mph. Wouldn’t you know a cop jumped out and clocked him with radar. Bob pulled over like a good citizen; recalling Rodney King and recent illegal alien incidents. The cop walked up to the window and said, “You know how fast you were going, BOY?”

Bob thought for a second and asked, “Uhh, over 55?”
“93mph son! 93mph in a 55 zone!”
“But if you already knew, officer” replied Bob, “Why did you ask me?”

Ignoring Bob, the officer continued, in his normal charming fashion, “That’s speeding, and you’re getting a ticket and a fine!”

The cop took a good look at Bob and said, “You don’t even look like you have a job! Why, I’ve never seen anyone so scruffy in my entire life!”
Bob answered, “I’ve got a job! I have a good, well paying job!”
The cop leaned in the window, and with the smell of day old donuts on his breath, said, “What kind of a job would a bum like you have?”

“I’m a rectum stretcher!” replied Bob.
“What you say, BOY?” asked the patrolman.
“I’m a rectum stretcher!”
Of course the cop asked, “What does a rectum stretcher do?”
Bob explained, “People call me up and say they want to be stretched, so I go over there and start with a couple of fingers, then a couple more, and then one whole hand, then two. Then I pull them farther and farther apart until it’s six feet across.”

The cop, absorbed with the images in his mind, let down his guard and asked, “What the hell do you do with a six foot asshole?”

Bob nonchalantly commented, “You give it a radar detector and stick it at the end of a bridge!”
- Physics Geek | 10/08/2013 @ 08:17
[…] Inside the Anthill Why it Went the Way it Did Brahms No, I Still Hate It Unfit For Negotiations Anus Makers Whiskey…Tango…Foxtrot… XXII When Things Shut Down Best Sentence CXXXII “What is […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 10/18/2013 @ 07:33
[…] vice-versa. The ranks of the leftists seem to be disproportionately swollen with the presence of asshole-makers, those who treat nice people as if they were mean people, and mean people as if they …. The climate-change scam has now managed to achieve ninety-five percent certainty even though the […]
- The Fail | Rotten Chestnuts | 10/21/2013 @ 06:07

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Thursday, October 3rd, 2013