8 ms·
A Theory of Jerks (2014)
- kelukelugames 9y agoplease add 2014 to the title
- dang 9y agoDone.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- woodandsteel 9y agoI 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 9y agoThat 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.
- Animats 9y agoCompare "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/0804171351 https://www.amazon.com/Assholes-Theory-Aaron-James/dp/080417...
- toomchsauce 9y ago"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
- Boothroid 9y agoPlenty of women that take liberties also. I've always tried to be nothing than pleasant. Where does it get you?
- yakult 9y agoI 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.
- adrianratnapala 9y agoMaybe, 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."
- Noos 9y agofeminists have totally discredited nice guy though, turning it into a passive-aggressive hanger on who hopes to get rewarded with sex from being nice.
- adrianratnapala 9y agoDo you mean that interpretation of "nice guy" an actual term of modern feminist jargon? I hadn't known that. Or do you mean that it is a human eternal, the instinctive reaction of womens' inner bullshit detectors?
- adrianratnapala 9y agoIt 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.
- nerdponx 9y agoJerk has been synonymous with "rude person" as long as I've been alive. If there was a shift, it wasn't all that recent.
- KGIII 9y agoI near sixty. It has meant arsehole since I was a kid, with one exception. Namely, the soda jerk. That usage was still part of the vernacular when I was young. I am not sure what timeframe they are using for reference.
- cperciva 9y agoAnd yet "rude" itself has also changed -- from meaning "unsophisticated" to meaning something more along the lines of "obnoxious".
- wfunction 9y agoIs 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...
- cperciva 9y agoThere'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".
- stcredzero 9y agoOne 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
- cyanexttuesday 9y agoSounds interesting, who is the psychologist?
- stcredzero 9y agoJordan B. Peterson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVTogKE25aQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVTogKE25aQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KfVXV2IjYQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KfVXV2IjYQ
- cyanexttuesday 9y agothanks, I binged 10 hours of his lectures. This professor has changed my life!
- stcredzero 9y agoYes! He's basically Mr. Rogers for adults!
- dilemma 9y agoIt's known that "communication can only happen between equals." Otherwise it's order giving no matter the semantics.
- HillaryBriss 9y agoThis 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?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jayd16 9y agoThe guy's just trying to be helpful. Think about it from his perspective.
- woodandsteel 9y agoNo, 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.
- wisty 9y agoI 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.
- revscat 9y agoThis strikes me as circular.
- late2part 9y agoYour comment strikes me as circular.
- danans 9y ago> 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.
- ams6110 9y agoAnd people think singular "they" is OK in writing. Try: the waiter messed up because he's a jerk.
- PrunJuice 9y ago"They" is generally accepted as a singular gender neutral pronoun.
- jon_richards 9y agoAnd has been since the Canterbury Tales! It's a modern development that it isn't considered "correct" English.
- user982 9y agoThis 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
- everyone 9y agoIs 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.
- OnlineCourage 9y agoAre you a jerk though?
- autotypo 9y agoAs a recovering jerk, I found the article rather insightful and useful.