i've struggled with these quite a bit over the years. an idiot often ends up being an asshole because they are just incapable of empathizing with other people's

i've struggled with these quite a bit over the years. an idiot often ends up being an asshole because they are just incapable of empathizing with other people's perspectives. maybe in this case they think they are just looking out for the companies interest and being extremely short sighted. an asshole, who isn't an idiot, often uses the pretense of idiocy to obfuscate their actions...even worse - as a kind of trolling. given that these behaviors are so often fused, I wonder if it even makes sense to try to tease out whether there is malicious intent.