I came across a great John Dewey quote recently that seems relevant here: "We may insist that a man needs tact as well as scholarship, or let us say sympathy w

I came across a great John Dewey quote recently that seems relevant here: "We may insist that a man needs tact as well as scholarship, or let us say sympathy with human interests... Lack of reverence for the things that mean much to humanity, joined with a craving for public notoriety, may induce a man to pose as a martyr to truth when in reality he is a victim of his own lack of mental and moral poise." It's a good thing to push back on people being assholes, mostly because it'd suck to live in a world where people feel like their being an asshole is a signal of their intelligence and superiority. It's not. It's a cost they inflict on themselves and others. Sometime it's worth it for both interlocutors to put up with an asshole, but in those scenarios you don't need someone chiming in that "being an asshole isn't being an asshole."