So I was in this Facebook group. Some members got together to do something once and the two dozen people got along. New guy joins after this, goes on one event I did not join. Following that he acts like a complete asshole on the group postings, especially to me after I call him on it with a bit of diplomacy. In the end I chose to leave the group. Whatever, but every group has an asshole, right?
Well I have a few problems with that: history.
1. My father was a fucking asshole, and I had to take his shit for nearly two decades.
2. I have one brother who is a complete asshole even when he isn't in one of his bipolar phases, which don't help.
3. I have another brother who is a bit of an asshole, but I put up with him for my mother.
4. Mind you, she was too much of a Catholic martyr to protect her sons from the asshole she married by leaving with us, so she's an asshole too.
5. I lived with a woman who was for a couple years, for what I don't even remember.
6. And all the random assholes we've all dealt with at school, work and in society.
I have a few more problems with assholes: principles and pragmatics.
- I won't put up with their shit silently to keep the peace, because they rely on being able to do that.
- If the moderator of the Facebook group won't say anything to an asshole, he's a coward, or an asshole, so I am better off without both.
- I am not going to enjoy myself going to any event with this asshole, or commenting on the same threads with him, except for the brief satisfaction if I flame him. With training from an asshole Yorkshire father and this guy a white American, there is no way he could keep up with my bile, except it's beneath my dignity to give him that much attention.
- A shame I will not meet up with the other people in the group again, but odds are they put up with his shit too, so what am I supposed to think of that?
'A majority of one' is lonely though, but integrity ain't supposed to be cheap.
Let me clarify 'asshole'. Society tells you it's people who rock the boat, and are difficult because they are iconoclasts who won't 'drink the Koolaid'. Happily guilty. However, no, that's called a freethinking human. An asshole uses people as tools, lacks empathy and has an exaggerated sense of their entitlements.
Nice definition of arsehole. Usually they aren't rocking the boat because they know the system and are working it for their own good.
ReplyDeleteWhat pisses me off (I dunno about your group but in my experience) is that you get the arsehole join the group, everyone not only does the keep silent to keep the peace thing but, if you call them on their a-holeness, the majority will be like 'go you, I wanted to do the same' in private but in public still say nothing. That makes me incredibly sad about people.
Didn't happen that way in this case, especially not with the moderator. He says we were both 'causing conflict', and isn't that usually the way, right? People are uncomfortable with the conflict, not with the instigator of it any more than the person who addresses it. People can get used to boils on their skin, but resent the person who lances one. It speaks to what you said about people who cheer you on quietly, and offer support at no point, apart from their cheap moral support. Occupying armies never lack for collaborators, do they? Nor do most get punished when the occupation is over. Just a few token beheadings of people who lost their power and influence. It's much of why no political system works for long, if at all: if you remove the psychopaths and the moral cowards, you aren't left with enough good people.
DeleteHow connected we are to world around us, how much we take it in and give of ourselves to it... that defines the level of manipulation that we submit ourselves to. Once you have the full-time job, the family, etc... it's hook in mouth and now upstream battles seem welcome in comparison. To have what is desired... the lover, the offspring, the highs... modern society requires us to make a seemingly Faustian deal. Would the lack of civilization as we know it be any better? Probably not...
ReplyDelete"And you give yourself away
DeleteAnd you give yourself away
And you give
And you give
And you give yourself away
With or without you
With or without you
I can't live
With or without you"
acute
Delete"I won't put up with their shit silently to keep the peace, because they rely on cowards doing that." - It's a fact that I am this person in my family. I call bullshit if it needs to be called and it seems that is the role I have not only taken on in my family willingly but that no one else is willing to take from me or with me. It causes friction at times but sometimes a little friction that produces change is better than smug feigned ignorance.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Golden Rule link, stirred up some memories of my first year in high school... that asshole. I should capture the memory in draft form before I sweep it back under the rug. Good post man.