Modern Hell #14: Why Are The Assholes Winning?

A working theory of how bad ideas keep spreading

If Elon Musk were the only asshole we had to put up with, things might be tolerable. At the very least, we might have the energy to deal with him. But it’s not just Elon – he’s just bought the biggest platform for assholes who, since the news of his eventual purchase of Twitter, have cheered another victory.

In fact, it seems like everywhere you look, there are more and more assholes who keep getting more and more of what they want accomplished — to the detriment of most others. Why is that?

For instance, there’s a bunch of assholes who also happen to be U.S. state governors who keep passing legislation essentially trying to outlaw children from being gay or trans – or from even talking about it. At the same time, a lot of other assholes – including a lot of parents – are trying to ban books from school reading lists and library shelves. Even more legislative-type assholes are trying to make abortion illegal everywhere. That’s even before you count the assholes on the Supreme Court. Some assholes are even sending women to prison for medically-assisted miscarriages. And there’s another group of (perhaps overlapping) assholes funding some of those other assholes.

Then there’s also a loud group of phoney-victim assholes who attack journalists online or by buying ad space in Times Square to intimidate other journalists. One ringleader of those assholes is a bow-tied asshole who gets to host a TV show every night where he does stuff like tell millions of people that Vladimir Putin isn’t an asshole. Putin, who is obviously an asshole, uses the bow tie asshole in his own propaganda.

There are also tons of other assholes trying to convince everyone to join their vast, energy-wasting digital currency pyramid scheme. Adjacent to them is another bunch of assholes who believe in an insane online fairy tale about the a deep state cabal. Related to them is another group of assholes who keep driving around cities honking their truck horns or revving their motorcycle engines. Many of these assholes also think the pandemic is over, or never existed, and will scream at you as if it’s your fault that it’s not.

And that’s just in North America. Zoom out and plenty more assholes emerge at a global level. War-mongers, authoritarians, oligarchs, climate change deniers. There are degrees of asshole, sure. Not everyone is equal on the asshole index. But there sure are a lot of them, all of a sudden. Assholes who become popular for being an asshole. Assholes who make money for being an asshole. Assholes who get elected for being an asshole. And they keep somehow moving the world closer in line with their terrible, asshole ideas. Why is this?

Someone becomes an asshole when they systematically allow themselves “to enjoy special advantages in interpersonal relations out of an entrenched sense of entitlement that immunizes him against the complaints of other people,” Aaron James wrote a few years ago in Assholes: A Theory. They key part of that is the immunity to others – to their positions, opinions and thoughts. What often makes someone an asshole is their unwavering unwillingness or inability to recognize, or see, other people properly. It’s as though everyone else is “physically present but morally nonexistent in the asshole’s view of the world,” James wrote.

If you’re an asshole, people are there, but in your way; there, but not entitled to the same thing you are; there, but irrelevant to your asshole needs, desires, and purpose. There, but not there.

Ok, so what about that thing Musk wants to buy?

“I think there was this longtime perception that, if you were a high-powered corporate person, you could only get in trouble on Twitter and you should write bland things that are vetted by lawyers,” Bloomberg columnist/former investment banker Matt Levine told the New Yorker recently. “And I think people are recognizing that Elon Musk has created a lot of value for his companies by being unhinged on Twitter. And I think there are imitators, and I think we’re kind of early in the game. There will be more imitators. And that applies to politics. It’s the obvious counterpart, where people have realized that you can make a lot of hay politically by being a poster.”

Did social media create all these assholes? Not on its own, but it might have something to do with it. After all, your participation as a social media user – or poster, if you will – is predicated on the assumption that nobody is as they seem on the platform. Since it’s early days, being on a social network means that you know or expect, to varying degrees, that everyone on it is putting on a bit of an act (including yourself). This isn’t always the case, of course, but the design of the platform encourages the idea that on social we are personas not persons. Which is to say, social media operates inherently on asshole logic – that everyone is there, but for all intents and purposes, non-existent as far as each user is concerned.

There, but not really.

“I hate to toss around the loaded term ‘elites,’ but I’m really feeling that they’re all nervously aware that everything is on a dangerous brink right now and they have nothing but wrong ideas on what to do about it,” screenwriter Robert Schooley tweeted Tuesday to his 100,000 followers.

I don’t have any special insight into how the zeitgeist is created, much less captured, but along with this working theory of how social media runs on asshole logic – and thus encourages people who use it to become assholes – is a guess at how it, and specifically Twitter, helps create a society run on the bad ideas those assholes come up with.

It goes something like this: Twitter users are by and large younger, more highly educated, and wealthier than the general public, according to Pew’s 2019 research. That’s true for the U.S., but generally the case elsewhere as well. To put it crassly, it’s the social platform of choice for the ‘elites’, for lack of a better term – people in government, media, technology, and academia. It’s probably not too much of a stretch, then, to understand why a). the ideas underlying society’s governance are bad, and b). why few in positions of power or influence seem to have many ideas other than those bad ones – or, if they do, tend to fold easily to blowback from the same assholes they’re addicted to on Twitter.

Because what’s been happening for years is that too many of the people who should know better are spending too much time listening to assholes, considering asshole ideas, and being convinced that those asshole ideas have merit – if they’re not becoming assholes themselves. A social media platform like Twitter is designed to favour bad ideas and the assholes that have them. When people with power and influence use it – or listen to people who use it – as a primary source for understanding the world, things get weird. Everyone becomes an asshole.

Speaking of which, Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase looks like a bad idea. Which is why I can’t think of a better reason why he’ll probably do it.