"Sean Illing
Before we can talk about surviving assholes, we need a proper definition of assholery. Can you give me one?
Robert Sutton
There are a lot of academic definitions, but here’s how I define it: An asshole is someone who leaves us feeling demeaned, de-energized, disrespected, and/or oppressed. In other words, someone who makes you feel like dirt.
Sean Illing
So an asshole is someone who doesn’t care about other people?
Robert Sutton
I would make a distinction between temporary and certified assholes, because all of us under the wrong conditions can be temporary assholes. I'm talking about somebody who is consistently this way, who consistently treats other people this way. I think it’s more complicated than simply saying an asshole is someone who doesn’t care about other people. In fact, some of them really do care — they want to make you feel hurt and upset, they take pleasure in in...
Sean Illing
Plato famously argued in The Republic that a tyrant, however powerful, ultimately suffers in the end by corrupting his own soul. You make a similar argument about assholes — that they might win at life but still fail as human beings.
Robert Sutton
Wow, I've never heard the Plato connection. That’s not a
question I expect to hear from a journalist, but I guess that’s the
former political theorist speaking. I have to say, I love that
connection. We know that assholes have a corrosive effect on the people
around them. There are longitudinal studies that demonstrate pretty
clearly that people who, for example, work under assholes for many years
end up being more depressed, more anxious, and less healthy.
So there’s compelling evidence that assholes are terrible
human beings who do harm to other people. I think the way you described
Plato’s analogy is far more elegant than anything I could say.
At the end of the day, if you’re an asshole, you’re a
failure as a human being because you promote unnecessary suffering. What
else is there to say?"
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