Asshole Management is an art form by which subjects are neutralized effectively, while resources employed in this process are kept minimal. Here “a person counts as an asshole when, and only when, he systematically allows himself to enjoy special advantages in interpersonal relations out of an entrenched sense of entitlement that immunizes him against the complaints of other people” (James, Aaron. Assholes: A Theory (pp. 4-5). Nicholas Brealey Publishing. Kindle Edition).
From this, we can already conclude that assholes cannot be ignored, because then they expand. They further cannot be educated, as they do not follow logic or moral arguments. Should an asshole recognize you as somebody who can provide any kind of advantages to him, you can also not walk away, as the asshole will follow. Assholes need to be dealt with.
There are a few ways to deal with them effectively. Counterintuitively, it needs to encourage them to become even bigger assholes. You can achieve that, by giving them the sense that they are actually entitled to even more. Then let him engage with a second asshole, who objects to that entitlement. We call this, the anti-asshole. If managed well, the two assholes will engage in a personal war. The energy released in such asshole-anti-asshole reaction may be quite high so that it is recommended to contain it in a confined physical and social space. In the end, it is a process of asshole fusion and is better kept in a safe reactor. Make sure all resources assholes need, are available in the reactor. But the reaction should also not be too efficient, because we need both of them to melt down in the process. Residual assholes, which did not burn down completely, will have to be treated as toxic waste.
If you run short of anti-assholes in your environment, there is a second strategy: catalyze the asshole’s energy towards self-destruction. Again this needs encouragement and making the asshole believe, he is capable to perform things which he truly is not. An asshole which really believes he is above the law, biology, and physics is a quite vulnerable creature. The asshole will self accelerate fueled by arrogance, greed, adrenalin, and testosterone. But if it bounces randomly against close obstacles, it may not reach fatal speed. It needs undisturbed egocentricity to maximize the speed before a clearly defined impact. You need to pave the runway to hell. Again, the energy released when assholes hit the target zone, may be quite high and should be evacuated.
There are different kinds of assholes, which need slightly adjusted management. But there is one asshole sub-species, which is extremely hard to deal with. It’s the “victim asshole” (VA), which pretends to be disadvantaged to achieve advantages. The first problem here is, to discriminate between people who really need our help and VAs. I have been thinking about VA quick tests, but none of them had significant results. More research is needed here.
