Summary A Golden Age for Assholes (Episode #331) - YouTube (Youtube) youtu.be
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Sam Harris Welcome to the Make sense podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber feed and won't be hearing the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes at the Make sense podcast, you'll need to subscribe at simply am harris dot org. There you'll find our private Rs feed to add to your favorite podcast catcher, along with other subscriber only content, m We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore, it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers.
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n/a I recently appeared on several other podcasts and was asked what I thought about a few prominent people in our culture. Some are prominent only at the fringe or should only be there. But of course, the fringe is now everywhere. Courtesy of social media, Every part of culture, science, public health, war, economics, the lives of famous people, conspiracy theories about everything and nothing. All information, is in the process of being mace by billions of tiny mouths and then spit back again and lap up by others, So what is in fact mostly digital vomit at this point is being spread everywhere and celebrated as some new form of nutrition.
n/a So there are people who we probably shouldn't know about, but 2, and they're people who should have no influence at all. But their influences is enormous. 1 of these people is Tate and another is Donald Trump. Both of these men are assholes. And I said as much on these other podcasts.
n/a However, many people appear confused about what it means to be an asshole. The fact that many of these confuse people are themselves, assholes is perhaps surprising. Many people believe that calling in someone like Tate or Trump and asshole says very little about them, and all too much about the person making the allegation. Such a person is believed just doesn't like tate or Trump's style. He finds their bras ness, offensive.
n/a And taken offense at bras ness, is just a sign of weakness. Only someone who doesn't feel strong himself could find another's arrogance or bomb, threatening There's a word for such a person. Waiting deep into the va now, right of center, where tate and Trump or truly kings. Such a person is very likely to be called a cook. If this word is unknown to you, well then congratulations.
n/a But this rests on a fundamental misunderstanding. Being an asshole is not just a matter of style. It's a matter of substance. Because to be an asshole is to care about the wrong things. It is to not have one's priority straight.
n/a Of course, many of us don't have our priorities quite straight, but only an asshole is inclined to celebrate this failure in public. To be an assholes to mistake one's vice for vi virtue. It is to fundamentally misunderstand what it means to live a good life. And to encourage this misunderstanding in others. It's a mistake shameless for integrity, and a furious self absorption for strength An asshole is not just someone who lacks civility or tact.
n/a In fact, assholes can be superficial charming and probably must be to succeed. The problem is never just on the surface, whatever can be seen there. It's at the core. The problem with assholes is that though they might occasionally appear to care about other things and other people, they only truly care about themselves. Whatever causes they attached to, just inflate the self.
n/a Whatever love they express is instrumental. Of course, we are all assholes, some of the time. We all have our moments of pet and vanity, and du simplicity and call ness. But the task of living and examined life is to notice these moral failures as failures and to transcend their logic The purpose of becoming a student of human wisdom and an honest observer of one's own mind is to become less of an asshole more of the time So I'm reserving the term asshole for the sort of person who simply doesn't care that this project exists. The committed asshole.
n/a The un 1, the 1 who wears his lack of wisdom like a crown. This is the sort of asshole I'm talking about. It seems strange to say it, but even the worst assholes never seem to lack for admire. What do people admire about them? Above all, it's their shameless.
n/a Many people struggle with feelings of shame. Shame is among the least pleasant of human emotions. And it might be the most dis. Shame is generally sur cemented, not by growing insensitive to it, but by living in such a way that it has few causes to arise. But assholes are proof that another strategy is possible.
n/a 1 can simply declare the offend organ, vest and tear it out. And then 1 can live how everyone wants and never feel shame again. The gospel of the asshole is simple. There is nothing in your selfish ness that you need to overcome. There's nothing to judge and no place from which to be judged by others.
n/a No 1 is better than you, and those who pretend to be better are actually worse. Everyone is a selfish asshole. It's just that some of us are courageous enough to be honest about it. You can hear the cy at the core of this self worship. And assholes will become the center of a movement, managed to communicate this quasi religious app solution of shame.
n/a And the celebration of Cy, more or less continuously by their living example. In his way, every asshole beck us to return to childhood. Or any appeal to the ongoing project of moral improvement can be shi and der delighted as mere pretense Again, Trump is the asshole avatar of our age. Say whatever you want to bound him, the man is simply impossible to shame. He cannot be held to any standard of decency or moral seriousness because he holds himself to none.
n/a Anything that can be noticed about him. Which have noticed about another person would destroy their reputation within the hour, can be neatly par by the childish phrase, So what? May imagine discovering that Trump had pla 1 of his speeches. So what? Or it committed a long string of business fraud.
n/a So what? Or was friendly with members of organized crime, Again, so what? Absolutely no 1 who admire him would care. There is no disco instance of his being a good person that matters, because he's not even pretending to be a good person, He's a total asshole and everybody knows it. His fans don't love him in spite of the fact that he's an asshole, but because he is.
n/a Trump gives his fans permission to go on a moral holiday and to live there if they choose. Whatever else he may communicate, hatred of elites, casual bigotry, scientific ignorance, disdain for norms and institutions, The sub tax is always the same, delivering a thrill to everyone sensitive to its frequency. And the sub text is this. It's okay and in fact, far more honest. Even noble, really, to just be an asshole body and soul.
n/a And there's almost a kernel of truth to this. Because whatever their faults, there's 1 common moral failing. Of which all true assholes are perpetually innocent. Hypocrisy. You can't be a hypo If you have no standards by which you can be discovered into a fallen short.
n/a If you are content to be selfish and dishonest and un charitable. And to be seen to be this way by others. You achieve a kind of malignant malignant buddha. You are free in some deep sense to just be who you are. And that degree of comfort in one's own skin is dark charismatic.
n/a Again, the crucial thing to understand
Sam Harris