The Jerk, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld
July 17, 2015 Victor El-Khouri 7 Comments
Last week, I read this article and it has obsessed me ever since. It even crept into my comic book ruminations.
The article is about being a jerk and, to a lesser degree, about being a sweetheart, someone who always thinks about the feelings of other people, the antithesis of the jerk. Here’’s how the author defines the first: “The jerk himself is both intellectually and emotionally defective, and what he defectively fails to appreciate is both the intellectual and emotional perspectives of the people around him. He can’t appreciate how he might be wrong and others right about some matter of fact; and what other people want or value doesn’t register as of interest to him, except derivatively upon his own interests.”
As the essay makes clear, no one person is 100% jerk, nor 100% sweetheart.
I was thinking about how this applies to politics. It’s a stereotype that so-called “liberals” (a term whose meaning varies depending on who uses it) are conscious of other ways of living to the point of absurdity. We want to know why suicide bombers blow themselves up. We can spend hours considering every possible point of view, incapable of making a decision.
To liberals, conservatives look like jerks. As we see it, conservatives want to punish the poor, the weak, and the immigrant.
Neither of these stereotypes is true. Still, it’s interesting to see how they play out in the public arena. For example, this small-town mayor simply could not understand how people thought that when he compared the Obamas to monkeys, he was being racist. He says he can’t apologize because to do so would be admitting he was racist. He hadn’t intended to be racist, he said, nor did he have any knowledge of the long racist history of such comparisons. That’s something a jerk says, because it makes the apology all about him. A sweetheart would apologize and learn something.
Here’s a story about a bunch of other conservative jerks. Protestors in Oklahoma showed their displeasure at President Obama by carrying the Confederate flag. Now, these protesters have every right to carry the Stars and Bars. They are individuals, not government entities, and as such, they enjoy First Amendment rights. However, their defense of their actions, that they were not racist but only showing pride in their Confederate history, is either a lie or stupid. Oklahoma wasn’t part of the Confederacy. Oklahoma wasn’t even a state during the Civil War. And, in any case, they know that the Confederate flag is considered an insult and a threat by African-Americans. I doubt they would have protested Bill Clinton in the same way.
Just the other day, President Obama demonstrated that, much of the time (when he’s not sending out drones), he can be a sweetheart. He was visiting a federal prison in Oklahoma and he said about the prisoners, “When they describe their youth and their childhood, these are young people who made mistakes that aren’t that different than the mistakes I made and the mistakes that a lot of you guys made. The difference is they did not have the kinds of support structures, the second chances, the resources that would allow them to survive those mistakes.”
I would like to tell you that I am never a jerk, and that I always consider other points of view. That would be a lie. The treatment of people who work in nail salons has been a huge topic of conversation in New York this summer, and I confess that I was totally unprepared for it. Apparently, workers are routinely denied water, food, bathroom breaks, or even minimum wage. They suffer from exposure to harmful chemicals, and rude customers. Getting my nails done is one of my semi-regular treats. Was I contributing to this bad behavior? Was I willing to do without pedicures if I was? Had I seen the people who scrubbed my feet as human?
Not being a jerk is a long, hard journey. And while I’m on that quest, my toe-nails are pretty and pink.
Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, was delighted to see Tony Isabella’s column on this page.
Rene
July 17, 2015 - 1:25 pm
I would say that you are on the right tract, roughly, liberals value empathy, conservatives value selfishness. However, there are a lot of catches.
One extreme wing of left, that of communism, sought to actively defer empathy until some future utopian society was in place. You were supposed to suppress your normal human empathy (called “false consciousness”) and innure yourself to doing all sorts of nasty and violent things, until later, when the perfect society would in place, and then everybody would be empathetic… Obviously, it didn’t work like that in real life. Precisely because of what you said. Being a sweetheart takes training. It’s hard to spend lots of time being a jerk and then switch to being a sweetheart.
Also, conservatives would claim that they are simply prioritizing, as they must. They would say that you must restrict your sweetheart aspects to your own tribe, and be a jerk toward other tribes, because otherwise the jerks in the other tribes will out-jerk you. That is basically their defense of the War on Terror, of being hard on immigrants, painting gays as having a “threatening agenda”, etc.
The jerk/sweetheart divide works along religious lines too. Liberal religionists would say that being in tune with God is about being a sweetheart to everybody, even to your enemies, all the time. While conservative religionists are more about being a jerk to everyone not a part of your religious tribe.
George Haberberger
July 17, 2015 - 3:04 pm
“I doubt they would have protested Bill Clinton in the same way.”
No, probably not because it wouldn’t have been something he objected to.
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/06/23/clinton-gore-confederate-campaign-button-surfaces-online/21199944/
Rene said: “liberals value empathy, conservatives value selfishness.”
I have have to assume you meant to type self-reliance or selflessness.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/conservatives_more_liberal_giv.html
The most interesting thing in that article was the explanation of “jerkwater town”.
mitchell white
July 17, 2015 - 3:30 pm
Martha…you my dear have sweetheart written all over your face for years. A cheshire cat you
are not.
As a member of the human species we all occasionally rank as sometimes more than others JERKS. I assiduously try to avoid them these days because they can easily remind me of my many past mistakes.
Since moving to nyc many years ago i know realize im not nearly as ‘ liberal’ as i previously assumed. There are many hues to these boxes of liberals and conservatives and i for one DO NOT fit any stereotypes that would identity with either. Thank God for aging and the wisdom that comes with it…but NOT for all.This is an understatement btw.
These ‘boxes’ do nothing but drive more deviseness like a stake in the heart of the American family. Divide…confuse…obfuscate..lie whenever necessary by corrupted media and hope to
conquer. The prevailing mantra of the worlds elite…is NOT going to work. The word is out and most are quietly maintaining that know the truth.
“Batten down the hatches ”
A maelstrom of twist and surprising events awaits that will sweep the world soon like a hurricane approaches.
Here’s to lookin’ forward to it!
Cheers
George Haberberger
July 17, 2015 - 4:20 pm
“I doubt they would have protested Bill Clinton in the same way.”
No, probably not because it wouldn’t have been something he objected to.
Clinton-Gore Confederate flag campaign button surfaces
Rene said: “liberals value empathy, conservatives value selfishness.”
I have have to assume you meant to type self-reliance or selflessness.
Conservatives More Liberal Givers
The most interesting thing in that article was the explanation of “jerkwater town”.
This is my second post. The first one did not post I suppose because the headlines above used to be web addresses. I replaced the addresses with the headline. If anyone cares to read the story behind the headline, google it.
Rene
July 17, 2015 - 4:36 pm
George –
The word “selfishness” has too many bad connotations, and self-reliance may be more descriptive.
But the funny thing is, there are two strains of conservative thought, that sometimes conflict.
The old-fashioned conservatives that believe that people should put their communities and families before their individual desires is not really selfish (when they’re honest about it), as you can see in the kind of research that you mention. Religious people usually give more to charity, etc. The kind of conservatism that was common in America in the 1950s, for instance.
The other kind is more the free market, objectivist-inspired type that became all the rage in the 1980s. The one exemplified by other research that show that the more affluent and socially well-positioned you are, the less empathetic you are to other people’s pain and the less likely to give to charity.
Caoimhe
July 18, 2015 - 7:33 am
The “Clinton-Gore 1992 Confederate flag button” was not created by the campaign and nobody knows where it came from. Anyone could have created it for any reason, but it wasn’t from the Clinton-Gore campaign.
George Haberberger
July 18, 2015 - 10:36 am
During the 1992 campaign did Clinton disavow those buttons?
I do not think he did because in 1987 when he was governor of Arkansas he signed a law commemorating that flag.
http://thefederalist.com/2015/06/22/hillary-clintons-history-with-the-confederate-flag/
“As it turns out, her husband, former Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, signed a law which designated a portion of the state flag to commemorate the Confederate States of America. ‘The blue star above the word “ARKANSAS” is to commemorate the Confederate States of America,’”
Rene said: “The old-fashioned conservatives that believe that people should put their communities and families before their individual desires is not really selfish (when they’re honest about it), as you can see in the kind of research that you mention. Religious people usually give more to charity, etc. The kind of conservatism that was common in America in the 1950s, for instance.
The other kind is more the free market, objectivist-inspired type that became all the rage in the 1980s. The one exemplified by other research that show that the more affluent and socially well-positioned you are, the less empathetic you are to other people’s pain and the less likely to give to charity.”
The article I referenced was from a study conducted in 2007. It reveals that in the 2004 election “Residents of the states that voted for John Kerry in 2004 gave smaller percentages of their incomes to charity than did residents of states that voted for George Bush. Bush carried 24 of the 25 states where charitable giving was above average. People who reject the idea that ‘government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality’ give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition.'”
Apparently, conservative charity is not relegated to the 1950s.
Rene
July 18, 2015 - 9:59 pm
Sigh.
So much of the time, we miscommunicate. I didn’t mean to say that this form of conservatism was relegated to the 1950s. Only that it was the dominant form of conservatism in America in the 1950s, before the Reagan-Thatcher era began and Social Darwinism made a comeback. Obviously, it’s a strain of conservatism thought that persists today.
I also think it’s a mistake to conflate “gives to charity” with “rejects the idea that government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality”. Conservatives are not a hive mind and you can’t even really put all things “conservative” in the same box and hope for consistency. Same for liberals.
I mean, there is really not much in Christianity that screams “Capitalism!”. That the conservative box in America often includes both Christianity and Capitalism is a very complex phenomenom that I think owes a lot to an alliance of conveniency. Particularly, I think Capitalism is more consistent with Atheism (Ayn Rand was right about that, IMO).
George Haberberger
July 19, 2015 - 6:27 am
Rene, I have no serious objections to anything you said here, especially this:
“Conservatives are not a hive mind and you can’t even really put all things ‘conservative’ in the same box and hope for consistency. Same for liberals.”
Ageed.
George Haberberger
July 19, 2015 - 6:29 am
I meant “Agreed” (Even Facebook has an edit function.)
R. Maheras
July 20, 2015 - 5:53 am
Both major political parties use stereotypes and labels to brand each other for a couple of reasons. First, I think every person uses stereotypes and labels because, doing so, at its core, is rooted directly into our survival instinct.
For example, if we see a bear in the woods, and we opt to walk past it or stop and say “hi,” it won’t always attack, maul, and perhaps kill us, but sometimes it will. Therefore, if most people see a bear in the wild, they avoid it or give it a wide berth. Likewise, most people associate a chainsaw with danger, so they’ll either avoid them completely, or if they have to use one, they’ll be extremely careful. But these two examples of the human survival instinct at work are just a drop in the bucket. There are countless things or situations we encounter every day where we employ our survival instinct stereotypes and “labels.” Going up and down stairs, standing on a subway platform, driving a car, reading the dosage instructions on a medicine bottle, walking down the street, etc. Our brains are constantly on alert, processing our environment, and, based on past experience, labeling and “stereotyping” possible hazards.
So it only stands to reason that we’ll use this same risk management system with people, or groups of people — which, of course, includes political parties. In that respect, we’re all “racists” because, at our most basic, we tend to stereotype first, and intellectually analyze later.
But when it comes to political viewpoints, due to the theory of what I call political relativity, the reality is there are 50 shades of liberal, 50 shades of conservative, and 50 shades of everything in between.
Mindy Newell
August 1, 2015 - 9:33 am
I’ve long thought that the nail salons that pepper this city are actually “slave-labor” markets run by Korean–or Vietnamese–Mafia types.