0:05

Welcome to the Making

0:07

Sense podcast. This is Sam

0:09

Harris. Just a note to say

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0:46

I recently appeared on several other podcasts

0:49

and was asked what I thought about a few prominent

0:51

people in our culture. Some

0:53

are prominent only at the fringe, or should

0:56

only be there. But of course the

0:58

fringe is now everywhere, courtesy

1:00

of social media. Every

1:03

part of culture, science, public

1:06

health, war, economics,

1:09

the lives of famous people, conspiracy

1:12

theories about everything and nothing,

1:15

all information is in the process of

1:17

being macerated by billions

1:20

of tiny mouths, and then spit

1:22

back again and lapped up by

1:25

others. So what is in fact

1:27

mostly digital vomit at

1:29

this point, is being spread everywhere

1:31

and celebrated as some new form

1:34

of nutrition. So there are people

1:36

who we probably shouldn't know about, but

1:38

do. And there are people who should have no

1:41

influence at all, but their influence

1:43

is enormous. One of these people

1:45

is Andrew Tate, and another is

1:48

Donald Trump. Both of these men

1:50

are assholes, and I said as much on

1:52

these other podcasts. However,

1:55

many people appear confused about

1:57

what it means to be an asshole. The

2:00

fact that many of these confused people are themselves

2:02

assholes is perhaps unsurprising.

2:06

Many people believe that calling someone like Tate

2:08

or Trump an asshole says very

2:10

little about them and all too

2:13

much about the person making the allegation. Such

2:15

a person is believed just doesn't like Tate

2:18

or Trump's style. He finds

2:20

their brashness offensive. And

2:22

taking offense at brashness is

2:24

just a sign of weakness. Only

2:26

someone who doesn't feel strong himself

2:29

could find another's arrogance or bombast

2:32

threatening him. There's a word for such a person.

2:35

Waiting deep into the vomitorium now,

2:38

right of center, where Tate and Trump

2:40

are truly kings, such a

2:42

person is very likely to be called a cuck. If

2:45

this word is unknown to you, well

2:47

then congratulations. But

2:50

this rests on a fundamental misunderstanding. Being

2:53

an asshole is not just a matter of style.

2:56

It's a matter of substance. Because

2:58

to be an asshole is to care about the

3:00

wrong things. It is to not have

3:02

one's priorities straight. Of

3:04

course, many of us don't have our priorities quite

3:07

straight. But only an asshole is

3:09

inclined to celebrate this failure in public.

3:12

To be an asshole is to mistake one's vices

3:15

for virtues. It is to fundamentally

3:17

misunderstand what it means to live

3:19

a good life and to encourage this

3:21

misunderstanding in others. It's

3:24

to mistake shamelessness for integrity

3:27

and a furious self-absorption for

3:29

strength. An asshole

3:31

is not just someone who lacks civility

3:34

or tact. In fact, assholes can

3:36

be superficially charming and probably

3:38

must be to succeed. The

3:41

problem is never just

3:43

on the surface. Whatever can be seen

3:45

there. It's at the core. The

3:48

problem with assholes is that though

3:50

they might occasionally appear to care about

3:52

other things and other people, they

3:54

only truly care about themselves.

3:58

Whatever causes they attach to. just

4:00

inflate the self, whatever

4:02

love they express is instrumental.

4:05

Of course we are all assholes some of

4:08

the time. We all have our moments

4:10

of pettiness and vanity and

4:12

duplicity and callousness. But

4:15

the task of living an examined life is

4:18

to notice these moral failures as

4:20

failures and to transcend their logic.

4:23

The purpose of becoming a student of human

4:25

wisdom and an honest observer of

4:28

one's own mind is to become

4:30

less of an asshole more of the time. So

4:32

I'm reserving the term asshole for the sort

4:34

of person who simply doesn't care

4:37

that this project exists. The

4:39

committed asshole, the unrepentant

4:42

one, the one who wears his lack

4:44

of wisdom like a crown. This

4:46

is the sort of asshole I'm talking about. It

4:50

seems strange to say it, but even the worst

4:52

assholes never seem to lack for admirers.

4:55

What do people admire about them? Above

4:58

all, it's their shamelessness. Many

5:00

people struggle with feelings of shame. Shame

5:03

is among the least pleasant of human emotions

5:06

and it might be the most disempowering. Shame

5:09

is generally surmounted not by

5:11

growing insensitive to it, but by living

5:13

in such a way that it has few causes to arise.

5:17

But assholes are proof that another

5:19

strategy is possible. One

5:21

can simply declare the offending organ

5:23

vestigial and tear it out. And

5:26

then one can live however one wants and

5:28

never feel shame again. The

5:30

gospel of the asshole is simple.

5:33

There is nothing in your selfishness

5:36

that you need to overcome. There's

5:38

nothing to judge and no place from

5:40

which to be judged by others. No

5:43

one is better than you. And those

5:45

who pretend to be better are actually

5:47

worse. Everyone is

5:49

a selfish asshole. It's just that

5:51

some of us are courageous enough to be honest

5:53

about it. You can hear the cynicism

5:56

at the core of this self-worship. And

5:59

assholes will become the same. of a movement managed

6:01

to communicate this quasi-religious absolution

6:04

of shame and the celebration

6:06

of cynicism, more or less continuously,

6:09

by their living example. In

6:11

his way, every asshole beckons us

6:13

to return to childhood, where

6:15

any appeal to the ongoing project of

6:18

moral improvement can be shirked

6:20

and derided as mere pretense.

6:23

Again, Trump is the asshole avatar

6:25

of our age. Say whatever you want

6:28

about him, the man is simply impossible

6:31

to shame. He cannot be held

6:33

to any standard of decency or moral

6:35

seriousness, because he holds himself

6:37

to none. Anything that can be

6:40

noticed about him, which if noticed about another

6:42

person would destroy their reputations within

6:44

the hour, can be neatly parried

6:46

by the childish phrase, So

6:48

what? Imagine discovering

6:50

that Trump had plagiarized one of his speeches.

6:54

So what? Or had committed

6:56

a long string of business frauds. So

6:59

what? Or was friendly with

7:01

members of organized crime? Again,

7:05

so what? Absolutely

7:08

no one who admires him would care. There

7:11

is no disconfirming instance of his

7:13

being a good person that matters, because

7:16

he's not even pretending to be

7:18

a good person. He's a total

7:20

asshole, and everybody knows it. The

7:24

fans don't love him in spite of the

7:26

fact that he's an asshole, but because

7:28

he is. Trump gives his fans

7:30

permission to go on a moral holiday and

7:33

to live there if they choose. Whatever

7:35

else he may communicate, hatred

7:37

of elites, casual bigotry,

7:40

scientific ignorance, disdain

7:42

for norms and institutions, the

7:45

subtext is always the same, delivering

7:48

a thrill to everyone sensitive to

7:50

its frequency. And the subtext

7:52

is this, it's okay,

7:55

and in fact far more honest, even

7:58

noble, really, to- just

8:00

be an asshole, body and

8:03

soul. And there's almost

8:05

a kernel of truth to this. Because

8:08

whatever their faults, there is one common

8:10

moral failing of which all

8:12

true assholes are perpetually innocent.

8:16

Hypocrisy. You can't

8:18

be a hypocrite if you have no standards

8:20

by which you can be discovered to have fallen short.

8:23

If you are content to be selfish and

8:26

dishonest and uncharitable and

8:28

to be seen to be this way by others, you

8:31

achieve a kind of malignant Buddhahood.

8:34

You are free, in some deep sense,

8:36

to just be who you are. And that degree

8:39

of comfort in one's own skin is

8:41

darkly charismatic. Again,

8:44

the crucial thing to understand

8:46

is that... If you'd

8:48

like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll

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9:02

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you can subscribe now at SamHarris.org.