Making Sense - Sam Harris - #331 — A Golden Age for Assholes

What does it mean to be an asshole? What is it really means to be a cuck? And who are assholes? In this episode, I discuss the role of assholes in our culture, and why we should all strive to be less of them, and how to become better at not being an asshole. I talk about how assholes are not just people who lack civility or tact, but also people who wear their lack of wisdom like a crown, and who only truly care about themselves. And how we can learn to live a better life by becoming less of an asshole, and by living in such a way that it has few causes that it arises from it, and then one can live however one wants, and never feel selfishness again. The problem with assholes is that although they might occasionally appear to care about other things and other people, they are truly obsessed with themselves, and whatever causes they attach to just inflate the self, whatever love they express is instrumental of course we are all assholes. And there is nothing in your selfishness that you need to overcome to become a better human being. There s nothing to judge, and no place to be judged by others. No one is better than you, no one is actually worse than you. Everyone is a selfish asshole, it's just that some of us are actually better than others, and those who pretend to be better than other people are actually worse, and so they don't need to be good at being a good human being because they're not by virtue, but by virtue themselves, they're better than they are by virtue and by their own virtue? What is a good person? What does it really mean to you, anyway? How can you be an asshole? Is it possible to become an asshole if you don't have a good enough? And what does it matter if you're a good one? Can you be a good asshole if you can be a better person than you're good enough, because you're not good enough by virtue by your own virtue, or you're just good enough so that you can become a bad one, or good enough because you have enough to be someone else? If you want to become one, then you'll need to learn how to be more of a better asshole, then that's what you really need to do better than that, right? This episode is made possible by the support of your fellow human being?

00:00:00.000 welcome to the making sense podcast this is sam harris just a note to say that if you're hearing

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00:00:36.680 we're doing here please consider becoming one i recently appeared on several other podcasts

00:00:49.000 and was asked what i thought about a few prominent people in our culture some are prominent only at

00:00:54.560 the fringe or should only be there but of course the fringe is now everywhere courtesy of social

00:01:01.180 media every part of culture science public health war economics the lives of famous people conspiracy

00:01:11.880 theories about everything and nothing all information is in the process of being macerated

00:01:18.420 by billions of tiny mouths and then spit back again and lapped up by others so what is in fact mostly

00:01:27.460 digital vomit at this point is being spread everywhere and celebrated as some new form of nutrition

00:01:34.660 so there are people who we probably shouldn't know about but do and there are people who should have no

00:01:40.980 influence at all but their influence is enormous one of these people is andrew tate and another is 0.91

00:01:47.980 donald trump both of these men are assholes and i said as much on these other podcasts however many 0.99

00:01:55.600 people appear confused about what it means to be an asshole the fact that many of these confused 1.00

00:02:01.480 people are themselves assholes is perhaps unsurprising many people believe that calling someone like tate or 0.99

00:02:08.840 trump an asshole says very little about them and all too much about the person making the allegation 0.99

00:02:14.940 such a person is believed just doesn't like tate or trump's style he finds their brashness offensive 1.00

00:02:21.520 and taking offense at brashness is just a sign of weakness only someone who doesn't feel strong

00:02:28.200 himself could find another's arrogance or bombast threatening there's a word for such a person

00:02:34.460 wading deep into the vomitorium now right of center where tate and trump are truly kings such a person

00:02:42.820 is very likely to be called a cuck if this word is unknown to you well then congratulations but this 0.99

00:02:50.380 rests on a fundamental misunderstanding being an asshole is not just a matter of style it's a matter of 1.00

00:02:56.480 substance because to be an asshole is to care about the wrong things it is to not have one's priorities 1.00

00:03:03.140 straight of course many of us don't have our priorities quite straight but only an asshole is inclined to 1.00

00:03:09.960 celebrate this failure in public to be an asshole is to mistake one's vices for virtues it is to fundamentally 0.99

00:03:17.460 misunderstand what it means to live a good life and to encourage this misunderstanding in others 0.99

00:03:23.220 is to mistake shamelessness for integrity and a furious self-absorption for strength 1.00

00:03:30.020 an asshole is not just someone who lacks civility or tact in fact assholes can be superficially charming 1.00

00:03:37.660 and probably must be to succeed the problem is never just on the surface whatever can be seen there 1.00

00:03:45.760 it's at the core the problem with assholes is that though they might occasionally appear to care about 0.98

00:03:52.680 other things and other people they only truly care about themselves whatever causes they attach to 1.00

00:03:59.500 just inflate the self whatever love they express is instrumental of course we are all assholes some 0.90

00:04:07.920 of the time we all have our moments of pettiness and vanity and duplicity and callousness but the task

00:04:16.140 of living an examined life is to notice these moral failures as failures and to transcend their logic

00:04:22.840 the purpose of becoming a student of human wisdom and an honest observer of one's own mind 0.98

00:04:28.720 is to become less of an asshole more of the time so i'm reserving the term asshole for the sort of person 0.99

00:04:35.380 who simply doesn't care that this project exists the committed asshole the unrepentant one the one who wears his 1.00

00:04:43.940 lack of wisdom like a crown this is the sort of asshole i'm talking about it seems strange to say it 1.00

00:04:51.160 but even the worst assholes never seem to lack for admirers what do people admire about them above all 1.00

00:04:58.400 it's their shamelessness many people struggle with feelings of shame shame is among the least pleasant of 0.98

00:05:05.240 human emotions and it might be the most disempowering shame is generally surmounted not by growing insensitive 0.98

00:05:12.140 to it but by living in such a way that it has few causes to arise but assholes are proof that another 0.81

00:05:19.360 strategy is possible one can simply declare the offending organ vestigial and tear it out and then 0.99

00:05:26.540 one can live however one wants and never feel shame again the gospel of the asshole is simple there is 0.96

00:05:34.140 nothing in your selfishness that you need to overcome there's nothing to judge and no place from which to be 0.98

00:05:40.920 judged by others no one is better than you and those who pretend to be better are actually worse 0.99

00:05:47.700 everyone is a selfish asshole it's just that some of us are courageous enough to be honest about it 1.00

00:05:54.100 you can hear the cynicism at the core of this self-worship and assholes who become the center of a movement 1.00

00:06:01.140 manage to communicate this quasi-religious absolution of shame and the celebration of cynicism 1.00

00:06:07.400 more or less continuously by their living example in his way every asshole beckons us to return to 0.96

00:06:14.580 childhood where any appeal to the ongoing project of moral improvement can be shirked and derided as 0.99

00:06:21.940 mere pretense again trump is the asshole avatar of our age say whatever you want about him the man is 0.98

00:06:29.640 simply impossible to shame he cannot be held to any standard of decency or moral seriousness because 0.99

00:06:36.860 he holds himself to none anything that can be noticed about him which if noticed about another

00:06:42.200 person would destroy their reputation within the hour can be neatly parried by the childish phrase

00:06:47.820 so what imagine discovering that trump had plagiarized one of his speeches so what or committed a long

00:06:56.660 string of business frauds so what or was friendly with members of organized crime again so what absolutely

00:07:07.920 no one who admires him would care there is no disconfirming instance of his being a good person 0.99

00:07:14.440 that matters because he's not even pretending to be a good person he's a total asshole and everybody 1.00

00:07:22.240 knows it his fans don't love him in spite of the fact that he's an asshole but because he is trump gives 1.00

00:07:30.420 his fans permission to go on a moral holiday and to live there if they choose whatever else he may 0.99

00:07:36.240 communicate hatred of elites casual bigotry scientific ignorance disdain for norms and institutions the

00:07:45.240 subtext is always the same delivering a thrill to everyone sensitive to its frequency and the subtext is 0.99

00:07:52.460 this it's okay and in fact far more honest even noble really to just be an asshole body and soul 0.98

00:08:03.320 and there's almost a kernel of truth to this because whatever their faults there is one common moral 1.00

00:08:10.840 failing of which all true assholes are perpetually innocent hypocrisy you can't be a hypocrite if you 0.98

00:08:19.580 have no standards by which you can be discovered to have fallen short if you are content to be selfish 0.98

00:08:25.400 and dishonest and uncharitable and to be seen to be this way by others you achieve a kind of malignant

00:08:32.780 buddhahood you are free in some deep sense to just be who you are and that degree of comfort in one's

00:08:40.160 own skin is darkly charismatic again the crucial thing to understand

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Making Sense - Sam Harris - August 20, 2023

#331 — A Golden Age for Assholes

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