Fine Art of Negotiation

I wrote Santa Clara about my scholarship. Down the road, if they say their decisions aren't nonnegotiable, I'd like to try my hand at bargaining for more money. I used to be great at it in my old job, but I was on the side in perceived power- the side being payed. Now the shoe is certainly on the other foot, but I understand the fine balance between customer and provider. It's a delicate relationship, certainly a symbiotic one. They want me for my credentials, and the big bill I'll potentially be footing. I want to go their because of it's quality, location and reputation, and a little incentive will help them more and me more than hurt, well, them.

But that's not all I wanted to write about. I haven't done the word thing in awhile. Today, I'd like to do that again.

Etymology is a funny thing. It's the sort of over-arching structure that keeps people from realizing that sweet potatoes aren't really potatoes but roots that were given to a British king, one of the Henrys I think, visiting Spain, where they were pronounced 'potatao' or something and the English prostituted the word into something of their own.. wouldn't be the last time..

Today I want to talk about assholes. The OED has the word defined as "someone or something foolish or contemptible; an uncompromising term of abuse". Uncompromising abuse. In the spirit of my newfound interest in negotiating and the possibility of undergoing one soon, uncompromising abuse doesn't sound very promising, but hey, context is relevant. And I wouldn't have even the mildest of curiosity for this word if I hadn't heard it ah, a few times directed a me. I also considered exploring "self-righteous", "smart ass", "sarcastic", "stubborn" or "short sighted" but I didn't want to relegate myself to the "s" family, and I feel like everyone can relate to asshole more than those.

Alright, so asshole. An uncompromising term of abuse for someone perceived as foolish or contemptible. Let's start with those modifiers. OED has "fool" defined in several ways, but for the sake of brevity I've only chosen a couple. First, "one deficient in judgement or sense, one who acts or behaves stupidly, a silly person, a simpleton.(In Biblical use applied to vicious or impious persons.)" and second "one who is deficient in, or destitute of reason or intellect; a weak-minded or idiotic person". Contempt, a word I'm sure I'll have to get familiar with, at least if any of my friends still think I'm like Jerry Kellerman from Raising the Bar (RIP), is "the action of contemning or despising; the holding or treating as of little account, or as vile and worthless; the mental attitude in which a thing is so considered. (At first applied to the action, in modern use almost exclusively to the mental attitude or feeling.)".

So, we have an uncompromising term of abuse for the deficient in judgement or sense, who are silly, simple and stupid (now you see why I avoided "s" before, too many good insults start with "s"), that is biblically vicious, that may be lacking in reason and intellect, and acting spiteful or ungracious towards something, or someone, they consider vile and worthless.

Huh. That's not exactly what I mean when I say asshole, and I can't imagine that's what is meant when it's, rarely, of course, directed at me. Fans of Curb Your Enthusiasm probably think differently of an asshole than the rest of the modern world, but I find it hard to imagine it's widely viewed as "stupid and contemptuous" and not just "mean".

Really, the biblical use of the word "fool" as someone of vice is the only applicable term in the modern sense of the word asshole, and only if that vice is put into action. Even then, a vicious person is a hard push, like using a nail gun instead of tape to connect a couple pieces of paper. To an infant.

I'm going to go ahead and defend the assholes. Think of the last time someone called you an asshole. It was probably after you did something people other than the accuser would think is funny - like steal your gentile stepfather's Christ nail to hammer up a mahzuza for your own fathers benefit - or were overly, borderline disrespectfully honest with someone. It's not easy to be an asshole these days. It takes some level of thought, an appropriate amount of intelligence. There are of course exceptions that prove this rule, and only assholes use a fallacy like "exception that proves a rule" as a defense from cross-examination on an anonymous blog. Someone who is stubborn, self-righteous, and unapologetic.

There's also the relatively new "shy v. asshole" confusion. It's an easy mistaken reversal to make in a culture so consumed with second-hand communication.

Next time you're going to call someone an asshole, really think about what it means. You're calling someone who may have done something requiring a lot of thought and tact stupid and unreasonable. Sure, they may have done something selfish and mean, but not stupid or unreasonable, foolish or contemptuous. That's just not fair. Call a spade a spade-

It's what an asshole would do.