Geoffrey Nunberg: Why do we Idolize Jerks?

From the book Ascent of the A-Word by Geoffrey Nunberg. Reprinted by arrangement with Public Affairs, a member of the Perseus Books Group. This is an age of ass-holism simply because we find the phenomenon and its practitioners so interesting, or provocative, or compelling, or compellingly repulsive, or sometimes all those at once. I'm not thinking so much of assholes of opportunity like Charlie Sheen and Mel Gibson, or of incidental assholes like James Cameron or Brett Favre, whose ass-holism only adds a colorful sidebar to an independently impressive career. There's little about those people that's particular to the age, save that in earlier periods the public probably would have been spared the details of the personal tics and twitches that qualify them for the asshole label. What's unique to our time is the fixation with certain iconic assholes, who exemplify each in his way the problematic allure of the species. Steve Jobs, for example, was a modern personification of the asshole as achiever, someone whose ass-holism seems to be inextricable from his success as a leader. The traditional paragons of the type are the storied tough guys from military, business, and public life, whose leadership styles are packaged in memoirs and advice books, like What It Takes to Be #1: Lombardi on Leadership, Rudy Giuliani's Leadership, 29 Leadership Secrets from Jack Welch, and above all a four foot shelf of inspirational works on George S Patton, the first general to have been explicitly designated an asshole by both his men and his superiors. From Patton we learn: If he slapped a soldier, well, it was certainly wrong, but he thought it necessary for the morale of his troops. It was often said that his troops would accomplish the impossible, then go out and do it all over again.