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Assholism, the First Sixty Years
PublicAffairs
August 2012
On Sale: August 14, 2012
272 pages
ISBN: 1610391756
EAN: 9781610391757
Kindle: B008WPR2HO
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction History
It first surfaced in the gripes of GIs during World War II
and was captured early on by the typewriter of a young
Norman Mailer. Within a generation it had become a basic
notion of our everyday moral life, replacing older
reproaches like lout and heel with a single inclusive
category––a staple of country outlaw songs, Neil Simon
plays, and Woody Allen movies. Feminists made it their stock
rebuke for male insensitivity, the est movement used it for
those who didn’t “get it,” and Dirty Harry applied it
evenhandedly to both his officious superiors and the punks
he manhandled.
The asshole has become a focus of collective fascination for
us, just as the phony was for Holden Caulfield and the cad
was for Anthony Trollope. From Donald Trump to Ann Coulter,
from Mel Gibson to Anthony Weiner, from the reality TV prima
donnas to the internet trolls and flamers, assholism has
become the characteristic form of modern incivility, which
implicitly expresses our deepest values about class,
relationships, authenticity, and fairness. We have
conflicting attitudes about the A-word––when a presidential
candidate unwittingly uttered it on a live mic in 2000, it
confirmed to some that he was a man of the people and to
others that he was a boor. But considering how much the word
does for us, and to us, it hasn’t gotten nearly the
attention it deserves––at least until now.
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