Do you think it’s possible you might be a jerk? It’s a rude question, I know, but not a totally absurd one. After all, we’re surrounded by jerks – if you don’t believe me, glance at the headlines, drive home during rush hour, or check Twitter – so, statistically, it’s entirely plausible that one of them is you. I’m sure you don’t feel like a jerk, of course. But nobody does. Partly that’s because few of us like to believe anything negative about ourselves.

But, as the philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel has argued in several essays, it’s also because the essence of jerkitude (which, he argues, is distinct from other forms of obnoxiousness) is “to see the world through goggles that dim others’ humanity”. Jerks view other people “as tools to be manipulated or fools to be dealt with, rather than as moral and epistemic peers”. So if you’re a jerk to people, and they respond in predictable ways – with anger, irritation or, if you’re lucky, friendly criticism – you won’t take their reactions seriously, assuming you’re even listening at all. Why? Because you’re a jerk.

It gets worse, as Schwitzgebel explains. If you sincerely aspire to figure out whether or not you’re a jerk, you’ll probably begin by asking yourself if you regularly treat others high-handedly, regarding their desires and ideas as inferior, valuable only in so far as they serve your ends. Yet the very act of asking that question means you can’t, in that instant, be a jerk. “To the extent one genuinely worries about being a jerk, one’s jerkitude momentarily vanishes,” Schwitzgebel writes. “If you prickle with fear and shame at your possibly shabby behaviour to someone, in that moment, by virtue of that very prickling, you are… seeing that person as an individual with moral claims upon you.” But don’t get too comfortable: if you take this to mean that you couldn’t possibly be a jerk, since you’re the kind of person sensitive enough to wonder if you might be, then you’ll lapse back into complacency, which is fertile soil for becoming a jerk.

Think you’re self-aware? Think again

This, then, is your awkward predicament: you don’t feel like a jerk, but this might just be because you’re such a jerk. And if you introspect honestly, asking yourself if you’re a jerk, you’ll find you aren’t, even if you usually are. So is there any way to determine, objectively, if you’re a jerk? Schwitzgebel thinks there is: stop looking inside yourself, and look at how you view other people instead. Do you find yourself often feeling besieged by idiots? Since jerks take such a dim view of others, that’s a red flag. “Everywhere you turn, are you surrounded by fools, by boring nonentities, by faceless masses and foes and suckers and, indeed, jerks? Are you the only competent, reasonable person to be found?”

If so, bad news: you’re probably a jerk, at least sometimes. On those days when you seem to have an issue with virtually everyone you meet, it’s a good bet the cause is whatever all those encounters have in common. And, not to be a jerk about it… that’s you.

Source: the Guardian

Lol I was going to preface the article with a warning, beware contains words! 

Although in retrospect its only a very small article, five paragraphs is not so bad.

I have come across this before and it does seem that reading may be a lost habit, one that has resulted because of a proclivity for alternative forms of media.

For example the BBC website used to contain words, now all it contains is images and links to videos with very little text.  I don't think this is entirely a coincidence and they are attempting to pander to other people that may have a reticence about reading anything more than a meme length text.  I could blame social media and probably should for making people lazy although why this should be the case is difficult to say.

I think kaynight might be to blame, he hardly posts anything other than a few words and is clearly a poor example to the youth.

You think its possible that tech and social media has made young people somewhat lazy with regard to reading?  I don't really do twitter but do they still only allow 140 characters? I am amazed people can express themselves this way.

Maybe its alike a form of poetry where you simply distil the pure essence of whatever you want to say, i dunno.

I don't mind trolls as long as they are harmless. Kaynight can be great fun too if you know how to wind him up.

Yeah i think you might be right, I never understood facebook, I mean the appeal of it, my kidds say I don't know how to use it properly.  What's to use, you look at some pictures or gifs and thats about it.  Twitter I think is the place where like real sinister trolls go to troll.

hmmm its best not to let others affect you I think, not so that you feel so negative anyway, its not so easily done though.  What helps is if we remember that their words or actions might not really say anything about us but it says tons about them. 

yeah i suspect so, its kinda like a mixture of facebook and chess

I think Twitter now allows some people to write 280 characters. Still not enough, but I suppose part of its charm comes from the brevity.

Kaynight can be fun but sometimes really infuriating. The "byes" and "just sayings" in almost every thread give me headaches.

Saipan looks like an amazing place its like in the middle of a huge ocean, how people got out there is a miracle!

280 characters, still pretty small, still it seems way popular.  reddit seems to be like a literary version of twitter, a twitter for people that like to read.

I mean like before technology, with wooden boats and stuff.  Do you guys have your own language?

thats like us, we have Gaelic and Lowland Scots but understand English.

Amazing people, very colourful.  I wish I was there instead of this frozen island.

No need to go so far away, here in the capital of the empire you'd have a reasonable temperature and more than decent food, robbie.

How to tell if you are a Jerk

Easy. Get out more often.  People remind me all the time ... ;-)