ARTICLE: how to tell if you’re a jerk, by professor of philosophy Eric Schwitzgebel. Some notes:
Jerks see the world through goggles that dim others’ humanity. Narcissists regard themselves as more important than the people around them, as do jerks. Narcissists desire to be the center of attention. Jerks can be ignorant of their self-serving tendencies. Jerks are selfish, callous, and calculating. Assholes allow themselves to enjoy special advantages over others out of an entrenched sense of entitlement.
Jerks fail to appreciate the perspectives of the people around them, treating others as tools to be manipulated or fools to be dealt with, rather than as moral peers. Jerks are ignorant of the value of others, ignorant of the merit of others’ ideas and plans, dismissive of their desires and beliefs, and unforgiving.
The jerk’s opposite is the sweetheart—alert to the needs and interests of others, solicitous of others’ thoughts and preferences, liable in cases of conflict to suspect that the fault might lie with themselves rather than the other party. The jerk will either dismiss the criticism, counterattack, storm off, or sink the knife in deeper. it is often the sweethearts who are most worried that they have been acting like jerks—who apologize for not-so-terrible behavior. Nothing is more foreign to the jerk than an apology. Another obstacle is the jerk’s inability to listen. One of the most important paths to moral self-knowledge is listening, in a genuinely open way, to other people’s moral criticisms of you. The jerk cannot easily do this. The essence of jerkitude is a failure to appreciate the perspectives of others.
Are you surrounded by fools and non-entities, by people with bad taste and silly desires, by boring people undeserving of your attention, by people who can be understood quickly by applying a broad and negative brush—creeps, stuck-up snobs, bubbleheaded party kids, smug assholes, and, indeed, jerks? If this is how the world regularly looks to you, then I have bad news. Likely, you are the jerk. This is not how the world looks to most people. It’s not how the world actually is. You have a distorted vision.
ME: after growing up in Macon, at Tech my world was mostly surrounded by Christians at the BSU and church. Hardly any contact with non-Christians. Perhaps that was a good time for me to grow in Christ, though it did shelter me far from the outside world – giving me and some around me a sense of superiority that took years to overcome. Seems lie some act like they’re living in that BSU bubble.
Whenever I flew, I love a window seat, and pray for cloudless skies. I love looking out the window. Flying over cities like New Orleans with the Superdome, and rivers like the Mississippi are such fun. Flights from like Houston skirt the Gulf Coast for much of the flight, or down to Florida. I remember on approach to LA looking down and seeing the Queen Mary and Spruce Goose, and taking off from San Francisco and seeing where the Oakland A’s play. Flying over the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Manhattan Island, the twin towers and Central Park. Over Washington DC and Dallas Texas. When you fly over Enterprise Alabama on the way to Pensacola / Ft Walton / Destin you can see the Boll Weevil Monument !!! (not really).
ARTICLE: a University of Oregon golfer had to be replaced in the middle of his round after stepping on a wooden tee. The tee drove through his shoe and pierced his foot – an injury so painful he couldn’t continue. Not a good advertisement for Oregon’s major sponsor: Nike. BTW the Oregon golf coach is former NCAA great and PGA golfer Casey Martin, who has an interesting story himself.
DENISON: in Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis wrote: “It is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects—military, political, economic, and what not. But in a way things are much simpler than that. The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. Unless they are helping to increase and prolong such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time.”
ARTICLE: sports talk 680 the Fan’s Nick Cellini, who sometimes likes my posts on Instagram.
MICKEY COCHRANE [SABR Bio] won MVP before and after the baseball writers took over the voting process. Won MVP in 1928 with PHA and in 1934 with pennant-winner DET. Lou Gehrig (1927 and 1936) is the only other player to be so honored. Umpire Billy Evans (HOF 1973) called him “…a shortstop with shin-guards and a chest protector.” In college he boxed and played football and the saxophone. Cochrane played the most major league games (1,482) of anyone who attended Boston University. His career games played total is exactly half of all of the other BU alumni’s games combined.
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