All language subtitles for Assholes.A.Theory.2019.720p.WEB.h264-OPUS.[eng]

[upbeat jazz music]

JOHN WALKER:
A female colleague posed
the question recently,

It got me thinking.

Trusting to serendipity,
I stepped into my favourite

bookstore where the muses
often guide me.

After scanning the shelves,
destiny did reward me.

Assholes: A Theory.

I immediately took it to
the checkout counter.

Within days I met with the
author Aaron James,

philosophy professor and
life-long Californian surfer.

I wanted to know what
inspired his book.

AARON JAMES:
So while I was surfing here
I saw a guy surfing who was

blatantly dropping in on
some of the other surfers,

violating the rules of right
of way, and this person,

when people would complain,
would get really angry and

yell at them as a way
of getting waves.

Surfers are definitely used
to having paradise spoiled

by crowds and the asshole
spoils it in

a particularly
pronounced way.

When I'm thinking this
guy is an asshole,

I'm not just venting feelings,
I'm classifying him as of

a certain type of
moral personality.

When you use that word,
you're thinking of a type

and Philosophers get interested
in this kind of thing.

But, then when I started
thinking it through the,

about the asshole concept,
I thought,

"Oh, well, can't you
define the term?

Isn't that a definable
term?"

At that point, I started
thinking ok,

this really a general
type, you know,

it's not just a surfer
asshole concept.

[saxophone music]

MAN:
There seems to be a lot more
assholes this year than any

other year, especially
in the public eye.

I'm not sure what's
going on,

but we're overwhelmed
this year anyways.

JOHN WALKER:
We're doing a film based on the
book, Assholes: A Theory

and the author's saying,
you know-

MAN:
It's just not a theory,
it's a reality.

It's a reality?

Oh come on now, it's out
there. It's reality.

The asshole as I define it is
the guy who allows himself

special advantages in
cooperative life out of an

entrenched sense
of entitlement

that immunizes
him against the

complaints of other
people.

AIMEÉE MORRISON:
It's a great word to say,
"What an asshole."

He's the guy who cuts in line
at the post office,

taking a special advantage,
in cooperative life.

You know, people are waiting in
line and they'll allow someone

in for if they have
an emergency

or if it's a pregnant
woman, right?

But this guy does it, takes
a special advantage

for a different reason.

You know, out of a sense
of entitlement.

"Asshole," you can really
lean into it right?

"That guy is such
an asshole."

And it could be any sense
of entitlement.

He thinks he's rich and his time
is more important than other

people, or he thinks he's
especially smart or beautiful.

The euphony of the
word, right?

It just feels good to say,
it sounds good to say.

And the upshot of his being
entrenched in that sense

of entitlement is that he
won't listen to others

when they complain.

ROBERT HOCKETT:
It was especially nice when he
added the word "entrenched."

An entrenched sense
of self entitlement,

that this is an
abiding problem.

That it is a sort of
deeply, it's very,

it sort of goes down into the
bones almost of the person

who has the problem.

PAUL PURCELL:
It's generally somebody
who says,

"Let's talk about my favourite
thing, me," generally, right.

"Me, me, me, me."

SHERRY BENSON-PODOLCHUK:
The entitlement that,
"I'm more important than you.

What I do is more important than
you. Your feelings don't count.

You don't count. Your
work doesn't count."

Assholes also like to
take all the credit.

There's a teaming asshole
ecosystem and in it there are

many different species,
many different varieties.

For example, the boorish
asshole,

the smug asshole, the
self-aggrandizing asshole.

There's drunk assholes,
arrogant assholes,

smug assholes, narcissistic
assholes.

Well you gotta kind
of be a narcissist

to be an asshole
anyways.

The sexist asshole,
the reckless asshole.

At work, there's
the asshole boss.

There's mumbling assholes.

They'll do it behind the
curtains or they won't be

an asshole to your face, but
they'll have no problem doing

it to everybody else
when they're around.

We have the cable
news asshole.

With social media, we have the
Facebook asshole and you know,

on the road of course, there's
the old guy driving a Porsche,

swerving through three lanes
of traffic asshole as well.

There's no shortage. Out of any
kind of person in the world,

there's more descriptive
kinds for an asshole

to a normal person,
really.

So, we're blessed I guess
with many kinds. [laughs]

KEVIN:
You are a fucking asshole,
Frank.

FRANK:
That I am, never denied it.

But at least I'm an
honest asshole.

DARTH HELMET:
I knew it, I'm surrounded
by assholes!

Sometimes in comedy behaving a
bit like an asshole can be

funny, we can laugh at that,
because it's not really serious.

[paper tears loudly]

MICHAEL PALIN:
Dad, what are
you doing?

MAD DOG:
You gutless yellow
pie slinger!

MARTY MCFLY:
He's an asshole!

LARRY DAVID:
Well, I'm going to
call the Police.

JOHN WALKER:
Assholes in Aaron's book
and in the movies, yes,

but I needed to investigate
their impact in the real world.

So I hit the
streets of LA.

JOHN WALKER:
Where are you from?

WOMAN:
Mexico. I'm from Mexico.

And do you have
assholes in Mexico?

Yeah, of course we do.

I believe that all countries
have assholes.

I mean there's not one
country that you can say

that there are not
assholes at all.

WOMAN:
Privileged behaviour
is on the rise

and people seem to think

that it's ok to say and
do almost anything.

They treat folks like
they're invisible

and I think it's
so unfortunate.

JOHN WALKER:
Have you had to deal
with assholes?

MAN:
All the time. Everywhere
you go you have to.

You have no choice.

MAN:
There is assholes everywhere
like I told you.

Yeah, every place.

JOHN WALKER:
You ever come across any?

Uhhh...Not today.

MAN:
I work in construction so
everybody is a fucking asshole.

WOMAN:
I had an asshole fiancé. Yes.

He didn't appreciate
me, so.

JOHN WALKER:
What did you do?

I flushed him down the toilet.

WOMAN:
Goodbye!

JOHN WALKER:
You have to deal with this
behaviour yourself?

Like have you come
across it?I'm a big black guy.

Most people don't bother me,
you know what I mean?

If I look just
without smiling.

WOMAN:
Well I think that
starts at home.

It starts in the
beginning.

Today's people
think it's ok

that they don't have to
listen to nobody.

If they don't respect
their parents,

they not gonna respect
anyone else.

That's the way
I look at it.

JOHN WALKER:
I met psychotherapist,
Suji Gelerman at home

on a break from
her LA office.

I asked her if LA was a
fertile ground for assholery.

SUJI GELERMAN:
Where are the assholes?

Well, Hollywood has a large
percentage of assholes.

MIRANDA:
You're an asshole!

JIM:
I'm the asshole?
She's the asshole!

She never called me once
after we broke up.

CARRIE:
That's because
you're an asshole!

I think there's a higher
percentage of narcissists

feeling like assholes because
they just don't consider you.

And in the way that Aaron
would be talking about

that you have a certain kind
of moral high ground

that you're better
than other people.

Narcissists don't even
know there are other people.

Okay, so If they don't know,
there's other people how can

they even really process the
fact that they're being mean

to you or unforgiving,
or unkind, or negating.

You don't really exist.

JOEY:
Bitter self-righteous hag
who has no friends.

KAT:
I guess in this society being
male and an asshole

makes you worthy
of our time.

The tyranny of assholdom, one
of the places that people don't

talk that much about it is
body image for women.

The tyranny of what it's like to
be a young woman in our society,

an older woman an invisible old
women and how you're treated,

how you're treated and people
treat you really poorly.

Or young girls who aren't
the perfect body type,

how that goes.

You know, how you're talked
to, how you're bullied,

how you're bullied
by other kids,

that to me is real asshole
behaviour.

WOMAN:
Harvey Weinstein?
I think he's a perv.

I think he's a perv and
an asshole, you know?

I think he's been,
you know, again,

it's when you got more money
than you think God has and you

think you can treat people just
any way that you want to, yeah,

I think that's sad.

JOHN WALKER:
What kind of therapy do
you think Weinstein's

going through right now?

The pretense that I
read was, you know,

he's got sexual addiction
problems.

That's the least of his
problems is sexual addiction.

I think he's just probably
licking his wounds

and probably having people
around him who are willing to

do what they always did,
which is suck up.

I have worked with people and
the only reason the abuser's

changed, was they truly saw
how it was created in them,

what their behaviour was and
how destructive it was

and wanting to change.

Part of the asshole being
entrenched in entitlement is

the idea that if they're a
proper asshole and not sort of

borderline case, then that means
that I think it's extremely

difficult for them to see that
there's a different, you know,

maybe what they're doing
works for them,

their deeply invested in it,
they're really are convinced.

They really believe that
they're, you know,

entitled and special
in these ways

and that's very tough
to shake.

ROBERT I. SUTTON:
I think that the reasons, at
least that assholes I think of,

make us so angry, is that they
disrespect us as human beings.

They take away our dignity
from us, at least for me.

I mean sometimes they will do
objectively bad things from us

like take away money but, it's
this notion that when people get

upset, it's they don't feel
dignified and respected

as a human being.

[doorbell rings]

[footsteps stomp]

[door creaks]

[animal growl]

MAN:
Being an asshole
has a sort of

like an edginess
to it, you know?

Like when people say "Oh this
person is an asshole," it gets

people thinking, it's like "Oh,
what's this person all about?

Why is this person identified
as an asshole,"

and it opens the door
to let other people

get to know you,
you know?

It really puts the attention
on you, you know?

I'm an attention whore.
I love seeking attention.

MAN:
What wants to make me want to
be an asshole is just seeing

everybody else, seeing what
they're getting in life

and then seeing what I've gotten
in my life not being one,

it's a big difference.

So, I've definitely learned from
my mistakes in that category

and I've you know,
altered that, so.

Yeah, I think that's why I'm
choosing to be an asshole.

MAN:
I, I feel like anyone who
legitimately considers himself

an asshole isn't really
an asshole.

I think it's like a person who
got hurt in high school so they,

you know, "Now I'm a dick
in traffic" or whatever.

I think real assholes don't
realize they're assholes.

An asshole is somebody who
ought to know better than to be

as arrogant as he is and is
in some sense repressing,

the information he has.

In that sense, an asshole is
different from a prick who can

know perfectly well
what's he's doing.

The asshole tells himself it's
ok for one or another reason.

That's one reason why for
example a five-year-old we might

call a "little shit,"
but we wouldn't call

a five-year-old a
little asshole.

You can't be an
asshole 'til

you're old enough
to know better.

Maybe about 14 you become
eligible for assholism.

JOHN WALKER:
Can women be assholes?

WOMAN:
Absolutely. Oh, anyone
can be an asshole.

I guess in a way my mother
was an asshole...

and if you'd said what mistakes
do you think you've made,

I think she would have said,
"I really can't think of any."

WOMAN:
But I prefer to be
called a dick,

because it sounds cooler,
it's got more gusto.

It seems that among the
assholes they are,

they tend to all group,
pile up on the male side

of the gender divide.

Oh yes, there's no question
it's mainly men.

Assholes were by definition men,
but then I thought of certain

examples, like Ann Coulter
for example.

I'm sure there's others,
but I think

it's 99 percent of
them are men.

JOHN WALKER:
Do you have any
favorite assholes?

Favorite assholes?

I am the number one most
impactful artist

of our generation.

Kanye, Kanye West is
a pretty big one.

I am Shakespeare in the
flesh, Walt Disney,

Nike, Google.

MAN:
Kanye West, he's a huge
idol of mine honestly.

He just, he doesn't
work for anyone.

MAN:
I really love the way Kanye's
outlook on the world.

He's very well spoken
and does what he wants

and doesn't care what
people say about him.

Assholes are almost by
definition unhappy.

There are people who say, "Oh
I'm an asshole and I have no

"qualms about it and I,
this is how I get ahead

and so on and so forth."

When you hear somebody
say unapologetically

"I'm an asshole," he's almost
never an asshole, he's a dick.

BRUCE:
Well, I can be an asshole.

JACK:
No, Bruce you can't.

You gonna pick
that up?

Yeah, I'm sorry!

JOHN WALKER:
If someone admits to
being an asshole,

they're not necessarily
an asshole,

they're maybe a
temporary asshole.

MAN:
Oh, I've been there.

JOHN WALKER
We've all been there.

I think I was there like
yesterday, or the week before.

If you regret it later, or you
feel sorry, you know,

then that's a sign that you're
not really entrenched in that.

And now, but that's a
different thing than someone

being an asshole to you first
and then you trying to answer

and kind of now, if you think,
that guy's an asshole now

I have permission to just sort
of let my inner asshole out,

you know, then that's an
asshole move, right?

The nice guy doesn't get the
girl and the asshole does.

That asshole never
keeps the girl,

it's always the nice guy
who keeps the girl,

but definitely for a one-night
stand or hooking up,

the asshole definitely
gets it.

Our confidence is just, it
extrudes more than the average

person because we're so
confident in our self

and girls love that.

MAN:
Me and my buddies have
competitions where we go

downtown LA and just see who can
pick up the most girls' numbers

and at the end of the night, I
mean it's up to you if you want

to text them, but, I personally
only text about 75 percent,

or 25 percent of those
because, I mean,

I don't even find most
of them attractive.

Girls don't want a little
12-year-old kid, you know?

They want someone who's
like a douche bag,

who you know, dresses
like he doesn't even care,

but he looks good.

Someone that, you know just,
is cool, is an asshole.

Girls dig that.

OTTO:
You pompous, stuck up,
snot nosed,

English, giant, twerp, scumbag,
fuck face, dickhead, asshole!

How very interesting.

I always thought what I loved
about Canada is they

never thought that they
were exceptional.

You always get it
in old America,

you hear about American
exceptionalism.

It's four-year-olds believe
in exceptionalism, you know?

They stand on the edge of
the pool and shout "Hey,

daddy watch," and fall in the
pool and then come up as though

they've invented a
cure for cancer,

saying "Ahh look at me,
I fell in the pool."

[organ music]

I think Canadians in general
make terrible assholes because,

you know, we're always
very nice,

were always very agreeable.

We always try and kinda
go along with the flow,

you know, and not really impose
our presence onto situations

and I think that's whack,
that's terrible.

We don't think of Canada
as producing assholes

and it's because you're not as
insanely mindlessly competitive

as the Americans are.

You actually understand how
to keep things in balance.

JOHN WALKER:
Pesky, mean, asshole is
what you call a player

like Brad Marchand when
he plays against your team.

And a valuable player when
he's on your team.

COMMENTATOR:
The penalty here
by Brad Marchand.

MAN:
In hockey being an asshole is
kinda part of the game.

Not everyone on the ice is an
asshole, but most people are.

COMMENTATOR:
Just a little cross check and
then a turnaround spear.

Right to the mid-section.

COMMENTATOR 2:
Marchand's being
escorted out now.

BRAD MARCHAND:
You know what, things happen in
hockey and I'm not really

concerned how anyone really
feels outside of the room, so.

I honestly could not give you an
answer on why you love assholes,

it's just they're appealing
I guess. They're exciting.

They're like, they give you,
it's almost like entertaining.

There has been a serious
accusation from

the Toronto Star, that
I use crack cocaine.

I do not use crack cocaine nor
am I an addict of crack cocaine.

Assholes are people
who do things and

say things that we might
want to say or like to

imagine ourselves saying,
but would feel inhibited,

or guilty about saying
and, in that sense,

there's a vicarious, I don't
want to say satisfaction,

but interest in watching them
behave the way they do,

which is why so many
of the characters

who win our attention
are assholes.

Yes, I have smoked
crack cocaine.

REPORTER:
When sir?But no, do I?

Am I an addict? No.

Have I tried it?

Probably in one of my
drunken stupors.

JIMMY KIMMEL:
But I've realized is
Canadians are much,

much weirder than any of us
had any idea they were.

[audience applauds]

JOHN WALKER:
Generally, Americans call
Canadians nice...

and ignore them.

But elect an asshole to run
their largest city and late

night hosts like Jimmy Kimmel,
empower them with stardom.

The Canadian Prairies, known
for cooperative farming,

was the last place I thought
I'd find entitled assholes.

Yet Sherry Lee Benson-Podolchu,
found a particular breed,

when she joined The Royal
Canadian Mounted Police.

SHERRY BENSON-PODOLCHUK:
It was very much inducted right
from the very start to go along

to get along and it
was a group thing;

everybody has to
think the same.

We always support each other.

The law is sacrosanct.

Never lie.

You follow your, the
detachment commander,

whoever is your boss, whoever
is the senior officer without

question and it's a systemic
problem of the going along

to get along, protect
your own.

If you don't follow this, then
you'll be considered "the other"

and then you are a target for
bullying and harassment.

JOHN WALKER:
So what, what do you call this
kind of behavior that ensued?

SHERRY BENSON-PODOLCHUK:
This is called asshole
behaviour and I know my Grandma

would say that nice girls
don't say asshole,

but guess what Grandma?

You didn't work for
the RCMP because

there's a lot of assholes who
are wearing the Red Serge,

who are pretending
to be leaders,

when in fact they are
complete assholes.

If way back in Tisdale when
a couple of officers thought

it was funny to call me beaver
and raisin tits in the office

and in front of everybody
and on the radio,

if one other person would have
said "Hey man, shut the fuck up,

don't talk to her like that,
you're just being an asshole,"

it would have ended
it, but no,

by not saying anything,
they allowed

and condoned the behavior.

What I needed from them,

to trust them to protect
to help me,

was saying, "Hey man, don't
call her those names."

If you have a leader
who is an asshole,

the message is clear, this
is an asshole organization

and it just ripples down into
everybody and their behavior

towards each other or anyone
considered the "other,"

is that type of behavior and
if nobody says anything,

and for all these years nobody
has been saying anything,

it just continues.

JOHN WALKER:
Sherry's trouble started
when she refused to lie

in support of a
fellow officer.

In a false statement, he
claimed his foot had slipped

on the gas when he rammed
a citizen's car.

She knew he had been
drinking on the job.

SHERRY:
The retaliation was quick.

I went to get my gun out of my
gun belt and someone had gone in

there and I had a blue gym bag
and in the blue gym bag

were my personal things and
there was a dead prairie chicken

with blood dripping all over
my personal things.

When you know that there's
people in the organization that

are willing to cross that
line, it's very scary.

I decided that, you know,
just trying to handle this

in-house isn't working.

I have a leader who is
a complete asshole,

totally ineffective and would
rather side with the bullies,

the assholes, than stand
up for what is right,

which was one woman and
several male officers.

That was one of the pivotal
moments that I decided

that I have to say something
and make a formal complaint.

Yeah, it was
life changing.

JOHN WALKER:
Sherry's sexual harassment
complaint enraged the RCMP.

And it completely
disrupted her life.

SHERRY:
I thought if I work
one more day,

and I didn't know how
it was going to happen,

but I just thought, if I go into
that building one more time,

I just wouldn't,
I would die.

They are actually willing to
commit criminal behaviour.

They're willing to turn a blind
eye to violence against their

coworkers just to protect
that workplace culture,

and I left and I went
on medical leave

for quite a while
after that.

Not everybody has that
sober second thought.

I was lucky I did, but there's
many officers I know that don't,

and they kill themselves
with their own gun

because they are bullied,
they're working with assholes,

the assholes don't care about
them and it's all about

protecting the image and
protecting the way,

'well, we've always
done it this way,

this is the way we're
going to keep doing it.'

JOHN WALKER:
With no one listening and aware
she might not be the only one,

Sherry went public with her
cause, the first to do so.

SHERRY:
After my book came out, I was
out having lunch with another

RCMP officer and he said,
"Well, you know Sherry,

"the RCMP hate you.

"You know, your book didn't make
much of a scream in the press

"and they were waiting to
see if anything happened,

"and nothing did so now they
want to destroy you,

"either ruin you financially
or drive you to suicide."

And I took that as a
legitimate threat.

SHERRY BENSON-PODOLCHUK:
Would they have done
something?

I didn't know, but at
the time I felt that

it was always a
possibility.

They don't obey the law.

The two things
I was told to do.

Never lie and always
follow the law.

Well, they had violated
that all the time.

Why wouldn't I think they could
do something to harm me?

Force me off the road?

So it was a legitimate
feeling.

JOHN WALKER:
After 20 years of no response
from government,

media or fellow officers, the
flood gates finally open.

A class action suit with over
3000 women's signatures

is filed against the RCMP.

Two years later the Federal
Government appoints

the first female head
of the force.

[baby coos]

[drink gulps]

[man belches]

[baby belches]

I think human beings,
while very kind,

many of them have a
tendency always

to see how much they
can get in the world.

I mean you see this with
toddlers who are like,

you have to teach a
toddler to share

because toddlers don't
want to share.

They, "it's me, it's me, it's
me, it's the thing that I want"

and we train our young humans
out of this behaviour

as they age and then there's
this, another stage when people

are teenagers when they become
assholes again and it's

developmentally appropriate just
the way it was for toddlers,

where everyone wants what they
want and they want to have it

and they don't much care for
other people's feelings.

FILM NARRATOR:
Teenagers themselves are in
a natural state of change.

Adults are astonished
and bewildered by

the more outlandish of
today's teen fads.

Almost categorically teenagers
are assholes.

They're discovering
assholism, as it were.

JOHN WALKER:
And we try to train
them out of it.

Yeah, we do, we do try to train
them out of it or to teach them

to repress it, more to the
point and some manage to

do that or manage to repress
those impulses.

Others never
quite make it.

Most teenagers flirt with kind
of an asshole phase.

They're not really an asshole
in a sense of a

stable trait of character.

Some teenagers are going,
they're gonna graduate

to being a proper asshole
as it were and others are,

it's just a passing phase and
they're gonna grow out of it and

ok, you know, the spell
breaks, you know, they,

I don't know, go to
college and they're,

have a sense of sort of peer
camaraderie and equality

and there's some accountability
there and

"Ok, maybe my parents
weren't so bad."

JOHN WALKER:
As Aaron says, some teenagers
get over their sense

of entitlement, others graduate
into the workforce with it.

At Cornell, an Ivy League
University,

I met Jonathan Gilmore, a
student and ex-marine

with a keen sense of
empathy for others.

Did you run into any asshole
behavior in the Military?

JONATHAN GILMORE:
Yeah, oh yeah.

HARTMAN:
Are you about to call
me an asshole?

JOKER:
Sir, no sir!

I mean day one, like you get,
so boot camp's like,

you know, three months of
dealing with the biggest

assholes you've ever
met in your life.

I don't like the
name Lawrence!

Only faggots and sailors
are called Lawrence!

I mean these guys are
screaming at you,

calling you faggots, calling
you, you know,

every name in the book
that's derogatory,

and you know, physically
hurting you.

The Marine Corps is a
brotherhood, right?

It's like a lot of people
would say it's arguably

like the largest frat
in the United States.

And so I figured, ok, if I go to
Cornell then what would be

like the best decision? It
would to be join a fraternity.

I could have a brotherhood
again and I could

connect with other people.

So I was just like kind of
mingling around and figuring out

which fraternity I would
vibe with the best,

and it was just like this,
you know that like,

that just like super over macho
man masculine kind of like

ugh, like you gotta poke your
chest out and like you gotta

talk like this and like,
"What's up, bro."

It was just this like
the film Animal House.

[glass smashes]

[rock music]

When I'm your older brother,
when I'm your big brother,

I'm gonna belittle you, at
least for that first semester,

you're gonna be my little bitch
and that to me just,

that seems like huge asshole
behavior especially because

they're like 18, 19-year-old
kids and they get just a little

bit of power and of course
they're gonna run off with it,

you know? Women are objectified
they're sexualized.

It's the focus of the attention
is for all of the guys

in the fraternities to get
as much sex as possible.

Women are never main characters,
they're always pushed off

to the side and that's
fraternity life now.

We were driving down the road,
it was a pretty dark night,

there was a girl puking
on the side of the road

and some guy was like
holding her hair back.

As we went by, the guy in the
front seat, one of the

fraternity members, he said, you
know, "Don't let me around her."

Bad, like something like
"Don't let me around her,

bad things will
happen to her."

And I just thought
in my head,

it kind of like set me back
a little bit and I just thought

"Wait, is this guy saying that
he's gonna rape her

or like have sex with her?"
and so I asked him that,

I was like, "Did you mean
that you're gonna sleep

with the girl that's literally
puking on the side of the road?"

And then he said something
like, "Well I would do

what any other guy would
do in that circumstance."

And I was just like
"No fucking way",

and I asked them to pull over
and I got out.

That's what really set me
back about fraternities

in general cause I just felt
like, how is this so ok?

How are people so ok
with this behavior?

I mean you can't report that,
like what am I gonna do,

call the cops and say "Hey,
this person said he might rape

someone," but like what's worse
is that everybody around him was

totally ok with it and that to
me I think what even,

cause you can have one asshole,
but then you've people

supporting them and I think
those are almost like,

that's like worse. Like
you know it's there.

You know that guy's gonna do
that and you guys

won't do anything about it and
it's just like boosting his ego

once again and that
guy's gonna get out

and think that that's ok
and he'll find friends.

They'll find plenty of people
who are totally accepting

and willing to have
discussions like that.

SHERRY F. COLB
They have, you know, lists of
the women they've slept with,

that they write on the wall
and things like that and so

I think a fraternity is
definitely a place where

that sort of behavior can
be spread and made worse

and maybe the thing to do
about it is for schools

not to be affiliated
with fraternities.

I think of those students
at Yale University,

who, from a fraternity who
marched to the woman's dorm,

Chanting, "no means yes,
yes means anal."

And after the, uh, the
university disciplined them

and so on, people were writing
this was an attack

on free speech and
so on and so forth

and an astonishing way
to approach this.

If it had happened
30 years earlier,

nobody would have
of countenance it.

They just would have been
out on their ear,

not because of the
anti-feminism,

just because of the
vulgarity of it.

[water crashes]

JONATHAN GILMORE:
These kids are gonna graduate
and they're gonna go out into

the world and they're gonna
take what they learned from

this fraternity and they're
gonna, put it wherever

they have, or wherever they,
you know, work at.

These are like people who have
been attending these

fraternities since, you know,
like early, like late 1800's and

the money within them, like
especially at the top frats.

I mean it's millions and
millions and millions

of dollars that these people
are kind of like coming into.

And I think because of that
power, that it's nearly

impossible to change,
not even just change,

but to like obviously get rid
of the system in general.

These are rich white dudes that
have been running these things

for years and years
and years and years

and I don't think that's gonna
change anytime soon.

I had a student and he was
very disrespectful,

disruptive and so I just
stopped calling on him.

So he came to my office hours
which I knew he would do

and he said, "I'm really upset
because you don't call on me,"

so I said "I don't call on you
because I don't appreciate

your interventions in the
classroom." And he said,

"I think you're just put off
because I'm a very manly man."

So I said "No, that's
not it."

So I said, "What I'd like you to
do is when you have something

"useful to say, raise
your hand and say it.

If you have something petty and
annoying to say, don't,"

and, you know we sort, I sort
of went through it kind of,

and I had no hopes that this
would have any effect.

Starting the next day, he
became a model student

and he ended up getting
an A+ on the exam.

It was just amazing and he came
to my office after the course

was over and he said, "I just
want to thank you because no one

had ever told me that what I
was doing was a problem."

I think many of us figure
what's the point.

Like why bother, but if we
bother then this person

is likely to hear it more
than once, right?

If they, if they're
abusive.

If someone tells them and
someone else might

tell them too, maybe they
start thinking,

"you know, maybe, you know,
maybe they've got a point."

He was well on his way to being
that CEO who was abusive to

everybody and thought that
anyone who objected was just,

you know, didn't like his
manliness or whatever it was.

[clock tower rings]

JOHN WALKER:
Cornell Law professors
like Sherry,

are concerned about
asshole behavior.

They monitor their
students and have adopted

a 'no asshole rule' when
hiring in their department.

PROFESSOR:
I assume everybody doesn't
like assholes.

JOHN WALKER:
Today's conference is on how
the law can play a role

in governing assholery, from
Washington to Wall Street.

SAULE OMAROVA:
The financial services industry
in my view and I don't think

I'm alone here is a
quintessential asshole industry.

Well, when you think about that
pervasiveness of systematically

asshole type behavior in
a particular social venue.

For example, the financial
services industry, right?

Then the problem of managing
assholes becomes a structural

problem in which law can
potentially have a lot of say.

So if we make certain types of
asshole behavior systemically,

unprofitable for example,
irrational,

something that is not rewarding,
then that behavior

will naturally kind of fall away
and overall the system

will become less prone to being
overtaken by a bunch of assholes

that continue to pursue their
own private goals,

their own insatiable appetites
for private gain

at the expense of the rest of
us, the rest of the society.

You know the people who were
over-speculating on Wall Street

in the 1920's, just as those
before 2008 were acting in

individually rational manners,
but that individual rationality

kinda morphs into a
kind of assholery.

The only way to deal with a
collective action problem

of this sort, is through an
exercise of collective agency,

right? You need a
collective agent.

I think of this as a sort of
orchestra conductor, right?

Somebody who sort of oversees
and takes measures that makes it

no longer individually rational
to do the asshole thing.

The Central Bank is that
collective agent.

JOHN WALKER:
Colleagues, Robert and
Aaron share a concern

about asshole capitalism.

After the 2008 financial crisi,
Robert was an organizer

of the Occupy Wall Street
movement.

Sleeping at night under a
blanket at headquarters

in Zuccotti Park.

In the morning, he walked
across the street

to his day job at the New York
Federal Reserve.

After the crash in 2008, they
admirably started to worry

about group think
inside the Fed

as regulators and so they
decided that they wanted to

bring in somebody who would sort
of be a contrarian voice and

help them identify, you know,
mistakes they were making

or new things they can do
and so they brought in Bob.

There was a consensus, a
regulatory consensus

here in the States in the
lead up to the crisis,

that you can't really spot a
bubble developing when

it's developing and some
people were saying

there isn't a bubble. They
just can't exist, right?

That seems to me was dead
wrong. Dead wrong that they

can't exist, to say that. Of
course they occur, right?

The next thing I thought
is you can

actually spot them
in develpment.

This is not a very controversial
position now, but at the time,

of course, it was very much
against the consensus view.

Like all these recursive
collective actions problems,

they're sort of self-augmenting,

there's a snowball like
character to them.

They make themselves worse
until the credit runs out.

That's what was going on
in the lead up to 2008.

That was going on in the
lead up to 1929, as well.

It's nonsense I think to say you
can't spot that sort of thing

happening in advance.

Unfortunately, many American
regulators in the lead up to

2008 did think that you couldn't
spot them in advance.

The Feds failure to understand
its role as a collective agent

meant to sort of orchestrate
doings on Wall Street.

To act as a kind of a
conductor of Wall Street.

In the 1920's, almost directly
brought us the calamity that was

the Second World War, the
calamity that was the Nazi

rise to power in Germany.

The calamity that was the
Holocaust and the like.

It's a very tight
direct link.

I actually think if there hadn't
been the bubble and bust

in this country in the
20's, I don't think that

the Nazi party ever would
have become anything more

than a fringe party in Germany,
in that time.

There's certainly no reason to
think that it would have been

because, or would have
done, because it,

there was never any sign of its
getting out of the fringes until

the crash and until the German
economy plummeted too because

it was so completely dependent
on the American economy,

in the 1920's.

AARON JAMES:
I don't know what it is, but
something about this

place makes me think
of assholes.

ROBERT HOCKETT:
Yeah, I know what you mean.

There's a distinct
air of it here.

Yeah, a very poignant
sort of pungency to it.

The most foul mouthed people
are the investment bankers

and I'm sure that when you
go see things like Wolf,

what is it, the
Wolf of Wall Street,

you know, that language is
typical of the language

they actually use
all the time.

Very vulgar. Very harsh.

Very assertive.

JORDAN:
It was like mainlining
adrenaline.

STOCKBROKER:
Yeah fuck face, look at where
the stocks at today, huh?

STOCKBROKER:
Pick up the cock sucking phone!

JORDAN:
Sorry.

I would describe that
a Hedge Fund as the,

as an asshole factory.

You know, just churning them out
in large numbers because

once you've got a horrible
group of people together,

then all they want to do is
choose other horrible people

to join them. You see
what I mean?

So that when you get an asshole
culture they're in trouble

because inevitably they're gonna
flourish more and people are

gonna become asses because they
think it's the right to do.

I think there are some people
who almost make the choice

and over a long period of
time become assholes

when they probably didn't
start out as them.

They play a shell game with
money and lawyers and all the

strange stuff and, you know,
it's like the mortgage crisis.

They were just packaging stuff
and selling little pieces of

crap and smashing them together
and calling them Triple A.

It's like, and I'm
not saying that

there aren't assholes
everywhere,

they're just a special
kind of asshole.

MARK:
We don't create shit.
We don't build anything.

No.

He thinks he's getting shit
rich, which he is, on paper.

But you and me, the brokers,
we're taking home cold hard cash

via commission motherfucker!

Right.

It is completely legitimate
and normal

and not a sign of weakness to
really worry and care about

those amongst us who are less
fortunate and who need help

and if you remove that
kind of notion from

the collective consciousness,
then you would encourage people

to adopt this other extreme
where, 'you know what,

I'm only going to care about
myself' and frequently the

rationalization that comes with
it is that well that's because,

you know, I'm owed more
than anybody else

or at the very least,

I don't care what other
people get in the bargain.

It's their own problem.

We don't give two shits
about how technology works

because all we care about
is getting fucking rich.

And so if all we
care about

is just individual
self-interested success,

if we assume that if everybody
pursues their self-interest,

without any restraints,
somehow automatically then

our society will always
be better off,

then we will have a society
in which that notion will morph

into this monstrous
idea of, you know,

"We don't care what
happens, we're rich,

"we're entitled to a better life
and we don't care

about anybody else."

DONNIE:
22 million dollars in
three fucking hours!

Can you believe this shit?

[timer ticks]

[thunder crashes]

BILL EMMOTT:
I think that when you elect an
asshole to run your country,

what you get is someone who
frames everything around their

own needs, around their
own desires

and their maintenance
in power.

You basically elected
someone whose there

to preserve themselves,
to protect themselves,

to enrich themselves and thinks
of the world as being one that

operates according to the degree
to which you can enrich others

who will support your
power, not the public,

but your supporters and by all
of its instruments that give

rise to equality, particularly
the Rule of Law that might

otherwise impinge on that
selfish person's instincts,

get undermined, bit by bit,
steadily, steadily, steady.

And that's what happened
with Silvio Berlusconi,

in particularly his second and
third times in Government.

[Silvio Berlusconi
speaks Italian]

JOHN WALKER:
Despite scandals of
widespread corruption,

use of underage prostitutes,

and a prison conviction
for tax fraud,

Silvio Berlusconi, media
tycoon, football team owner

and former Prime Minister
has dominated

the Italian imagination
for over 30 years.

Would Berlusconi be a good
example of an asshole?

EDOARDO ALBINATI:
Ah, yeah, sure, yes.

A very, good example and
an exceptional one,

so, a real great, nice asshole
for many reasons.

Assholes are so often admired by
others and they are leaders,

they are the funniest people
in your class and I had,

I remember the funniest people
in school were the assholes.

The good people
usually are flat,

I'm sorry to say that, but it's
also like this in cinema,

or movies, or in life, to
the example of Berlusconi

is again a perfect one.

JOHN WALKER:
Berlusconi burst onto
the public stage,

as the owner of the first
private network of TV stations

throughout Italy.

Filmmaker and activist
Lorella Zanardo considers

Berlusconi's seductive
television and media empire

the source of his
rise to power.

LORELLA ZANARDO:
At the beginning of the '80's,

Berlusconi's TV started
to broadcast,

[Lorealla speaks Italian]

and TV changed completely
because

they started to offer
programs where the focus

was on beautiful and
very feminine girls,

nearly naked, but
never naked,

which is very Italian
and men, older,

much older than these girls,
telling the stupid stories,

laughing with the camera
always on part of the bodies

of these girls and these girls
were many, many girls

with the idea was that with
these girls, you at home,

had, could, have no problems
in life because it was fun,

they were so erotic,
so nice, so ready

to accept man with
no problems.

[Italian music]

LORELLA ZANARDO:
Statistics say that
Italians, have two to three

TV sets in every house
in the Northern part

and in the Southern part
they have never a job,

three to four TV set
in every apartment,

so these programs were entering
not every house, every room.

So, it was quite powerful and
that period we didn't have,

computer or smart
phone, internet,

so every room had this TV set
with Berlusconi entering

and telling the story, telling
all these wonderful world,

made of wonderful, nice girls
ready to love Italian men.

Nine years ago we had the
horrible scandal of Berlusconi

and his dinner party
with girls and Ruby

and everybody was saying
"Oh, it's horrible!"

Why it's horrible?

It's exactly what we watch
every day since 30 years.

Like a Fellini dream, ah?

LORELLA ZANARDO:
Berlusconi, he made
it real.

You will remember
Anita Ekberg,

when she enters the
fountain Trevi.

It's the Italian dream.

Big breasts, blonde, there
for you, smiling,

LORELLA ZANARDO:
"Marcello", she says,
"come here."

Life is easy. It's a dream.

Berlusconi made it real and
he understood in a way

that Italians wanted
this dream.

TIM PARKS:
Italy's immensely
open to assholery.

There is a desire for
a protective figure.

There's a desire for what
the Italian's call a "Baroni",

a person in charge, the person
who decides everything,

a Godfather, head
of the family.

There's a desire for
a figure who will,

you know, find you a job, keep
you in a job, make things ok.

TIM PARKS:
Make it so that you don't
have to worry

and Berlusconi has very ably
presented himself as that

and I'm sure he actually
feels the emotions

of the person in
that role.

BILL EMMOTT:
I think Berlusconi was
the original populist

at least in a European
context.

He got to power
and built up

his support by essentially
promising to feed the

inner-selfishness of all sorts
of groups in Italian society

showing his own entrepreneurial
business success,

his wealth, his girlfriends, his
parties and so forth as proof of

what you can achieve if only you
let your selfishness fly free.

So he promised all
sorts of goodies

to those people who supported
him and under that cover,

having put himself in power,
managed to enrich himself.

We will remember this horrible
period of life

not for the bad people, but
people who are considered good

but they were silent.

So, Berlusconi's an asshole?
Yes. We too.

It's a country of assholes.

Why people haven't
stopped him.

Why people haven't,
why politician haven't,

done a law in order
to stop him?

What has happened
to us, witchcraft?

I mean 60 million people.

JOHN WALKER:
At least one person
tried to stop him.

Supreme Court judge
Piercamillo Davigo,

who famously said "The
politicians haven't stopped

stealing, they have stopped
being ashamed."

I think that the big effect of
having assholes in charge is to

kind of numb, anesthetize,

the sensitivity of the body
politic to behaviour,

to bad behaviour such
that, criminality,

theft, simple selfishness
becomes norm,

normal and indeed I think
the great terrible thing

that happened in Italy was
a shrugging of our shoulders

and saying, "Cusci van tutti."

"Everyone is doing
this and therefore,

well, it can't
be that bad."

JOHN WALKER:
Nostalgia for the past seems to
be the script Populist leaders

like Berlusconi follow.

Setting back the clock, ignorig
shifting social values,

selling asshole behavior as
the triumphant way forward.

But we don't all act like sheep
for example, Vladimir Luxuria.

VLADIMIR LUXURIA:
I remember when I was at school
once, the teacher asked me,

"Do you like men or do you like,
or do you prefer women?"

And since I was sincere I said I
like men and he said come here

and I went next to him, in
front of all the other students

and he had a stick and he beat
the stick on my hand

as a punishment so that
anyone could see.

Now it would be considered
illegal, but,

when I was a child it was
considered so normal, so normal.

To be a man at least in the time
in which I was educated,

was to show that you
are not a woman,

to show that you are not a
girl. Don't be a girl.

Don't be girlish, in
sport, in whatever.

Also, don't cry,
you're not a girl.

EDOARDO ALBINATI:
Football is not a
sport for girls...

but the problem is that
the male identity,

this kind of identity,
traditional one has not been

substituted by
anything else

and so the old model
is collapsed,

but there is not a new
model of a man.

Especially at school, all the
time I had people insulting me,

writing bad words about
me on the books,

pissing on my shoes in the
gym hour, but at that time,

they led me to think that they
were right and I was wrong.

So many act of violence,
of aggressiveness,

including rape I think I tend
to interpret them as a sort of

trying to restore the old
order, the old regime.

Only when I was 16-years-old and
for the first time I went to

a big city, a big town in Milan
and I went to a gay discotheque

and I saw people like me having
fun, drinking, dancing.

I realized that no,
there is another opportunity.

You can be what you are and
be happy at the same time;

have fun.

So I began to think, so, these
people were not the right people

they were assholes.

Because they were trying
to ruin my life

and so from that time
I decided not to obey to

what they were saying
but to fight them.

[parliament applauds]

VLADIMIR LUXURIA:
I was elected in the Italian
Parliament in 2006 until 2008.

I remember Berlusconi.

Berlusconi, he was closing
all his reunions,

you know, in the squares,
saying this as the last words,

"Do you want that in Italy
people like Vladimir Luxuria

would be elected into
Parliament?"

And all his fans were shouting
"No!" but I was elected.

JOHN WALKER:
Well into Berlusconi's regime
the Economist magazine decided

to challenge his outrageous
governance.

Bill Emmott was the
chief editor at the time.

Yes, it was worth that attention
because of the potential of

the same behavior moving
into other countries,

into France, into Britain, into
the United States into

all over the Western world.

So it became a kind of case
study, in what could happen

in a new mediatic world where
assholedom could be amplified

and sadly we have seen it
spread into other countries.

Had he come to political
maturity at the time of Twitter,

of social media.

I think he would have used
Twitter and social media

because again, as subsequent
characters have shown us,

it provides a way to give
a direct communication

to the people unfiltered by
the rest of the media.

JOHN WALKER:
The free flow of information
has always been the US mantra.

It's given American tech
companies an unregulated

freedom to profit from
addictive software,

abuse of our privacy and
corporate monopolies

with unprecedented power.

Silicon Valley is really
interesting.

It's breeding a so to speak
a new variety of asshole.

People who believe that in
virtue of having accumulated

enormous amounts of money or in
virtue of being on the cusp

of accumulating enormous
amounts of money,

they're entitled to ignore the
ordinary sanctions that attach

to behaving in
certain ways.

MARK ZUCKERBERG:
We're all here because we're
optimistic about the future.

We have real challenges
to address,

but we need to keep that
sense of optimism too.

AARON JAMES:
Zuckerberg is, you know,
another case in which,

you know, 'move fast and break
things,' was a slogan for

a while and he explains it as,
well he doesn't want his

creative people to be tied
up with perfectionism,

you know, they should
be free to fail

and sort of move on
to other things.

Not following the herd
or being, you know,

completely opposed to
everything that came before

and you can see how that
would lead to assholery, right?

It really does, It
sort of says,

"Dude, you don't care what
other people think.

"You don't care about the way
that it's always been done.

"You know, you're charging
forward towards the future and

the future is going to break
everything from the past."

I mean it sounds like
a rampaging toddler.

If a consequence of Facebook,
'moving fast

and breaking things,' is that it
breaks democracy or democracy

becomes a shell and the
historic march of democracy

is ended and we have a
resurgence of authoritarianism

and sort of papered over
formality democracy.

That's not something
that can be undone.

That's not something that
further technological change

is going to repair
or fix, you know?

It's not something that
would ever justify,

you know, Zuckerberg's,
you know,

aggressive growth policy and,
you know, lack of care.

MARK ZUCKERBERG:
It's clear now that we didn't
do enough to prevent these

tools for being used
for harm as well.

And that goes for fake news,
for foreign interference

in elections and hate speech
as well as developers

and data privacy.

Each apology seems very
sincere, right?

He really means it. I mean he
knows how to apologize.

That's not something assholes
usually know how to do, right.

But, you know, it's the same
really good apology over and

over again without, you know,
sort of the action you would

think if the previous ones
really were sincere.

We didn't take a broad enough
view of our responsibility and

that was a big mistake and it
was my mistake and I'm sorry.

You know, if things really
do go for the worse,

as bad as they can go
now for the U.S.

and for other countries
then Zuckerberg what?

"Oops," You know?

It's like "oops", you know,
it's not excusable, right?

It's not just an innocent
mistake.

LESLIE MILEY:
The fact of the matter is,
we've been putting assholes

in charge of companies
for the last 25 years

and very young assholes.

20-something-year-old,
privileged, for the most part,

white men who don't know
their behavior is

the behavior of an asshole.

BETHANYE MCKINNEY BLOUNT:
If you work in Silicon Valley
and you have never dealt with

an asshole, you've probably
never done anything that's

that hard and you're
probably a white guy.

Like those two things are
probably true at the same time.

Nothing against being
a white guy, that's,

but I think you need to have
both those things be true

for you to be like "Oh no, I've
never dealt with an asshole

in Silicon Valley."
Really? You haven't?

Mmhmmhmm, I don't believe you.

Tech is, from a cultural
standpoint,

is still stuck in
the brogramming,

you know, me, me,
me, me culture.

JOHN WALKER:
You said brogramming?

Brogramming is this
concept of guys,

you know, particularly
men, males,

young males getting together to
create the next big thing.

I would explain to people
that I was a woman,

but I had, also if you were
going to compare me to

the various types of nerds
you wanted to overlay,

I was like "no, I'm basically
like the bare-footed,

"neck beard guy in the corner
with five monitors who doesn't

"talk to anybody and works
all night. Like, that's me

That's who I am. I just
don't look like that guy."

So there's always
been some like,

"you're not enough" exclusivity
that's been cultivated.

I've always been fascinated,

that the great inventors
in IT are nerds.

Because why would you want
to spend all your life,

you know what I mean, fiddling
around with little bits of,

and see what's happening
on the screen,

probably 'cause you don't
terribly much enjoy

other people's company.

So, I, it's terribly great
that we have these people,

and that they make these
great discoveries,

but I think the great mistake
is to listen to them

when they start telling
us how we should live.

And let's be honest, If you
give a 24-year-old 10 million,

20 million, 50 million, a
hundred million dollars

in funding, do you really expect
them to have good behavior

all the time? Do you
not expect to change

who and what they are and
how they approach things?

You've just given somebody
who's really done nothing

in their life, like their entire
life, they've done nothing,

now they have a hundred
million dollars,

that's just going to enable
bad behavior.

I think that the effect
of the platforms,

Twitter, Facebook and other
social media platforms on us is

to basically give vent to the
worst aspects of our nature.

It gives us a platform
to be bigoted.

It gives us a platform
to be prejudiced.

It gives us a platform to
sound off on people.

It gives us a platform
to abuse people.

Now, we had those already,

they were called bars and we
said what we thought about

people in bars, but the point
about social media is that it

gives the potential to amplify
those voices on a huge scale.

And that's a new phenomenon.

The New Yorker had a cartoon
in the '90's you may remember.

LESLIE MILEY:
It was two dogs at a
computer and it said,

"On the internet, no one
knows you're a dog."

[Leslie laughs]

So, it is so appropriate
to today

and I do think that the
ability to launch an attack,

an anonymous attack
against people

has kind of like really lowered
the expectations of behavior.

Probably the strongest assholes
in contemporary world

are the social haters.

JOHN WALKER:
Trolls.

Haters, I think I prefer
haters, yeah.

So, it's a way of, it's the
easiest way of hate.

I had the opportunity with an
Italian TV program, Le lene,

to meet one of
my assholes.

JOHN WALKER:
Mary Sarnartaro is a renowned
stand-up comedian

and host of Le Iene,one of
Italy's most popular TV shows.

MARY SARNARTARO:
Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!

JOHN WALKER:
Her job, is chasing
after assholes.

For the program Le lene,
I try to...assholes.

JOHN WALKER:
Squish?

Squish assholes, yes.

JOHN WALKER:
You're hunting assholes?

Yes, si, si.

If you have a camera for them,
it's as you have a gun.

A man who was writing
to me all the time,

"I want you to hang, I will
give you the rope.

"Why don't you kill yourself?

"I will give you the gun.

"You are a fag.

You're not a man, or
you're not a woman."

All the time, all the time.

I was in the car,
they cheated him.

VLADIMIR LUXURIA:
The TV program say that it was
going to meet another person

of the TV even though
it was me.

[Mary speaks Italian]

[both speak Italian]

MAN:
Vladimir Luxuria?

He became pale, he
began to tremble,

he didn't know what to say and
I said, "You know who I am?"

And he said, "Oh, yes, I know,
you're Vladimir Luxuria."

"No, I am the person
who should hang.

I am the person who should
kill himself."

VLADIMIR LUXURIA:
At the end of the story,
I understood that this,

this boy was just, in
Italian we say "sfigato",

he's just a poor guy,
miserable and not,

he doesn't, he does not
have a girlfriend,

he, problems in the family,
problems at school.

I had pity on him, you know,
I would say,

so, I'm sure that all the
people who are asshole,

actually they have
their own problems,

you know, they have
their own problems.

JOHN WALKER:
Once you've exposed a troll,
are they finished?

Continue to be a troll?

Uh, no, they continued.

JOHN WALKER:
Ah.Yes.

Sometimes they
finish, sometimes,

but, more times
they continue.

It's almost impossible to stop
terrible behavior online because

as soon as you block
a troll, right,

another one springs up and
as soon as you try to enact

a structural means of
blocking trolls,

where you say like some kinds
of speech are acceptable and

some are unacceptable, there are
whole mobs will rise up yelling

"Free speech, free speech,
liberty!"

Now imagine if all you are
doing is talking to

your Alt-right friends, or
your white supremacist friends

and you're only sharing articles
and you're only sharing

information and you're only
sharing the things that

you believe in and that
inflame your passions,

and you do this for days and
weeks and months at a time.

You're going to feel
very emboldened.

You know, you, you know, we talk
about the radicalization,

it was like "How was this
person radicalized?"

I mean it's not just Islam where
people get radicalized, right?

It's white supremacists
get radicalized.

It's, you know,
anti-abortion people get,

you know, become radicalized.

Radicalized? Yeah,
radicalized.

You know, even Black Lives
Matter people get radicalized.

They all do if they stay
in that echo-chamber.

Well, I think we do need to do a
lot of work on that right now,

yeah...

because all the media we
have invites us to feel

extremely righteous and to be
utterly sure of our own position

and not to pay too much
attention to the other guys

and to allow ourselves to
be led towards showdowns

which are clearly not in
anybody's interest.

It's frightening that we had
an entire group of people

think that, a population of
people that think that Obama

was born in Kenya based
upon social media.

I mean it's like, I hate to
give, you know, anybody credit,

but alternative facts
are real, right,

and wow, there's
a statement,

alternative facts are real,
they're real for some people

and how do you combat
that? I don't know.

I mean, I really hope that
Reddit and Facebook and

Twitter get a handle on it and
Google gets a handle on it

because if people don't know
what's real they're only gonna

evoke their emotions and
they're never gonna vote and

they're never going to engage in
a conversation that can be moved

forward because it's not based
on fact and that's where,

that's the world we're
living in right now

which is a world increasingly
not based upon fact

and that should
concern us all.

MAN:
Modern assholeness is a failure
of communication.

It's very making
communication one sided

so there's not like a
dialogue going on.

It's very top down
kind of like,

you are speaking down
to everyone,

like it's sort of like...

I was about to say being an
asshole is sort of like

bullying, but I mean I
guess it is bullying,

like it's the same thing.

Like I said, I have a lot of
followers and I live my life

by "If you don't have
anything to benefit me,

then I most likely
won't talk to you."

I have a lot of people reach out
to me to either like be my

friend or like work with me and
stuff and I always look at their

following or just who they're
surrounded with and if I don't

think that they can benefit me,
I 100 percent won't talk to you.

It's about eyeballs, right and
if you keep people engaged in

your platform, you're not gonna
do something to stop them.

I can, I am going to make
a very bold statement

backed up with no
facts whatsoever.

Facebook could eliminate 90% of
their fake news tomorrow.

It would hit their revenue
in such a way

that it would send their
stock price crashing.

What do you do?

That's the dilemma.

The same thing with Twitter.
Same thing with Google.

I think those organizations
have a responsibility

that they have abrogated.

JOHN WALKER:
Silicon Valley's freedom to
break things without regard

to its' social impact,
may come to an end.

When Washington calls on
CEO's like Zuckerberg

to face inquiries, it's clear
they are concerned.

Google's CEO on the other
hand, refused to attend

his government's inquiry,
sending lawyers instead.

The European Union took action,
suing Google 5 billion dollars,

for anti-trust violations.

It remains to be seen,
if US regulators

will follow the
European lead.

Why is it happening in Europe
and not in Washington?

Well, of course these are
American companies

and therefore, European
regulators are a bit more

inclined to push back
against them,

but also they are not subject to
the same political donation

influence that the Washington
authorities are.

Google has become the biggest
campaign finance donor

in congressional elections in
the latest couple of cycles.

Facebook is also a big donor.

The European commission
is immune to such

direct financial influence.

JOHN WALKER:
Regulating this corporate
entitlement

with Silicon Valley or Wall
Street companies is a challeng.

Here at Baird, a multinational
wealth management

and equity firm with
client investments

of 77 billion dollars.

Their philosophy is carved
into the woodwork:

trust, teamwork, respect,
and a 'no asshole rule.'

Literally the day I got here

I put into place the
'no asshole theory.'

One: not going to hire 'em,

or tolerate anybody who puts
himself ahead of the firm,

or the clients and we're
going to only do business

with people who are high
integrity.

When I'm recruiting people,
I tell everybody this,

I say "If you're an asshole,
don't come. You'll be fired."

JOHN WALKER:
So where did you come up,
like the use of the word.

Can we talk about the
use of the word?

I don't know, I just did because
I kept calling all these bad

people at Kidder, Peabody
assholes and I'm not

gonna work with those people
anymore and one of the reasons

that I came to Baird, with a
smaller firm, was to get away

from that to be
perfectly honest.

LESLIE DIXON:
It was controversial.

There was some conservatives
in the firm who were like

"Oh my gosh you can't
say that out loud",

and then there was others that
you can tell just loved it.

It is what it is and, and we
talk about it openly and some

people will temper it to the "no
jerk rule," but a lot of people

have gotten use to just
saying "the no asshole rule."

It begins with the respect
of every individual

and that is the core value is
every person, what they do,

what they accomplish, what they
add to the enterprise is core to

our success and every individual
is important and when you have

that basic respect, then
you can build trust

and our business is all about
trust and if you build trust,

you'll get, and you do that long
enough then you've built

a certain pride that
creates an energy

and dynamic of its own but the
foundation is the respect for

the every single individual
in the firm.

When we interview people, we ask
our receptionist who meets them

all, what they thought of that
person as they were waiting for

five minutes and we'll hear the
stories of "Wow, they were rude,

they were condescending," and
we have said no to people.

Yeah, look I can't tell you
the number of conversations

where I said "You're right
Joe, you're really special.

You're so special, you need
to work someplace else."

And you mean that and when
you do, people cheer you

because the greater
good prevails

and it's a winning
strategy for us.

JOHN WALKER:
The strategy is working so
well, they are number four

on Fortune's 100 Best
Companies to Work For,

and the top financial
firm on the list.

The firms that are in the
top 100 great places to work,

outperform their peers two and
half, to three, to one,

in terms of returns.

PAUL PURCELL:
This difficult behavior
by Wall Street oriented,

larger firms is a
huge plus for us

because we're very different.

Here at Baird, two out of three
people are shareholders.

So, what, what we say to
people is, "It's your firm,

behave accordingly,
protect your firm."

It is a very powerful message.

You're an owner, protect
your franchise

and you make people
accountable.

It's that long-term
orientation that is,

that's missing from most
of Wall Street.

[office chatter]

You know, in 2008 and 2009, one
of the beautiful things that

we were able to do, was not
lay anybody off.

And they were throwing
thousands, tens of thousands

of people out between September
of '08 and March of '09 and

that we kept our trust with
all of our associates

and then we came out of the
downturn just roaring.

But it goes back to
how you were raised

when it was all
said and done.

You know, were you raised
in a family

and with really good
core values?

People go, "Oh, it can't
be that simple." It is.

You either have it or you don't
and you can't drift.

You can't drift.

In the asset management
business,

we call it style drift.
We cannot drift.

We need to stay back and every
time there's a big issue

we need to, we go but does
this, is this consistent

with our core values and
if it is you do it.

If it's not, you don't.

It's really pretty simple, but
it takes a lot of discipline

and a lot of focus because,
you know, like

"Well, just this one time,"
right and you're like "No!"

You can't do that, and
then, 'cause if you do

then people won't trust you.

JOHN WALKER:
After grasping the destructive
impact of asshole behavior,

and the courage it takes
to push back, I asked Aaron

if he felt anything had changed
since he wrote his book.

The asshole explosion was
something I never would have

guessed would ever happen when
I started thinking about,

I mean, I sort of described
it in abstract terms,

but if you'd have told me
that our country was headed

towards something like that,
I would have been shocked.

I mean at the time I thought
we were on the precipice,

right and then what
happened was,

we just you know,
went all in

and, you know and now it's
really sort of our fate's,

you know, unclear.

JOHN WALKER:
Are you worried?

Yeah, yeah, I'm worried,
yeah. I am worried.

[soft piano music]

JOHN WALKER:
I have Aaron to thank for his
warning of the rising tide

of assholery and for a journey
that leaves me hopeful about

the resilience of
human decency.

You know, if you walk and you
see somebody being an asshole

with someone, with a woman,
with a girl, with a dog,

with a gay, with a transgender,

with an old people, with
a foreigner, whoever,

and you decide just, you
pretend you haven't seen,

then you are the same
asshole like him.

If you decide to react,

then you are doing
something really big.

Like a little stone, you know,
in a pool of indifference.

Little rings that go wider
and wider and wider

can reach longer distances.

[soft piano music]

[soft piano music]