Book review: In Sheep's Clothing
I haven't been doing much writing recently, but I've read another book. It's In Sheep's Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People, by George Simon Jr. This is the revised edition of 2009, with 170 pages of large, space-and-a-half spaced type, using small words and an average of one typographical, grammatical, or punctuation error per page.
I don't recommend it.
It's not a bad book. I read it all the way to the end. It's simply not a good one. The book can easily be summed up as 'Some people are assholes. Try not to be taken advantage of by them.' The author seems to believe there are many people out there who think assholes are poor, misunderstood souls who just need hugs and love and if they got that, then they'd quit being assholes. Perhaps it is due to me having lived so long with a huge asshole and been in the company of so many others over the years that I am not not one of these deluded folk who might benefit from the book. I already know there are assholes out there and that when you find out the whole of the asshole's life history, you live with them intimately and come to understand what motivates them, you find they are not tragically misunderstood. They're just jerks, plain and simple. They abuse people because they can. They like it. Makes them feel superior and stuff.
Seriously, have these people the author speaks of never examined their own life? When the other kids bullied them in middle school and called them pizza face or chicken legs or taffy hair or whatever, did they do this because their mother abused them or their father ignored them? Did they do it because they were neurotic or had some psychopathology? No, of course not. They did it because they thought it was funny to see someone hurt and because it often made the other kids laugh and join in. From my experience, better than half the humans I've run into have this capacity and will exercise it if put in the right circumstances.
Which leads me to what I was hoping to get from the book - what those circumstances are and how I can shape my world, or at least my immediate surroundings, to avoid enabling asshole behavior. Or at least to more immediately identify them so I can exclude those jerks from my social circle. The book wasn't any good for that. It suggested the usual crap of setting boundaries, trying to force the asshole to be above-board, creating win-win situations, and so on. Useless, sort of. Really, the only constructive thing I learned about dealing with assholes is that energy spent fighting with them is energy lost. Once you've identified an asshole, cut them out of your life. The problem is that I find that so damn difficult! I keep wanting to engage with them and prove them wrong, attain some manner of submission from them! I want everyone to agree that they're assholes. I want them to confess to their sins and try to become a better person. But that never works. Give it up; get on with my own life - that's the book's advice.
One thing I found interesting was my certain sense that my ex is rather bad at being a manipulative asshole. I've been thinking that for the better part of 18 months now. Once the initial furor over the divorce calmed down, I expected my ex would see the writing on the wall and hasten to erase or write over some of it with his own version of reality. He's always been such a determined gas-lighter. Wouldn't he seek out opportunities now to tell me how I'm ruining us financially, how I'm making things hard on the kids or how this will lead to his early death? I invested so much energy into what I'd say to him and how I'd handle his accusations. I built up these defenses and yet his flounderings in my direction had left me mystified and confused, even more off-kilter because this was odd behavior from him. Not that he was nice - not in the least! - but he's not even all that good at being an asshole, something I thought he had quite the natural talent for. He's pathetic.
I was heartened to find reinforcement for my opinion that I'm not passive-aggressive. Passive-aggressive is not insinuations; it's not alluding obliquely to how someone hurt you. It's not saying forthright that someone hurt you. It's not sulking, pouting, or whining. Passive-aggressive is luring someone into making commitments or doing things for you and then refusing to hold up your end of the bargain, or inserting/volunteering yourself into events as a key player and then refusing to allow the events to progress unless you receive additional perks. I'm not that.
For those wondering, I got accused of that some months back and have been stewing about it because it didn't fit. I kept wondering if perhaps my understanding of passive-aggressive was off. Now I'm pretty sure it's not me; it's them. It's usually them, something that cheers and saddens me - cheered because it's not my problem, sad because there's nothing I can do to change it. That's another thing the book reinforced. If you think someone's being an asshole, then they almost certainly are.
I don't recommend it.
It's not a bad book. I read it all the way to the end. It's simply not a good one. The book can easily be summed up as 'Some people are assholes. Try not to be taken advantage of by them.' The author seems to believe there are many people out there who think assholes are poor, misunderstood souls who just need hugs and love and if they got that, then they'd quit being assholes. Perhaps it is due to me having lived so long with a huge asshole and been in the company of so many others over the years that I am not not one of these deluded folk who might benefit from the book. I already know there are assholes out there and that when you find out the whole of the asshole's life history, you live with them intimately and come to understand what motivates them, you find they are not tragically misunderstood. They're just jerks, plain and simple. They abuse people because they can. They like it. Makes them feel superior and stuff.
Seriously, have these people the author speaks of never examined their own life? When the other kids bullied them in middle school and called them pizza face or chicken legs or taffy hair or whatever, did they do this because their mother abused them or their father ignored them? Did they do it because they were neurotic or had some psychopathology? No, of course not. They did it because they thought it was funny to see someone hurt and because it often made the other kids laugh and join in. From my experience, better than half the humans I've run into have this capacity and will exercise it if put in the right circumstances.
Which leads me to what I was hoping to get from the book - what those circumstances are and how I can shape my world, or at least my immediate surroundings, to avoid enabling asshole behavior. Or at least to more immediately identify them so I can exclude those jerks from my social circle. The book wasn't any good for that. It suggested the usual crap of setting boundaries, trying to force the asshole to be above-board, creating win-win situations, and so on. Useless, sort of. Really, the only constructive thing I learned about dealing with assholes is that energy spent fighting with them is energy lost. Once you've identified an asshole, cut them out of your life. The problem is that I find that so damn difficult! I keep wanting to engage with them and prove them wrong, attain some manner of submission from them! I want everyone to agree that they're assholes. I want them to confess to their sins and try to become a better person. But that never works. Give it up; get on with my own life - that's the book's advice.
One thing I found interesting was my certain sense that my ex is rather bad at being a manipulative asshole. I've been thinking that for the better part of 18 months now. Once the initial furor over the divorce calmed down, I expected my ex would see the writing on the wall and hasten to erase or write over some of it with his own version of reality. He's always been such a determined gas-lighter. Wouldn't he seek out opportunities now to tell me how I'm ruining us financially, how I'm making things hard on the kids or how this will lead to his early death? I invested so much energy into what I'd say to him and how I'd handle his accusations. I built up these defenses and yet his flounderings in my direction had left me mystified and confused, even more off-kilter because this was odd behavior from him. Not that he was nice - not in the least! - but he's not even all that good at being an asshole, something I thought he had quite the natural talent for. He's pathetic.
I was heartened to find reinforcement for my opinion that I'm not passive-aggressive. Passive-aggressive is not insinuations; it's not alluding obliquely to how someone hurt you. It's not saying forthright that someone hurt you. It's not sulking, pouting, or whining. Passive-aggressive is luring someone into making commitments or doing things for you and then refusing to hold up your end of the bargain, or inserting/volunteering yourself into events as a key player and then refusing to allow the events to progress unless you receive additional perks. I'm not that.
For those wondering, I got accused of that some months back and have been stewing about it because it didn't fit. I kept wondering if perhaps my understanding of passive-aggressive was off. Now I'm pretty sure it's not me; it's them. It's usually them, something that cheers and saddens me - cheered because it's not my problem, sad because there's nothing I can do to change it. That's another thing the book reinforced. If you think someone's being an asshole, then they almost certainly are.