Dammit!
Okay, well, I'm sure it will come back to me.
Meantime, let me tell you about a book I've been reading. It's called "In Sheep's Clothing" and it's about "covert aggressors," aka, that seemingly super-nice person in the corner office who actually has a knife in the back of everyone else in the hall. In fact, this person talked each of his victims into sticking the knife in their own back, for the sake of Jesus or the company or the happiness of their family ("Your wife really needs you at home these days, Bob, I can tell").
The author argues that we should see people like that for what they are--bullies who need a swift kick--and not waste time worrying about what sorts of fears or pain they might be covering up with their aggressions.
An interesting thesis. The thing is, there's something the author doesn't say.
Most aggressors, whether overt or covert, eventually get to the point where their world is filled only with other aggressors. Being fighters by nature, they go into fields where winning carries rich rewards. (I.e., they do not tend to become childcare workers or night nurses.) But, along the way, all the other fighters-by-nature have had the same idea. So they all end up in the same shark tanks.
And no matter how aggressive an aggressor is, they can be victimized every bit as easily as they can victimize others. They have blind spots and fears just like everyone else.
So, rather quickly, you get to a place where an aggressor's karma starts to catch up with them. If they've stabbed the backs, fucked the heads, or ridden roughshod over weaker people, they soon find themselves getting a taste of their own medicine. Aggressors humble each other and make each other human. They pound vulnerability into each other.
So it seems to me that the problem is not with being aggressive per se. (Unless they support a winner-take-all social policy.) (And it would be nice for people who are equally competent but less game-playing-oriented to have some slots in the more ego-dominated fields, just for the sake of diversity. They can get disability accommodations for not being natural fighters. Relational wheelchair ramps, to protect them from the aggressors around them. "Sorry, Jen," the specialized HR person will say. "Can't let you backstab Fred. He's a non-fighter.")
(I'm sure the covert aggressors will plot to be labeled nonfighters too so they can get the extra protection. The HR nanny will have to be trained to spot them. "Oooh, Julia! You were the last person to see Kevin before he inexplicably turned against George and gave you the promotion instead. Hand over your Psychological Disability Card right now.")
Anyhow!
Like I was saying, the problem is not, really, when the aggressors all get together and violently tear at each other in the nation's law firms.
The problem is when an aggressor consciously chooses to remain where the pickings are easy. The shark cuts off his fin, files his teeth and spends his days swimming happily among the dolphins. It's too easy for him, but that's the point. He can kick back and spend his days coming up with new ways to push those dolphin buttons. He knows that the dolphins will mistake his charm for kindness, his manipulations for insight. He knows that they will lick his childhood wounds (and aggressors do suffer wounds) and then let him criticize them in return. He knows, in short, that he has a sweet motherfucking deal.
The other place this happens is within the family. An aggressor has kids, and instead of protecting them, uses them in some way. He leans on them to excel so he'll look good. Or he treats them like rivals, and sabotages or inhibits them. Or he just rolls over them because he's so busy getting what he wants for himself....but he knows how to sell it so that he looks like the good guy. (Doris Lessing has publicly called herself out for this. She told her kids that it was good that she was abandoning them, because she was going to make a better world.)
Those are the situations that need to be fixed.
Still wondering what I had actually intended to say today...oh well.
