I’ve met a fair few ignorant assholes in my time, but then I did spend some years in the legal profession.
My definition of an ignorant asshole? That’s the blighter who places his bag on the seat beside him on the bus, spits or urinates in the street, lets the door slam in your face or allows his children to run wild. Or the solicitor who, upon being told that the document he requires is no longer extant enquires “When is it likely to be?” Upon being further informed that no longer extant means gone, disappeared, never to be seen again replies “Do you know who I am?” Entitled, condescending, boorish people, the sort I’d banish to an island so the rest of us can get on with being civic-minded.
I once heard a barrister complain to the barman in a pub that us legal types frequented for lunch, that the portion I’d been given was larger than the one he’d received. Now that’s an asshole! The fact that the barman fancied me and my portion was larger was beside the point.
I have strong opinions on most subjects and am rarely wrong about anything, but I'm not an ignorant asshole about it. For example, I don’t like children, but when my friends talk about their children/grandchildren I don’t roll my eyes or change the subject. Oh no! I’m all ears. What they don’t know is that I’ve mastered the art of sleeping with my eyes open.
Indeed I consider myself quite the antithesis of an ignorant asshole, conduct myself at all times with gentility, decorum and tolerance and do not shout down or ridicule the absurd viewpoints of those who disagree with me. Faced with someone less cerebral than I spouting nonsense about net zero, cow farts, bird flu, moonwalks or Elon Musk going to Mars, I simply feign a look of extreme fascination while reciting the 12 times tables in my head until they stop. Then I file them under avoid.
There are ways of navigating this sea of mindless twittery in which we find ourselves adrift. You don't have to be an asshole.
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The images are my own, random photos taken on Dublin streets.