"A Jerk" by Sydney Harris
I don’t know whether history repeats itself, but biography certainly does. The other day, Michael came in and asked me what a "jerk" was—the same question Carolyn put to me a dozen years ago.
At that time, I fluffed her off with some inane answer, such as "A jerk isn’t a very nice person," but both of us knew it was an unsatisfactory reply. When she went to bed, I began trying to work up a suitable definition.
It is a marvelously apt word, of course. Until it was coined, not more than 25 years ago, there was really no single word in English to describe the kind of person who is a jerk – "boob" and "simp" were too old hat, and besides they really didn’t fit, for they could be lovable, and a jerk never is.
Thinking it over, I decided that a jerk is basically a person without insight. He is not necessarily a fool or a dope, because some extremely clever persons can be jerks. In fact, it has little to do with intelligence as we commonly think of it; it is, rather, a kind of subtle but persuasive aroma emanating from the inner part of the personality.
A jerk, then, is a man (or woman) who is utterly unable to see himself as he appears to others. He has no grace, he is tactless without meaning to be, his is a bore even to his best friends, he is an egotist without charm. All of us are egotists to some extent, but most of us – unlike the jerk – are perfectly and horribly aware of it when we make asses of ourselves. The jerk never knows.
