At the paper where I am editor, a grating, obnoxious kid was (by process of elimination) selected to fill my old position. It’s pretty clearly going to end as a train wreck; the only variable is the carnage. How do I know? By his use of “we…”

Just days after being hired, the above-mentioned employee was caught explaining the hiring process that “we” (emphasis on his role) had decided on for recruitment. “What WE look for in a new employee is…” “We’d love to have you work with US.” It was if he had been working there for years instead of being not much fresher than the targets he was talking down to. And then of course the progression led to remarks about a company culture that he had yet to contribute to, implying about power he simply didn’t have, and generally ignoring every unwritten rule that people hold dear. As is usual for these types, they quickly absorb and draw from the past even though they’ve yet to establish themselves in the present.

We-people are worse than “Yes” men because at least the latter defers to your authority. For them, there is no “you,” only an “us” or a “we.” And by that they really mean “I” and “me.” We-people by their very nature consider themselves to be your equal–and soon to be superior. It implies rather overtly that since they’ve so quickly included themselves as an integral part of the group that their upward trajectory will soon make them its leader.

More than anything it symbolizes a presumptuousness and a lack of respect that almost always ends badly. It takes a certain lack of shame to simply shrug off the social cues that come along with joining a new organization. This is a lethal combination. It is almost always followed by regular efforts to take credit for things they had no part in. They’ll begin to discuss accomplishments logged long before their entrance, they’ll mention “decisions” and the reasons they were made despite not have having any role in making them. And then, like a virus, they start to attach themselves to bodies whom they have no influence. “When we do _______, we like to consider _______.” Which of course is news to the people who actually do the considering. Their authority becomes whatever authority they’ve decided to include themselves as part of. Their role is whatever they’ve chosen it to be.

When you hear that first premature “we” make a mental note–it could have just been an error. If it starts to become a pattern, get out while you can. Or you’ll be dealing with their ego and obliviousness for the rest of your life. Just cut them out completely. They are leeches. They’ve indicated an ability to act unethically and insultingly and that is never a positive. The real danger though is in what they bring out in other people. Their subtle threats bring out the turf-warrior in even the most laid-back people. It leads to gossip and scheming when that energy ought to be spent elsewhere. Riding on the coattails of “we-men” are epidemics of suspicion, anger, disgust and diminished credibility. And I think that is rightfully so, because more than workplace strategy this is a personal defect–an indication of a real douchebag.

And of course, everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes it’s just a slip of the tongue. People say “we” in a respectful, deferential way all the time. Not that this is about due paying or anything as petty as that. Nor is it ultimately about respect It’s about how that person conducts themselves and how they treat people and then how that affects their productivity and value. Ask the same questions about your friends. It ought to be examined in a larger context–do they exhibit the other symptoms, have they begun to sidle up into territory they shouldn’t. Would you consider them to be respectful? Do you like them as a person? If the answer is on the fence for any of these, cut your losses while you still can.

Final Note: This is an especially important topic for young people. No adult wants to feel like you’re plotting on the side to push them out of the way. You do NOT want to be the asshole kid with no tact, no respect and a bad attitude. Whether you like it or not there are certain leagues and age often determines your entry. Always remember–if you’ve been lucky enough to skip ahead–that you ought to treat it like the privilege that it is. Until it’s time, there is no “We.”

On Friday I took a bus in LA (which of course I didn’t pay for–tragedy of the commons my friends) and I ended up talking to one of these ladies. Miss Mercy, actually, a famous groupie from the 60’s and 70’s who slept with Chuck Berry, Al Green, Johnny Otis, Frank Zappa, Brian Jones (of the Rolling Stones) and a whole bunch of others. She was best friends with Pamela Des Barres who wrote “I’m With the Band” and “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” and a couple others. In fact, there is a while chapter dedicated to her in the latter book. As far as girls in LA and the party scene, they were IT and everyone knew so.

But let me tell you, Mercy is haggard. Absolutely haggard. At the risk of making a straw man argument, I did a lot of thinking about her. These groupies were products–if not the idols–of the Sexual Revolution. These were the role models and exemplars for an entire generation of teachings about sex, gender and health. When we were told “women are just the same sexually as men” these are the women they used as proof, or when they said “gender is a social construct,” this was the living, breathing, contrary information. “See, once we through off the yoke of sexual conservatism, we can all be happier.” Well, Mercy didn’t exactly turn out that way. In fact, it drove her to speed, heroin, LSD and the poverty, darkness and waste that comes ‘long with them.

The most fundamental declaration of evolutionary psychology is that, theoretically a man could have an infinite number of children a year–each ejaculation inside a woman is a potential pregnancy. A woman, even with the same of amount of sex, can only have one child a year. And that, leads to profound evolutionary implications. It simply creates a different system of pressures and rewards. A male has an incentive to be able to mentally handle multiple partners, where as a woman need only handle a substantially smaller number. It’s not good or bad, it’s simply fact and it is one that must be acknowledged.

Well it wasn’t acknowledged (in many cases it has yet to be). The idea that these women could sit down and write sexual conquest lists as though they were expecting Christmas presents is one of the biggest lies liberalism has ever created. I forgot to mention something about Mercy, she doesn’t just look haggard–she works at Goodwill. Is that the sort of case-study we want to emulate? Trust me, there is more than just a correlation with the drug use and alcohol. These are mechanisms that exist almost solely to drive and rationalize the engine they were tricked into riding on.

Step into a Women’s Studies department at any university in America and you will hear what are essentially the same delusions that they have been teaching for nearly a half-century. Concepts that have been widely contested–that STDs affect all sexual orientations equally, that gender doesn’t really exist, that gender roles are the product of modernity, that it’s merely a coincidence that across all societies ever men who had promiscuous sex were exalted while women who did it were derided, that rape has no sexual traces to it at all, that men and women think in the exact same way, and on and on and on. Of course it is very difficult, sometimes heartbreaking to admit these things. But is it any worse than the veil of righteousness used to blind people into pursuing lifestyles that ultimately end badly? Ask Dr. Drew, Samantha from Sex and the City did not see her happy ending in real life. Look at Mercy–she wasted years of her life in homelessness at the depths of a crack addiction because popular culture and academia glorified something they shouldn’t have. (To preempt a Tucker mention, there is a very key difference that I won’t get into, but even then there is a reason that that is not my life.)

So what’s the tie in to the internet? Well there is no “internet,” only life. And the key to getting past all the bullshit is listening to that little voice inside you over the mass of noise coming from the “experts.” They are wrong, almost always. But that voice? Well its served your genes for hundreds of thousands of years, and since you’re here thinking about it, it’s done a better than average job. If you’re in college, and you like what you’re doing, then by all means continue. But if you don’t–if you’re having doubts–well then fucking quit. Just because that’s how all your friends act, doesn’t mean they’re happy and it certainly doesn’t mean it will make you happy. Just because they tell you they’re having a good time doesn’t mean they actually are. And just because the Campus Health Center says a behavior is healthy doesn’t mean that it is. If you’re in a business and it all seems counterintuitive and hollow, then it probably is. For one of the few times in history, these major industries are faced with the possibility of having to start completely over again. This is your chance. More importantly though, new generations of revolutionaries have a terrible track record when it comes to being correct. So you can drink the kool-aid and become the next Mercy or you can think about it intelligently and emotionally and choose the sustainable, healthy and fulfilling path. This isn’t about sex or lifestyles–it’s much bigger than that. It’s about understanding that very often the things people say a more a reflection of what they want to believe as opposed to what they actually know. If we’re capable of tricking ourselves about sex, capable of deceiving ourselves into defecating into a bucket because Chuck Berry says so, what aren’t we capable of believing?

Last week I finished The Power Broker by Robert Caro, an enormous tome on the effects of power, vision and drive. It took me 15 days to do all 1,165 pages of the hardcover monstrosity that chronicled the rise of Robert Moses. You’ve probably never heard of Robert (I hadn’t), because his philosophy was very similar to Boyd’s–that you can get a lot done if you let others take the credit. Like Boyd, you might not know him but you know of him. Moses built Shea Stadium, Lincoln Center, Jones Beach, the United Nations headquarters in New York, the 1964 World’s Fair, Jones Beach, the Henry Hudson Parkway–fuck, he literally invented parkway–the Central Park Zoo, Bryant Park, the Triborough Bridge and just about every other major modern construction project in New York city with the exception of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Subway.

He was the “Master Builder” and as the book describes him, his achievements are on the level not of any Roman emperor but of Rome, and not so much of any generation but of entire civilizations. He had more power, more money, more tangible, physical property to his name than just about anyone…ever. His vision was majestic, inspiring and immortal. He turned swampland into world powerhouses and slums into pristine parks–congested streets into towering highways. As an unelected, untrained and salaryless public servant he molded perhaps the greatest city in the history of the world to his view. The public couldn’t stop him, the mayor couldn’t stop him, the governor couldn’t stop him, and only once could the President of the United States stop him.

But ultimately, you know where the cliche must take us. Robert Moses was an asshole. His vision, although appearing heartfelt, was simply an evolutionary tactic that gave him the means and justification for his drive for power. He was different, but not that different. He may have had more brain, more drive, more strategy than other men but he did not have more compassion. And that was his undoing.