# 'Great' people who were total A-holes **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 7, 2011, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867 "2011-10-07T04:22:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2011, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/61 "2011-10-08T03:09:09Z")
Assholeishness doesn’t negate the greatness. Then again, greatness doesn’t excuse the assholeishness. I kinda wonder about the “victims” of the these assholes. We all know/are related/worked with/are victims of some raging asshole somewhere sometime. But most of us don’t have wander through society with daily reminders of how great society thinks the asshole you experienced is. My blood pressure just goes up thinking about going through that. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2011, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/62 "2011-10-08T03:18:17Z")
> [@Quintas](#): > > Hmm. That’s a new one on me. I’d heard all the other statements you posted about RFK, but not the womanizing part. It’s not shocking or anything, he was a Kennedy, I’d just never heard RFK=womanizer in the same way it is now common knowledge about his father and JFK I thought it was common knowledge that both RFK and JFK fucked Marylin Monroe raw and rotten, sometimes within days (hours?) of each other… ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2011, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/63 "2011-10-08T04:29:00Z")
Emily Murphy was the first woman magistrate in Canada and the British Empire and was one of the “Famous Five,” the group of five women whose lawsuit against the Government of Canada was responsible for getting women recognized as “qualified persons” able to sit in the Senate, establishing a crucial precedent both for women’s rights in Canada and for constitutional law (the living tree doctrine). She also published a series of increasingly fanatical editorials in which she argued that Blacks and especially Chinese were introducing marijuana into Canada in order to sap the white race and seduce white people into debauchery and moral weakness. She was almost single-handedly responsible for getting marijuana outlawed. It was to the point that many people, even at the time in the 1920s, remarked on her extreme degree of racism. ---
**Author:** ![PandaBear77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@PandaBear77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PandaBear77)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2011, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/64 "2011-10-08T04:55:10Z")
Tonight while playing bar trivia I learned that Andy Griffith broke his right hand on 4 different occasions by punching the wall during temper tantrums on the set of The Andy Griffith Show. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2011, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/65 "2011-10-08T06:41:51Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Steve Jobs was a great at designing tech devices, Not being snarky, just genuinely curious - what devices did he design? I’m pretty sure he didn’t ‘design’ the Apple 11e, but he marketed it. I know he didn’t design the MacIntosh either. ---
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2011, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/66 "2011-10-08T06:56:55Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Assholeishness doesn’t negate the greatness. Then again, greatness doesn’t excuse the assholeishness. Also this is an “eye of the beholder” kind of thing. I understand that if you happen to come upon Steve Martin and ask for an autograph he will hand you a card saying something along the lines of: “This hearby deecrees that you have met Steve Martin.” Which to me is HILARIOUS and BRILLIANT but to some people they might consider it a "dick move.’ ::shrug:: ---
**Author:** ![Kilmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a6a055/32.png) [@Kilmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilmore)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2011, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/67 "2011-10-08T07:27:29Z")
> [@PandaBear77](#): > > Tonight while playing bar trivia I learned that Andy Griffith broke his right hand on 4 different occasions by punching the wall during temper tantrums on the set of The Andy Griffith Show. I’ll give him a pass for that. He may have lost it enough to punch, but kept it together enough not to punch anybody. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2011, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/68 "2011-10-09T06:27:47Z")
Read (and “Look Inside”) [Intellectuals](http://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Marx-Tolstoy-Sartre-Chomsky/dp/0060916575) by Paul Johnson. Sartre, Marx, Tolstoy, Brecht, Ibsen, Shelley, and others: all complete bastards. ---
**Author:** ![Full\_Metal\_Lotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@Full\_Metal\_Lotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Full_Metal_Lotus)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2011, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/69 "2011-10-09T20:57:40Z")
W.C. Fields vaudevillian and comedic actor from silent era to early 1940’s. Petty, violent, paranod, cheap, alchoholic (rumoured opium addiction as well), used women and “starlets” like kleenex, (a few are rumoured to have died from botched abortions) hated small animals, blacks, jews, chinese, non whites in general. Cheated at cards and pool, refused to play anyone who had the slightest chance of beating him, or spotting his dishonesty. At the start of WW2, he bought german war bond, in case Germany won. Insisted on top billing and lead placement in shots (closest to camera nearest front of stage, etc ). Would have massive tantrums if not obeyed. His on screen persona was basically a watered down version of his real life person. Don’t get me started on Charlie Chaplan… ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2011, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/70 "2011-10-09T21:14:51Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > So I’ve heard about Steve Martin. And on the ABC National News tonight they were kissing his ass because he plays the banjo so pretty, he won some big deal Bluegrass award. Now, okay, he picks a mean banjo, but does Diane Sawyer really need to break her arm patting him on the back for it? That would be the IBMA Entertainer of the Year for the record he made with the Steep Canyon Rangers. (Incidentally, I’ve seen them several times sans Steve, most recently last night, and bluegrass bands really don’t get much better.) I have long heard that he just has no tolerance for typical fan behavior, and doesn’t like being approached by strangers. I really have a hard time thinking badly of him after he [read about my radio station in the NYT](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/us/12radio.html?pagewanted=all) and sent a significant donation check during our fund drive. It came through his charitable foundation, who insisted that we not make a big deal about it. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2011, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/71 "2011-10-09T21:44:56Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > And I lost all repect for him when he said he couldn’t understand why everyone was so hesitant to use poison gas on unruly tribes in the Middle East. Wow, you must be pretty old to remember that! ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2011, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/72 "2011-10-09T22:25:55Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > But you **don’t** have to be verbally abusive, petty, vindictive, narcissistic, and prone to irrational outbursts to be Great. In fact, I’d say it helps if you’re not. I beg to differ – “great” people achieve success by being naturally driven, uncompromising, and perfectionist to a fault. Paradoxically, these qualities which make them tend to act like jerks are the same virtues which allowed them to achieve success in the first place. Very few people became successful by being meek and submissive. **“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”** – George Bernard Shaw ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2011, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/73 "2011-10-09T22:58:16Z")
I’m an asshole. But I’m not great. So I’m halfway there. mmm ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2011, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/74 "2011-10-10T06:14:27Z")
Don’t remember who said this but, “You can either paint (or write or act or think or create or lead a nation etc.) with passion or you can live with passion. But you can’t do both.” ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2011, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/75 "2011-10-10T11:47:50Z")
> [@DoctorJ](#): > > That would be the IBMA Entertainer of the Year for the record he made with the Steep Canyon Rangers. (Incidentally, I’ve seen them several times sans Steve, most recently last night, and bluegrass bands really don’t get much better.) > > I have long heard that he just has no tolerance for typical fan behavior, and doesn’t like being approached by strangers. I really have a hard time thinking badly of him after he [read about my radio station in the NYT](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/us/12radio.html?pagewanted=all) and sent a significant donation check during our fund drive. It came through his charitable foundation, who insisted that we not make a big deal about it. Cool story. His autobiography, [Born Standing Up](http://www.amazon.com/Born-Standing-Up-Comics-Life/dp/1416553649) (Amazon), is incredibly well-written. He comes across as deeply thoughtful and intelligent, but not like a douchebag at all - unlike, say, reading \*\*Sting’s \*\*memoir, _Broken Music_. ---
**Author:** ![Namkcalb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2011, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/76 "2011-10-10T12:21:55Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > I would add Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic Roman Emperor. Gandhi had that whole “sleeping with naked girls” thing, but can we let that slide? > > Julius Caesar flouted the Roman Republic and took it over, and had the reputation for sexual conquest and general Macchiavellian behavior - while being a very successful general, politician and ultimately Emperor. The debate between his assholeishness and greatness continues to this day… I second Gandhi, Darwin and Marcus Aurelius. Three undeniably great men, who weren’t 'orrid. Julius Caesar was definately an a’hole, he wouldn’t have been able to accomplish half of what he did if he wasn’t. I would like to add the Quaker founder, George Fox to the list. He was almost always drunk, he was extremely judgemental, he violently distrupted non-Quaker Christian services and he even tried to convince Oliver Cromwell to invade Turkey and spread Quakerism by the sword. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2011, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/77 "2011-10-10T12:59:55Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > Not being snarky, just genuinely curious - what devices did he design? I’m pretty sure he didn’t ‘design’ the Apple 11e, but he marketed it. I know he didn’t design the MacIntosh either. Because he didn’t carve an iPod from the ground, you think is contribution is worthless? :rolleyes: You cannot sit at a computer, pick up a phone, or listen to portable music without experiencing something that was at least affected by something his company did. Really. Mice, Guis, Large Storage in a small device with a method of selecting one from thousands efficiently, Computers designed not to die the day after the warrantee expired, phones that aren’t a hot mess of buttons, music players the size of lozenges, the first commercially successful tablet. A well polished, pretty, device that is crazy easy to use, and easy to demonstrate…that is a hallmark of the things Steve’s company has produced over the years. It’s not any one lucky decision, it’s thousands of good ideas, executed well. It happened by having a group of insanely intelligent people pull in one direction…the external appearance being: That direction was set by one person. Steve Jobs did not ‘simply market the ][e’. Saying it doesn’t make it so, it just makes you sound like you haven’t done your homework. The big question will be: will that group of insanely talented people be able to continue with someone else as the figurehead? Of note to the thread, MANY successful things seem to derive from the motivations of single people. Ferrari, Porsche, Calvin Klein, Microsoft, Facebook, Ford, McDonalds, Ikea…many MANY successful things _appear_ to have gotten there under the leadership of individual people. It doesn’t mean Ray Krock flipped every one of those billions and billions of Big Macs. And in not submitting to ‘Design by Committee’, I suspect they all left a wake of offended people. Personal experience has shown that if you ask someone’s opinion, they’ll give it to you, and it’ll rarely help. When designing websites, I’d often get “It needs to be more blue”, or “That should be different”…I found that things actually _got done_ when, instead of asking “what do you think”, it changed to “this is what you’re getting”. Sounds assholish, but projects got done. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2011, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/78 "2011-10-10T13:26:22Z")
> [@SeldomSeen](#): > > To be sure. I’ve just finished reading _Means of Ascent_ by Robert A. Caro which tells the story of how LBJ stole his election to the Senate from TX governor Coke Stevenson. Vote buying, voter intimidation, fraud in ballot counting, you name it. Also, he was an absolute dick to his wife. Screaming tantrums at subordinates. How that asshat ever became president is beyond me… > SS I think you mean “How that asshat ever became vice-president…” How he became president is clear as day, but how he became VP isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2011, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/79 "2011-10-10T13:33:44Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I think you mean “How that asshat ever became vice-president…” > > How he became president is clear as day, but how he became VP isn’t. Maybe, like Rahm Emmanuel, he was good at politics through hook and crook and JFK wanted him both close to and under him. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2011, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867/80 "2011-10-10T15:04:11Z")
Ayrton Senna was an asshole, and a sissy too, if you ask me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-people-who-were-total-a-holes/598867.md?page=5)