The Asshole: John Van Maanen's Classic Article on Police Officers

This the opening page of MIT Professor John Van Maanen's delightful and insightful article  It is about the meaning and power of the word "asshole" among the police officers he studied during his now classic ethnography of police officers, which he did for his dissertation research in the 1970s. John didn't just talk to cops, he went through the police academy, rode along with them on patrols (and got involved in all sorts of crazy things like chases), and was otherwise embedded with them for a year or so.  He has since gone on to become among the most renowned organizational researchers.  John had a huge impact on my generation of organizational researchers because, when we first started graduate school, qualitative methods were generally treated as unscientific, obsolete,  and so biased as to be enticing but not anything that should ever be published in a top academic journal.  Due in large part to John's example and leadership, by the time many of us had graduated with our PhD's, there were many corners where qualitative studies had become acceptable and encouraged.  And even once exclusively quantitative researchers were starting to do qualitative studies.  There is still controversy about them in my field, but also a fairly widespread acceptance now that such methods are useful for describing organizational life in rich detail and for generating theories and hypotheses that can be tested with quantitative methods.  This is an oversimplification as academics get very emotional and anal about little differences, but I think it is as close to the truth as I can get without delving into a very dull and very long rant.

To return to John's article, the thing that strikes me is how compelling the opening and the language are -- it is impossible for me to read this, although I have many times before, without getting excited about reading the rest. That opening sentence still cracks me up, "The asshole -- creep, bigmouth, bastard, animal, mope, rough, jerkoff, clown, scumbag, wiseguy, phony, idiot, shithead, bum ,fool, or any a number of anatomical, oral, or incestuous terms -- is part of every policeman's world."  He then goes onto to turn the corner (with the help of that great opening quote) and show the reader that this language reflects sense-making and guides action in a police officers world.  I discuss this article in The No Asshole Rule, and, no doubt, it was one factor that encouraged me to write the book and have the courage to use the title. 

John's other work is equally fascinating (and even sometimes uses cleaner language). He has had a big positive effect on my field, and I appreciate it. I also love the opening line of his bio at MIT "John Van Maanen studies groups of people the old-fashioned way: by living with them."

Comments

[Brigitte]

Thank you so much for writing what is on my mind at times but can't be put into words!
I forwarded your book info to a friend going through an 'ass--le phase.
I enjoy reading your blog so much!
Happy Holidays from cold and snowy Paris.

[Wally Bock]

Thanks for kicking off some fine memories. I remember the first time I read that piece. I wished my Uncle Johnny was still alive to read it. Reading this again I remembered him and what made him so special.

John became a cop during the Depression in a large Eastern city. The family story was that he got the political patronage job by fighting other Irish boys for it. I don't know if that's true, but it sure could have been.

Years later, when I knew him, we'd sit on those "candy stores" that are still in the neighborhoods in the Northeast. He'd scan everyone who came in, then ask me to "tell me their story."

I'd always try, but then he'd add something that I missed. "See that," he'd say, "The suit's good quality, but needs pressing. The shoes are polished but the heels are worn down. He's been out of work for a while."

He thought that what he did as a young patrolman was "police work." Police work included preventing crime, responding when someone called, arresting criminals, and maintaining order.

He thought the change in language from "police officer" to "law enforcement officer" was a very bad thing because it emphasized the law and diminished the part of police work that involved maintaining order. He thought that if you got the order maintenance part right, you would have to do as much crime prevention.

One Thanksgiving, my dad and the Uncles, including Johnny, were drinking and talking after dinner. For some reason my dad shared the Martin Niemoller quote aimed at the German intellectuals in Hitler's Germany. It begins "First they came for the Communists" and ends "and then they came for me." Johnny lit up.

"That's it," he said, "You have to stop the assholes early! If you let them win once they find they like it. Then the whole neighborhood turns to sh*t."

[Richard]

This is really interesting material, as always, but I do always wish in the more "formal' literature for a recognition that in English an "asshole" as opposed to an "arsehole" is somewhere you keep your donkey...

[Randy]

The terms used must now be preceded by "alleged" to protect rights, unless the "perp" is self-identifying.

Glad I haven't lived in an area (yet) where policemen are thought of (and may even act, in some caseds) as Dwayne commented.

Here, the people who use those terms about policemen are typically, sadly, the drunks and wife-abusers who must think they see a like kind when they are stopped from continuing their abusive activities.

[Dwayne Phillips]

What I find interesting is that the terms police used are now commonly applied to police. "bullies with badges" being the most oft-used description of police. It seems that if you hate something enough you become it.