Of the Word "Badass"

I have always disliked the term "badass."

There seem to me many reasons for this. There is, for instance, the fact that I am just not a fan of the formation of compound words which tack the word "ass" onto some other term for emphasis, or other such effect.

However, what I particularly dislike about the term is how much it reeks of the unhinged worship of self-assertion at its most idiotic and its meanest--the worship of the bully, the worship of the asshole, that seem deeply reflective of the derangement of this culture.

This is all the more in as, if the term's origins are admittedly obscure, it seems that "badass" was once Marine Corps slang for those who merely postured--those who were not really tough, but just ostentatiously acting as if they were. The poser and the faker.

Those of conventional mind who consider such a bit of etymological history might remark how usages change; how sometimes they can even be "reclaimed" so that what was derogatory becomes complimentary, a matter of pride, like some oppressed minority which turns around the words once used to put them down.

However, whatever one thinks of such notions (I admit to not thinking much of them), "badasses" were never "oppressed" by others. Badasses were far more likely to be doing the oppressing--and those who oppress others deserve every bit of opprobrium they get for it.

Thus it seems to me worth thinking about in a different way--the usage of the word "badass" reflecting not reclamation, but confusion. As characteristic of a culture that, in that unhinged worship of self-assertion at its most idiotic and its meanest--the worship of the bully, the worship of the asshole--has lost the ability to tell the difference between those who are really tough, and those who just pose as tough, the real thing and the poseur. Or maybe even stopped caring at all about the difference because its worship of these things is so out of control, and frankly because whatever handle on reality it ever had has totally gone.

Because that is exactly where society broadly is in this day and age, as anyone who still has any handle on reality at all is continually reminded to their eternal exasperation.