On Being a Shit: Unkind Deeds and Cover-ups in Everyday Life shows the many ways that people evade responsibility for their behaviors and, whenever possible, to blame others. I use humor and tongue-in-cheek scholarly language to contrast with the earthy term shit. I’ve thought a great deal about my use of the vernacular and decided to keep it since this is how people think about persons who dump on them. I realize that I in turn may be dumped on for using such a term.
I wrote this book for persons who encounter others who enact being shits, a broad audience indeed. For more than 25 years, I did research on serious violence, such as rape, child molestation, and murder. In their own words, perpetrators described multiple and ingenious ways they evaded responsibility for their behaviors.
As I became familiar with their tactics, I began to notice variations of them operating in everyday life among persons who had committed relatively minor unkind deeds and sought to cover them up through evasion, obfuscation, and blame. Eventually, I termed these everyday acts being a shit and decided to write a book about them. I wanted to let others know what I have learned from years of research and in so doing to help them avoid being ensnared in the machinations that are now so familiar to me.
Given my sensitization to the topic, I freely admit that I have been a recipient of unkind deeds and cover-ups and have attained expertise in enabling these behaviors. I am much better at being a recipient than an enactor, although I have some talent in that regard as well.
I am a professor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. I have an extensive publication record and have lectured, consulted, and done trainings nationally and internationally on the ideas that are the basis of the present book, as will be shown in more detail later.
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