Assholes and cancer have a lot in common

The people who confront cancer — the doctors, the patients, the families and friends of those patients — I’ve heard them refer to cancer as an “asshole” of a disease.

The people who confront assholes — people whose lives are harmed by con men, bullies, and corrupt politicians who lie, cheat, and steal — I’ve heard them refer to those assholes as “a cancer” on society1.

I’ve come to believe that there’s more going on here than just anger and hyperbolic wordplay. I think that quite literally, a common mechanism is at work here which bears closer examination.

What they have in common: they exploit flaws in the way we decide what to trust.

It’s an inside job

The “con” in con man comes from “confidence,” someone who creates artificial trust, looking more like a friend than an enemy. These attacks are an inside job — the kind of attack which we are just not good at dealing with.

Our immune system works by identifying pathogens as outsiders. But cancer cells are not foreign invaders, they’re cells from our own body. They all grow from other trusted cells in our bodies.

Similarly, autoimmune diseases are not outsider attacks. The attackers are trusted members of our own immune system, mistakenly attacking fellow cells that belong to the same body.

When we trust con men and corrupt politicians, they are not outsiders. We give them access to our lives and our bank accounts, we vote them into office, willingly giving them power over us.

Us and them

The first line of defense in a security system is having a way to detect outsiders. Historically, we bond with members of our family and our tribe, those who resemble ourselves. We stick together for safety and survival.

In modern times, security systems use ID badges and passwords to distinguish between “us” and “them.” In polarized social media, we proclaim our loyalties as virtues. We instantly recognize and assign “us” and “them” labels to everyone we encounter. At the Thanksgiving table, we’re aggravated the most by relatives who should be “us” but turn out to be “them.”

The immune system is a security system that also distinguishes between “body” and “foreign.” Invading pathogens are recognized as foreigners. Agents of the immune system, like T-cells, are dispatched to eliminate them.

These credentials are no good

Insiders thrive by seeming trustworthy, so they carry irrefutable proof. When deciding whom to trust, we often turn to credentials. By displaying the right credentials, a person (or a cell) often can carry on without further questioning. The credentials are a form of time-saving shortcut, a talisman of trust. They save everyone the hassle of repeated investigation.

Insiders have solid credentials, and outsiders don’t. No matter how secure they are, credentials are nearly useless against insider threats. An executive who embezzles has all the valid credentials for the company that hired them. Cancer cells display all the right proteins to avoid being recognized as enemies by our immune system.

To stop an insider attack, you have to ignore the very credentials you issued, and investigate those who are carrying them. Instead of subjecting outsiders to scrutiny, you’re stopping and questioning members of your own family. No wonder it’s painful, risky, and inefficient.

Manipulating the lawmakers

To fight diseases, your body has an immune system, and to fight crime, society has laws. These are meant to define what is unacceptable behavior, and to put a stop to it. The immune system regulates disease in the body, and the legal system regulates dangerous behavior. These systems are not perfect, but they tend to keep us safe and alive.

If cancer and assholes only attacked ordinary neighbors and stole from them, they would eventually get caught. To avoid capture, they have to manipulate the very systems that are in place to catch them. They use artificial trust to achieve impunity.

Cancer and autoimmune diseases thrive by manipulating and evading the immune system that’s supposed to stop them. Criminals thrive when they corrupt the legal system that’s supposed to catch them.

Co-opting the enablers

While the immune system or justice system are supposed to stop threats, cancer and criminals continue to get support from those who unwittingly enable the behavior.

By going about their business as usual, these enablers make it possible for cancer and criminals to thrive. As a tumor grows, the body provides it with nutrients, blood vessels, everything that it needs to survive, because the body continues to trust it. Criminals accumulate wealth and power, and enjoy full access to the best that society can bring to them.

So what

Cancer and assholes have a lot in common, and not just metaphorically. They are resilient because they rely on artificial trust, the manipulation of mechanisms that normally are supposed to protect us from them.

  • they are hard to fight because they’re insiders, not invaders
  • they have valid credentials, and seem trustworthy
  • they corrupt the very systems that are meant to catch them
  • they are supported by enablers who provide what they need

Most of us manage to resist a life of crime, and our cells mostly don’t get cancer. But what is the mechanism of getting permission to harm others? How do we regulate ourselves, and govern our own behavior? And once the line is crossed, is this transformation reversible?

  1. U.S. Strategy on Countering Corruption, US White House briefing room statement, December 6, 2021. 

December 2021
See also