Regarding Insults and Attacks
Alternating between reading/applying stoicism and Cognitive Behavior Therapy is helping quite a bit!
From "The Little Book of Stoicism: Timeless Wisdom to Gain Resilience, Confidence, and Calmness" by Jonas Salzgeber, practice 45:
"Seneca advises to look at an insulter as an overgrown child. Just as it would be foolish for a mother to get upset by remarks of her toddler, we’d be equally foolish to get hurt by insults of a childish person. People with such a flawed character don’t deserve our anger, says Marcus, they only deserve our pity.
Let’s remember that rational and wise people don’t insult others, at least not on purpose. So if a person insults us, we can be certain this person has a flawed and immature character. Irvine compares being insulted by another person is like taking the barking of a dog personally. We’d be fools to become upset by that dog and think for the rest of the day, “Oh dear! That dog doesn’t like me!”
Marcus Aurelius saw insulting people as a lesson: who not to be. “The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.” The best revenge is to let it go and be a better example.
And should we respond when confronted? The Stoics say with humor rather than a counter insult. Make a joke, laugh it off.
It can be hard to find the right words, right? So the better strategy might be not to respond at all. Instead of reacting to an insult, says Musonius Rufus, “calmly and quietly bear what happened.”
Don’t go into reaction mode with an attack, defense, or withdrawal, but let it pass right through you. As if you were not there. Offer no resistance. There’s nobody to get hurt. In this way, you become invulnerable. The insult goes right through you. That person has no power to control how you feel.
You can, however, let that person know that their behavior is unacceptable, if you choose to. In specific situations, this might be needed. We need to teach children how to behave properly in this world. When a child or even a student disrupts the lecture by insulting the teacher or other students, then the teacher needs to reprimand the insulter to ensure the right lecture environment.
The reprimand is not an emotional reaction to the insult, but a rationally chosen action to help the insulter improve their behavior, and to ensure the right environment.
One more strategy is to keep in mind what Epictetus says: “What is insulting is not the person who abuses you or hits you, but the judgment about them that they are insulting.”
If we don’t care what others say, then we won’t feel insulted. After all, other people’s actions are not under our control, so they’re ultimately indifferent. So let’s not care too much about what others say to and about us. Hear out Marcus on this: “I’m constantly amazed by how easily we love ourselves above all others, yet we put more stock in the opinions of others than in our own estimation of self. How much credence we give to the opinions our peers have of us and how little to our very own!”
Take that to heart and don’t take other people’s opinions about you too seriously. Train yourself to endure their insults. You’ll get more effective at reacting in appropriate ways, you’ll get stronger, and you might even become invincible. Says Epictetus: “Who then is invincible? The one who cannot be upset by anything outside their reasoned choice.”
(From the next practice, 46)
Seeing every situation as the championship was on the line... You’d be on tenterhooks all the time, and react to every tiny thing. It’s much smarter to be easy and shake off minor blows with a simple nod. Just dust it off as training. Nothing happened. Move on.
You don’t want to be the person who gets enraged over scratches. They take things so seriously it seems ridiculous from the outside. They think that barely visible spot ruins their looks, that dirty remark is worth a fight, or that leftover sip of milk is a reason to lose their mind.
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, because an artful life requires being prepared to meet and withstand sudden and unexpected attacks.
Each slap contains the chance to stay calm and strengthen who you want to be, but also the risk to go ballistic and become more of who you don’t want to be.
You’re a warrior. Nothing and nobody can throw you off balance easily. You’re ready to deal with some punches and side-kicks.
You want to be strong. You want to handle yourself in the face of adversity. You want to be unshakable in the midst of a storm. You want to remain cool when others panic. So, you simply can’t afford to turn your head to every scratch. It’s just training. Smile and move on."
Note: This can also apply to metaphysical attacks.
There have been so many metaphysical attacks over the years. True, they hurt in the short-term, but one just gets back up and keeps going, and all is well again. Every day is a new day.
A different way to deal with online attackers:
ReplyDeleteIgnoring online verbal attacks works, but why not learn something?
Suggestion: Do an in depth analysis of their attack. "This part here is where they are gaslighting. This part here is a logical fallacy." And so forth. Go into exactly how they are trying to manipulate, exposing this for all to see. This is done not to put the attacker in their place, but to increase awareness of methods of attack. This can be extremely beneficial, not just to oneself, but to all who read it.
This may come in handy, as political situations and so forth are becoming more and more volatile with the clearing. There may be more instances of conflicts happening between people online, including on 2012 Portal. This doesn't have to be detrimental though. This can be an opportunity to learn.
I would like to know the immediate response of a Stoic with a gun to their head.
ReplyDeleteAre you using an extreme situation for the purpose of shock value, perhaps to try to invalidate stoicism, or is this a legitimate curiosity?
DeleteMost people in the world don't have a gun to their head, but I'll go ahead and explore this extreme. There were stoics who were tortured who learned to accept the pain and thus suffer less. And, even in the extreme, rare situation of having a gun to one's head (we hear about it in the news all the time but out of 8 billion people it's statistically extremely rare), it still would be possible to at least remain calm and try to talk the person out of pulling the trigger. This would not be easy though, as again, the instinct for panic would be difficult to resist.
In the case where negotiation is impossible, there would be two options: Try to dodge and escape, or try to knock the gun out of shooter's hand and/or subdue the shooter.
The non-stoic would probably just plead for their life while pissing and shitting their pants. The novice stoic would probably do the same. I don't know what I would do personally. I've never been in that situation.