Tucker, you know the answer to this.
Let's say we're in a group of people. Some of these people are friends of mine; some are acquaintances; some are strangers. Let's say I have my reasons for wanting to be thought well of by these folks.
If I let some loud-mouth call me names based on sexual slang with obvious intent to insult, denigrate, demean and to lower me in the eyes of others, and I just stand there and take it... you might as well tattoo "door mat - please walk on me" on my forehead and be done with it. Especially if he does it every day of the week for months...
How well would your wife take it if you decided her name was "bitch"? If you proceeded to call her "bitch" instead of her name in front of her friends, her co-workers, her boss, and her family?
If she meekly accepted this denigration, and allowed her new name to be "bitch", how would others view her acquiencence? Do you not think many would lose respect for her, for putting up with being disrespected in public that way? Especially on an ongoing, constant, daily basis?
Is any of this gettin' through?
It's getting through, Goshin.
But it's missing my point.
Meekly accepting the offered insult is even worse than aggressively returning the insult. In both cases, you are
taking the offense that was offered. In one, you are retaliating, in the other, you are allowing yourself to be walked on. One is an aggressive response, one is a passive response.
What I'm talking about is something entirely different. I'm talking about making any response and assertive response, but
without accepting the offered insult (i.e. not
being insulted by it).
To give some background, it took me a long time to learn to control/contain my own aggressive tendencies in these types of situations. I started thinking about what the motivations of the person offering the offense to me really were and I realized that they
wanted to make the barb cause me some negative emotional reaction. They wanted it to harm me in some way. If I allowed it to do so, I was granting them a small victory, even if it ultimately led to dental work for them.
What I learned was that if I instead
removed the insulting nature of their barbs, and turned things around so that they realized very clearly that I was not at all bothered by their assessments/statements, I could maintain the position of authority. I was
entirely in control of the situation.
Something many people do not realize about the use of use of humor is that it is actually employed quite often as a
dominance strategy, especially among males. It can be used as such in two different ways: Aggressively or assertively. There is no such thing as a the passive use of humor as a dominance strategy.
Things like calling someone a "tea bagger" will qualify as the
aggressive version of this type of dominance behavior. Aggressive humor is used to belittle others. It
succeeds whenever the target is belittled by the use of the term. This belittling is a perceived threat by the target, and as such, it will trigger a a threat response in the target: fight or flight. Or, in other words,
aggressive or
passive reactions.
It does not matter which of these reactions the target of this dominance gambit employs, the target will
always be in the submissive position if they employ either reaction. This means that the person who employed the dominance gambit has achieved their goal.
Instead, of allowing them to achieve their goals, I would recommend choosing a different strategy altogether. Instead of reacting in the fight or flight fashion, I am suggesting using
assertive responses in order to
deflect the attempted "assault" using a form of intellectual "judo".
Often this can take the form of
assertive humor. A
perfect example of this is Andrew Jackson adopting the Jackass as a campaign symbol.
By taking this reaction, he caused the dominance gambit to fail, and
maintained the dominant position throughout. He was neither aggressive (fight) nor passive (flight) in his response. He flipped the attempted assaults towards him to his
advantage.
There are
many ways to use
assertive responses to maintain dominance. And I'll tell you from personal experience, they are
amazingly effective. And even more importantly, since the intended goal of the opponent is to lower you in the eyes of others, these strategies will actually RAISE the esteem others have for you even
more than any aggressive, retaliatory response could and your opponent will always be lowered in the eyes of others.
This happens because, by not reacting in one of the two expected fashions, you give the appearance that the person is so far
beneath you that an extreme reaction isn't warranted. Your reactions are similar in nature to those you would have with a small child who behaves badly in your presence. The opponents actions will then be perceived as "childlike" by observers, and thus, the submissive participant of the exchange.
You
won't be perceived as a doormat. Quite the opposite, in fact. You'll be perceived by others as unflappable, and
completely in control of
any situation. You'll be seen as a
leader.
This happens because, in order to employ the strategy correctly, you actually
do need to become somewhat unflappable, and you need to
be completely in control of the situation.
And they pretty much
have to be these things in order to employ the strategy in the first place.
If one couples this type of strategy for "defending" against
personal assaults/affronts/offenses, along with an
aggressive strategy for defending against assaults/affronts/offenses aimed at
others, the perception that others have about their dominance and leadership qualities will be heightened even
more.
And even if one tries to employ this strategy consistently, there will be situations and times when they fail to do so. The benefit of employing this strategy is that those times will be seen by others as fully justified in almost every instance (even when they may not be justified) because they are seemingly able to maintain control and dominance all the time. This means that even in instances when they
lose control of themselves, it appears to be a controlled and calculated move.
And sometimes it may even
be a controlled and calculated move. Often when one employs this strategy as a rule, they will encounter situations where the assertive approach will not work, and they will thus choose an aggressive strategy. Because they usually choose to employ the assertive strategy, people will naturally assume that they have
chosen the aggressive strategy in this instance instead of it simply being their fight or flight instincts taking over.
