ThisAdamGuy wrote:
kraftiekortie wrote:
If you're a jerk, an as*hole, an abuser, hates women, beats them up, emotionally abuses them....a man doesn't deserve a relationship.
I've literally never hit anyone in my life, but like I said in another thread in the Haven, I find myself getting into a lot of verbal fights that I know full well I'll regret later. But I can't seem to stop that.
I improved drastically in that way when I learned a few things and let them fully sink in:
— To normal people, verbal fights don't happen in a strictly "verbal" domain, detached from the physical one, and they're not really about the topic being discussed—they're still about status, pecking order and who's boss. If you're arguing with someone above you in the hierarchy, you'd better yield as early as possible. If you don't, they'll escalate the confrontation till you're forced to yield in a much more humiliating way. That's how they teach you the lesson that they're boss and
they will get their way no matter what, so you might as well make it easy for both. It's not about reason. They will often violate logic and empirical facts; this is itself a sign of status, because it shows they can get away with it, and they'll do it more and more as they escalate the verbal fight, trying to get it through your thick, autistic skull that
they are boss and you'd better lick their boots. Just like physical fights, they're not about who is right, but who is left.
— You may've been told growing up that you reply to words with words, and only physically fight back when physically assaulted. Well, people do
not abide by this rule. If they don't like what you're saying, they reserve the right to give you a beating. That'll teach you not to say things they don't like! Whether the things are true or make sense is immaterial; what matters is that they don't like them. When people above you in the hierarchy don't actually get their hands dirty beating you up, it's a matter of economy: they probably can punish you in a way that takes less effort and have bigger fish to fry. But make no mistake: these punishments are still ultimately based on physical pain; e.g., the pain of starving to death on the streets, or being stabbed by someone before, or police beating you up, or being ass-raped in jail. It's
never the case that they've "outgrown" the habit of retaliating in the physical domain to speech they don't like; there's no such thing as "outgrowing" it.
— Verbal fights bring us to the concept of
offence. This word is thrown around very casually these days, but it used to mean something really serious: a man said he was offended by another when he was challenging him to a duel. This means an offence was something you felt the need to fight to the death to suppress. Either you or the offender would be no more, and the survivor would be assumed to be in the right—in other words, it's not about who is right, but who is left. If you wouldn't risk your life for the sake of suppressing something, think twice before calling it offensive. On the other hand, anyone more powerful than you will probably feel entitled to decide at any time that you've offended them in some way or other and use their power to destroy you. And, unless they're
very socially awkward themself, it'll be seen as a perfectly justified action on their part and what you had coming. The nature of the alleged offence doesn't matter; especially it doesn't need to make sense
to you. Arguing about it will only
further escalate the confrontation. The only things that matter are that they're challenging you, that they probably know what they're doing and that they're most likely to destroy you. Needless to say, backing off at this point—as opposed to having borne from the beginning the much lesser humiliation of accepting their superiority—will make you look like a foolish, immature coward who bit off far more than he can chew. In plenty of societies throughout history, you'd be executed for much less than this. You may think this is unfair to autistics, but they wouldn't have cared.
— Doing to someone what you wouldn't dare do to someone else is universally deemed cowardly. It doesn't matter if you're doing it in self-defense. Expect people to despise you, and, at any time, for someone more powerful than you to support the party you were originally fighting—verbally or otherwise—and dare you to fight them instead "since you think you're so badass". I know you probably weren't thinking in terms of badassery, but to them, that's what your behavior means, even if you were defending yourself. And from their perspective, they're doing justice, revealing you for the coward you are. Moral of the story: before saying absolutely anything to anybody, imagine saying it to a ripped and well-trained street fighter, half again your size, who probably can't be reasoned with and who may or may not hate you at first sight for such funny little things as your race, socio-economic factors, accent, real or assumed political leanings and so on. If there'd be no good reason to say it to this guy, chances are you'd better not say it to whomever you have in front of you, either. In particular, expect women to feel threatened if you argue with them, and men to seize the chance to enhance their status by chivalrously protecting them and putting you in your place. It doesn't matter if you were
right—it's not about who is right, but who is left.
— You may have noticed an apparent contradiction: treating people unequally is cowardly, but inequality is all the hierarchy is about. How do people get away with it? I don't really know, but they clearly use some social skills, innate to no small degree, which are probably well beyond my ability to learn. If you ever
begin to master them, I'll take my hat off.
_________________
The red lake has been forgotten. A dust devil stuns you long enough to shroud forever those last shards of wisdom. The breeze rocking this forlorn wasteland whispers in your ears, “Não resta mais que uma sombra”.
15 Jun 2018, 9:29 pm
