THE DISRESPECT

[Delphinoid_]

Because previously, you've been insinuating about avoiding tough situations by running away. Look, if you would have told me that you were trying to de-escalate a dangerous situation where you're being held at gunpoint or something, then I could see your perspective about avoiding tough situations. But no, you've made it sound like you were labeled as the hopeless and helpless coward (with only one method at his disposal) who deems every situation as avertible.

This is very clearly an insincere interpretation of my position.

I could care less what strangers think of me. I'm just trying to get you to see that everyone's response to quarrelsome situations isn't the same; therefore, you will encounter some people who respond with violence and rage. Aside from "prioritizing what strangers think of you", you have some strong viewpoints in the rest of your paragraph. I'll admit that this is usually the first way to respond to a dangerous situation.

However, I think you're stuck on the idea that you can de-escalate this situation in more than one way. You should know that you can't achieve any good results by using the same method all the time. If you're not allowing your emotions to puncture a hole in your back, then you should have no problems responding to the enemy with violence. Basically, you're telling them that I've already warned you at least once or twice, and when the behavior persists (especially invading your personal space which is off limits), connect a right hook to the jaw. It's how some people learn the hard way. So if you're so confident in your statements, then you should know that you have to get rid of your emotions and teach them a lesson with violence.

"Teaching them a lesson with violence" is a purely emotional response. It's succumbing to your anger and your low self-esteem. I'm sure you know this. I believe there are very few situations where violence is actually the best option, and the few situations where it is are not ones most people will typically run into in their lifetime (although aggressive, irresponsible and immature people certainly do not have the odds in their favour). Of course, self-defence is often the easiest solution, and most people consider it morally permissible. I don't have an issue with other people using it if that's what they deem appropriate, since again: morality is subjective. But I would at the very least encourage people to consider what is appropriate when it comes to defending oneself. The law would also agree with me here, given that excessive force is a criminal offence.

Also for the record, "I could care less what strangers think of me" means "I care to some degree what strangers think of me". I think you meant to say "I could not care less what strangers think of me" (as in, I care so little that it is impossible for me to care any less). It's a common mistake.

The modern world has taught you that men should be spineless weasels who are incapable of fighting their own battles.

I don't believe men should be "spineless weasels who are incapable of fighting their own battles". I don't think many people do. Are you basing this claim on actually talking to people, giving them the benefit of the doubt and genuinely trying to understand their perspective? Or are you basing it on making assumptions about people you don't know, who vaguely seem to disagree with you?

Let me give you an example: You get into a quarrel with another guy. He initiated the quarrelsome situation and even when you attempted to de-escalate it, he resorted to violent tactics anyway. He pops you right in the mouth and you fall backward. You're in great shape and there's nothing wrong with you. Now why the hell would you ask your wife to fight this battle for you? You might not ask her, but you'd be surprised to know how many weak and pathetic men do. Dust yourself off, get up, and sock his ass!

1. If an argument with a complete stranger starts to get heated and it's going in circles, it's not worth having at that time. No one is going to learn anything from it. That's the first sign to either de-escalate, take a break or walk away. You don't have to concede your position to do any of these things. You don't need to panic and "run away" either. I can genuinely understand not having the mindfulness or the self-confidence to be able to do these things (it's hard, and I mean that), but by failing to do so you've made your first mistake (at least if your goal is to protect yourself and others).

2. If he got violent and hit me, the correct response would depend a lot on what happens next and what I believed he would do next, but the ultimate goal would be to disengage and walk away. There's no reason for me or anyone else to fight him. What do I personally get out of fighting in this situation? Protecting my "pride" or "honour"? My priority is to protect myself and others, not to protect my ego. People like this want you to keep fighting them. They want you to try and protect your bruised ego so they have an outlet for their anger. Having the strength to walk away demonstrates an immense amount of courage, self-confidence and maturity; it also tells the offender that their anger is their problem, and that they'll have to find a way to deal with it in a healthier manner than taking it out on other people.

This is how I look at these kinds of situations. If a child calls you a rude name and laughs at you, what do you do? Do you turn it into a huge heated argument to "defend yourself", or do you just let it go and walk away? What if a child hits you? Are you gonna go and bash their skull in to protect your "valour"? You can think about that and why you'd respond the way that you would. The only thing that changes with a grown adult is that they're bigger and hit harder. That's it; adults aren't really any different from children outside of their size and their age, and unfortunately age doesn't guarantee wisdom or maturity. Childlike behaviour is, at the end of the day, still childlike behaviour, regardless of who commits it.

Of course, if it looked like the guy was going to ape out and kill someone then the situation would have to be handled differently. Luckily this sort of thing doesn't really happen though. To be clear: if it did happen, things would be different, but generally it won't happen.

You surely insinuated running away based on your previous solutions to deal with confrontational issues. Deep down, you're too afraid to take an ass whoopin' from somebody because your moral principles have deemed it as impermissible.

You know this isn't an accurate reflection of my position.

Do you realize how dangerous it is to think this way? If everybody adopted the same mindset and advice that you're trying to instill in them, then they might as well toss Ju Jitsu, wrestling, and boxing out the window.

I said this in the previous post, but I don't necessarily condone other people subscribing to my own moral philosophy. It's not "advice" that I'm trying to "instill" in you or anyone else. Morality is subjective, there is no right or wrong approach. I understand that my approach isn't for everyone. If I ever had children, I wouldn't push it on them, I would encourage them to independently explore morality on a personal level, and also possibly to read other people's perspectives on it. I also mentioned that I have no issue taking a beating, I only care if someone I care about is on the receiving end.

Yes, it's justifiable that your actions can cause a scene and affect others around you. But, you're making yourself look like a pathetic fool by restraining yourself from physical violence when the time deems it necessary. You can't always take down an enemy's territory with soft words. You use any form of weapon necessary to repeatedly strike the predator until they learn a lesson.

Again, why should I care if someone thinks I look like a "pathetic fool"? You keep circling back to what other people think of you. My priority isn't what other people think about me; my priority is keeping myself and others safe.

By the way, you could face criminal charges for "using any form of weapon necessary to repeatedly strike the predator until they learn a lesson". Unless someone is threatening someone else's life, this response is likely a highly disproportionate one. Just something to keep in mind.

Sometimes, restraining yourself from physical violence can cause someone else to lose their life because you took the cowardly way out.

This is something you have to judge in the moment. If there really is no other option then I would try to use (the minimum amount of) violence to protect those who need it. We are incredibly fortunate though in that these situations don't really happen so much in real life.

What kind of example are you setting for your future children who want to become strong men who protect their future wives, huh? Real men aren't cowards... they're fearless leaders and protectors! All you're doing is telling me that you're a weak-minded individual who would rather be on the receiving end of an ass-whoopin' as opposed to the giving end.

I think my approach focuses strongly on developing virtuousness, self-confidence, maturity, courage, strength, empathy, mindfulness and forgiveness. Other approaches can successfully demonstrate these qualities too of course. I would above all encourage them to stand up for themselves; in other words, to be true to themselves and what they believe is right, rather than to yield to the hordes of people (such as yourself, apparently) telling them how they should act in order to be a "real" man or a "real" woman. I'd try my best to teach them that the opinions of bullies don't matter - that someone calling them a weak-minded coward is not worth their time - and that they should focus on developing themselves into the kind of person they think is just.

So you would rather risk losing your life as opposed to defending yourself? You sound ridiculous. Anything could happen to you. It could be a situation where they subdue you to the ground and repeatedly elbow you to the frontal part of your skull until you suffer from a brain hemorrhage and die. Your careless actions are what caused your loved ones to be placed on stretchers because you've allowed your moral principles to steer the wheel.

I value the lives of others over my own morality, but my own morality over my own life. I would never knowingly act in a way that would endanger the lives of those I care about. I understand the practical weaknesses of my philosophy, yet I believe I am fully capable of knowing when it is appropriate to follow it and when it should be sacrificed for the sake of protecting others who need protecting.

You need to understand that sometimes, there's a lot more that's involved in a situation that utilizes you as a shield for your loved ones. When you make the rational decision to barricade yourself from the enemy and your loved ones, then it's understood that you must be prepared to use self-defense in the process. This justifies that you will not tolerate the enemy inflicting pain and suffering on you, or your loved ones. It's a moral code that I highly recommend you adopt before you get somebody seriously hurt.

As you know (since I've mentioned it so many times), I understand that there are, in theory, situations that would require more, and if they ever occurred (which is unlikely) I would step up using the minimum amount of violence necessary to guarantee the safety of others. My point is that I would not be able to excuse myself on an ethical level for doing so, but protecting others who need it is worth more to me than the shame of committing what I believe to be an unethical act. Again, fortunately these situations don't really happen so much.

Try harder? Why bother squandering time to protect your moral principles when you can consider teaching them a valuable lesson with violence? It just sounds so narrow-minded of you to refuse violence as a solution because of your moral principles.

If you could easily get away with killing everyone who inconvenienced you in some way (maybe they pose some kind of threat, maybe it's totally minor), would you? If not, why? The reason is because you don't believe it to be a morally just thing to do. Your moral principles have just ruled out a potential solution that could have saved you from ever being harmed or inconvenienced again. I don't think that's particularly narrow-minded though is it?

Our moral principles are what guide us in these kinds of situations. All of us. Even your so-called "monsters". Even the people who would be fine with killing everyone in my previous thought experiment (see: "pure" egoism). These principles are what enable us to function in society. Refusing to do something because you don't see it as being ethical is perhaps the best justification you can ever have for any subjective matter.

What amazes me is that while they're physically disrespecting you, you're restraining your angry emotions and absorbing the pain like a sponge. This is very traumatizing because eventually, another part of you is going to say, "You know, you really should have just fought back."

Part of being a mature adult is learning to cultivate self-control. I aspire not to act on negative emotions like this, whether it be fear, anger, jealousy, etc.

I don't know if you've ever had to deal with trauma before, but growing up with a dysfunctional / abusive family, it was something I had to learn how to deal with. In addition to the previous anecdote, I've taken heavy beatings at a young age, being stomped on and kicked without being able to get away or retaliate, as well as just constantly being surrounded by angry, aggressive people.

I believe that learning to deal with trauma in a healthy way, not allowing it to take control of you, is an incredibly important skill to have. I think one should practice mindfulness to prevent themself from reacting in the moment, and then give themself time and space to deal with those emotions afterwards rather than continue to bottle them up.

By the time you're convinced, it would be too late because you're preoccupied with considering other solutions to divert someone.

Then you know what you should have done first? You should have paid attention to your surroundings and become fully aware of the enemy's body language and his tool belt. His tool belt consists of any weapons strapped to his waste.

Actually, I didn't react too late. I identified the nuances of the situation and correctly responded in a split-second. Meanwhile if you were in the same situation, you would have died and your loved ones would have all been killed (because I say so).

Oh, you weren't able to see his gun, it was concealed and he drew it before you could react. You die and your loved ones are all killed.

Do you see the issue with this now? To clarify, the two responses above are tongue-in-cheek. Remember when I mentioned children talking about battles between fictional characters? By adding random details to suit your own agenda, you're doing exactly what I was criticizing you of. To reiterate, we can keep going like this all day; we can keep going back and forth, making the scenario more and more detailed and ridiculous, but it remains an entirely imaginary hypothetical. They're not even helpful as thought experiments because they're so contrived.

That's the problem! You've been hanging around people who've taught you to disconnect yourself from any form of self-defense! That's exactly what the modern world is teaching your generation. But you guys are too blindsided to see that their manipulation tactics are emasculating men.

No one I know shares my views on self-defence. In general most people don't; most people believe in fighting back to some degree. I again don't even necessarily condone people sharing my beliefs on self-defense. I hold the views that I hold for personal reasons. Can we put down the conspiracy theories and just have a normal discussion?

You've successfully allowed your emotions to falsely justify that it's ok to withdraw from any form of self-defense because you don't believe in "harming another human". This sounds weak!

Morality is subjective; there is nothing that is objectively right or wrong, and so it is not a "false" justification. It is true that my justification stems from emotions, but it's impossible to make any moral judgement without emotions. When you say it's morally permissible to respond by hurting someone, you're implicitly justifying your response using the argument that any negative emotion you cause is "deserved", or that it somehow results in less net negative emotions, or something else to this kind of effect. Morality is inherently based on our emotions, there's really no escaping it.

I'd also like to point out that, again, you're drawing a lot of attention to what I said sounding "weak" to you rather than providing any kind of reasoning against it. I keep bringing it up because at this point the pattern seems pretty significant.

Part of adopting the stoicism habit consists of going through hardship without whining and moaning about how you feel. This is part of the masculinity code that teaches men how to develop the courage and strength to deal with adversity.

Ironically, stoicism is precisely what I believe in following in these kinds of situations. It is also very much the opposite of what you're advising. Remember when you mentioned how ridiculous it is to "[restrain] your angry emotions and [absorb] the pain like a sponge"? Not letting pain or emotions like anger affect your decision-making process is what it means to adhere to the philosophy of stoicism.

Being stoic also has nothing to do with "whining and moaning about how you feel", as you (disingenuously) put it. People can't read your mind. Communication is one of the cornerstones of humanity, and being able to express how you feel calmly, maturely and non-aggressively is one of the most important skills you can learn.

Your subconscious mind is telling you to take my advice out of context so that I'll look like the bad guy.

I'd appreciate it if you read the following paragraphs very carefully. If you don't read any of what I said above, I don't care, I just want you to really try to actively read these next ones without skimming them. I'm not trying to be rude, I just think the text below is particularly important.

As far as I'm aware I've been addressing your advice calmly, accurately and without misrepresenting it (based on the fact that you haven't really corrected anything I've said with respect to your position, asides from when you clarified your views on gender roles, which I appreciate). For the most part I've actually just been defending my own philosophy rather than explicitly criticizing yours, so I don't know why you're saying I'm taking your advice out of context. The only problems I have with your approach are as follows.

1. Based on your mannerisms and my previous history with you, it appears to me as though you allow your insecurities, your emotions and what you believe other people think of you to control you and your actions. But I don't know you, so I could be wrong. If you do struggle with these kinds of things though, I think you should be open to talking about it rather than denying it or lying (like in the infamous car thread, among others). A lot of popular figures (such as Joe Rogan) prey on sensationalism and the insecurities of young adult men ("if you want women, you need to be an aggressive 'alpha male' and get giga jacked!!"). While some of their content can be fine, it's important to be prudent and conscious of the kinds of messages they're sending. I unfortunately know too many guys who suffer from body-image and self-esteem issues due to religiously following these kinds of people's advice, and they're now having to deal with the tough process of overcoming these problems they've developed. It's a terrible rut to end up in. I don't know you or your situation though.

2. I have no issue with someone who believes in and practices self-defence, but I believe it should be practiced with care, and the priority should be on defence rather than offence (harming the offender only so much as is necessary to protect yourself, rather than going out of your way to "teach them a lesson"). To do anything more than this is revenge, and one can certainly argue that in practice this is generally antithetical to stoicism, as it is driven by anger. If you're fine with vigilantism and forcing your own moral views on others though then be my guest, I just don't personally agree with it. I understand that things can be hazy here for some people though.

3. I also disagree with responding to situations with aggression. Aggression is, by definition, characterized by anger, by violent, hostile and confrontational behaviour, and by attacking people without provocation. I don't know if you're just not fully aware of what it means to be aggressive though, so maybe it's a matter of miscommunication. But when you talk about aggressive behaviour, this is what you're actually referring to. Aggression is diametrically opposed to stoicism.

I'm therefore a bit confused, as some of your fundamental principles (as I understand them) seem to contradict the philosophy you claim to adopt. If you agree with me on these points, then I don't have any major issues with your philosophy. I don't want to adopt it myself, but I think it's fine.

If we want to talk about actually taking things out of context, you have been consistently misrepresenting my position and quite literally taking it out of context by continuing to tell me how I would supposedly act in certain (contrived) situations. You've then proceeded to ignore me when I've said how I would actually respond.

Moreover, you've accused me of having no valour, being "weak", "weak-minded", "pathetic", "ridiculous", "low-testosterone" (??), a "pathetic fool", a "hopeless and helpless coward" and a "spineless weasel" (by implication). You've accused me of wanting other people to fight my battles for me. You've accused me of "running away". I don't appreciate being the subject of this kind of language.

I find it a real struggle to discuss things with you. I feel like you're more interested in pushing people into imaginary boxes based on what you want to think they believe. You immediately labelled me as a "pacifist" and then proceeded to rant against some strawman that represents your ignorant idea of a pacifist is "supposed to be like"; never did you show any interest in trying to understand the nuances of what I actually believe in and how it could differ from your idea of pacifism. To complete the package you seem to be trying to speak down to me. This mirrors what happened when you labelled me a "liberal" a while ago. It's unnecessary and tiring.

It's a grand waste of my time to be trying to talk to someone who isn't willing to have a sincere debate. This is the last post I'm going to make in this thread; I think this is a perfect example of a situation where one needs to just walk away, since it's clear that it's not getting anywhere.