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Matthew Wood's avatar

One method is to make it a habit of laughing at people who take themselves seriously. Even when you can't get a word in edgewise their words slide off you and you do really get the "last laugh." One time when I was being attacked online a friend said, "You actually enjoy goading these people on, don't you?"

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Shelley's avatar

I have caught myself 'goading' before. I admonish myself for it. Best just to disagree.

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Reasonable Horses's avatar

The high road is rarely the wrong road. On the other hand, 1 Kings 18 suggests there are times to get in evilтАЩs face and ridicule it to scorn.

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Someone else's avatar

Yes, laughter is good medicine too, but in my experience, halting abuse, especially without demeaning the other party, is also very uplifting. And putting an end to abuse is in some cases an absolute necessity. I hadnтАЩt seen or in any way communicated with my stalker in several decades (since I was a tween and he was in elementary school), and yet all that time he was stalking me without leaving any clues. In the case of the colleague in my org, he seemed pretty hell-bent on тАЬthrowing his weight aroundтАЭ and making others miserable, and eventually I came into his sights. Most people I knew avoided him. ItтАЩs no joke to be confronted by someone whose thoughts are beyond what you can fathom. Yet just a few well-chosen, nonintuitive sentences makes the whole thing disappear! Eventually I became the head of the org, and (coincidentally?) he moved to another org six months before I took overтАж. ThatтАЩs what I call really disappearing. ЁЯЩВ. I donтАЩt ever think about these incidents unless a situation like this comes up and the approach might be of help to someone else.

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