can you defend yourself without resorting to having to insult the other person, or degrading yourself?

Answer 1

Without any details of why you are having to defend yourself, a paradox is MARVELOUS with great results IF you can do it well! A paradox is defined (Webster's Enclyclopedia Dictionary): "a statement that is similarly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true."---Try to figure out the other person's agenda--you have to know them and the situation pretty well--OR you can GUESS and you might hit it!! THEN state the situation to them that it "feels like to me that you are _____, BUT I KNOW you'd NEVER do anything like THAT!" A personal example: I had worked in this job for 10 yrs--gotten repeatedly good evaluations! And I then started getting a lot of pressure from my supervisor. She eventually quit and another took over and was even MORE critical of my preformance!! Even tho I was still getting good results on the job! Then a few of the professional staff started quitting. One psychologist who had just quit asked to talk with me. He said he had attended a management meeting some months ago and the business mgr had propossed that "when staff have reached their 3rd yr of work and are vetted for beginning retirement funds, etc., THEN stop giving them yearly raises! The pressure on the job, the low pay and no raises in sight will cause them to quit and we'll hire beginning staff on the bottom pay scale and no retirement pymts." I FINALLY decided to do a paradox--meant to help develop HEALTHY development in therapy! Next mtg, I said to him, "You know, I KNOW this isn't TRUE, but I FEEL this organization is using the same time-honored procedure to save money that school districts have always used---start applying critical pressure on an employee and over time, they can't take it and they quit!! But there is never any concrete examples nor BASIS for the criticism! BUT I KNOW this organization would NEVER resort to an underhanded procedure such as this against it's employees!! After all--this is a MENTAL HEALTH organization!!" --------- You will ALWAYS get IRRITATION AND ANGER from them and you will KNOW you've hit the mark!! After that meeting, I never heard ANOTHER THING WORD about my job performance, and I went on working another 5 yrs, retiring after 15!!!---This technique of saving money is PARTICULARLY used on long-time employees who might eventually retiring!!! They cost the organization the most in vacation time, salary and sometimes, accumulated sick leave time.--If you ever get a chance to try a paradox with somebody who's giving you #@%! and you get their angry reaction, it is MORE FUN!!!! And you'll get great results!!
This technique PROBABLY works for "friends" who like to "lord it over" you. I don't have friends like that anymore--too old to waste life with people like that. So don't know if the paradox would work in that relationship--it'd probably be tougher to do, as it wouldn't be going on unless the other wasn't more dominant. I've done a modified procedure with a mother-in-law that worked great!
Good luck!

Answer 2

This is a situation: Let us say that a person has learned and learned many things. But what the individual didn't know was that everything he was learning was a lie. So 25 years later he takes a test and gets a zero on it. He learns that his overconfidence has blinded himself. He also then discovers that eveything he has learned from the start of his birth has been a lie. From this situation, I say that it is essential to take tests but not necessarily degrade yourself. It is true that degrading yourself does give this higher impact to your own psychology but it may also embarass you (something that is only for the sakeof recreational humor). The point of a test, is to see if the knowledge you have required is satisfactory to the global expectations laid before you. In a sense, it can be good because it teaches you humility. On a bright side however, it teaches how not to degrade yourself that way, again ha-ha lol!!! xD

Answer 3

As long as you can stick to the issue, and not attack the other person or their belief system. Personally, I favor logic, but there are some people in this world on whom logic is wasted.

Answer 4

i don't feel the need to defend myself. if someone wants to argue i tell them have a nice life and walk away. life's to short to spend energy on stupid fights or arguments.

Answer 5

Yes...

For example... if you and someone else cannot not agree on something (ie politics, religion, etc)... you can always say...

"I guess we will have to agree to disagree."

You are not telling the person they are wrong, or stupid, or whatnot... and you are also not saying you are wrong.

If the person call you an offensive name... you can say...

"I'm sorry, but I do not agree with your assessment of my character. But thank you for sharing your opinion with me anyways."

If they continue to argue their point... go back to the "agree to disagree" statement.

Best Wishes...
T.

Answer 6

I just walk away. I do not have to defend myself I am who I am and they are who they are so why argue...Just walk away.

Answer 7

Sure. I'm fully capable of that boring nonsense, but it's not fun.