[Courses] [Spineful Living, lesson 3: 101 Satisfying Retorts For All Occassion]

[Mary Gardiner]

On Sat, Apr 14, 2007, Kathryn Andersen wrote:
> (b) If one does come up with a satisfyingly scathing retort at the
> time, one then feels bad afterwards, for not treating the person like
> a human being, but an object.

Snappy comebacks are a weapon. It's true that it's at best mean and at
worst rather evil to use weapons on people indescriminately, but I think
comebacks have a use in situations where another person is treating me
as an object. In an ideal world, I wouldn't treat other people like
objects, but in situations where they treat me like one, I feel it's
important to defend myself against them and break the power they're
trying to establish over me.

After I've established the ground rule that I have weapons that I use in
self-defense in certain social situations, we can renegotiate the
social dynamic between us if we need to.

-Mary