I’ve been thinking a lot about bullies lately. Maybe it’s all the revelations from the January 6th committee about how people in power tried to overturn the election. Maybe it’s because I recently received an email from a stranger accusing me of being in a cult because I voted for a democrat. Or maybe it’s just because as I write this my cat won’t stop scratching on my door and meowing about going outside.
Bullies are everywhere. On the freeway, on my Twitter feed, on the TV, in the government, and in my head. As a non-confrontational person, I have always found it challenging to deal with a bully. I’m not scared of them as much as I dread the altercation. That feeling that you aren’t going to win the fight no matter what you say. I dread the heart palpitations and shortness of breath triggered by a bully’s cocky taunts. That exhausted, hopeless feeling.
Bullies wear their opponents down. It’s one of their favorite tactics. The good ones make you feel like you’re losing your mind. Like there’s no hope for truth or common ground or reality.
As my late boss Felix Dennis, who himself was a bit of a bully, once said to a room of editors: “When you sling mud at a crazy person, you just end up getting yourself dirty.”
I would add that you also lose ground.
But what if I told you there was a way to defeat bullies? To put them in their place. To get them to shut their big fat, flapping, know-it-all traps.
My guest on this week’s Write About Now podcast, Bo Seo, thinks he’s found a way. And Bo knows. He is a two-time world champion debater and a former coach of the Australian national debating team and the Harvard College Debating Union.
I had him on the show to talk about his new book Good Arguments, which is part memoir and part advice manual for how to win more debates, whether they’re with conspiracy theorist cousin, the guy with the MAGA hat at the dry cleaner, or your significant other.
Of particular interest to me was a chapter entitled “Self-Defense: How to defeat a bully.” Seo, who, despite the moniker, does not know how to get this story ranked higher on google, believes that bullies take on four personas. He lays out who they are and how to beat them at their game.
Bully Type #1: The Dodger
“Their signature move is to pivot,” Bo writes. “Instead of ignoring the point, which would be too obvious, dodgers comment on some aspect of the broader subject, but not the particular argument they need to address.” A lot of times, dodgers pivot to something mean that will get an emotional reaction. “You think you’re so pro-environment. How many planes have you flown in this year?”
How to deal: “Stay the course and pursue the original argument,” Bo says. Don’t let the dodger dodge. Unless he’s Dodger Mookie Betts. I love that guy.
Bully type #2: The Twister
“Twisters misrepresent opposing arguments,” Bo says. “Unable to respond to the original point, they create a distorted version of the truth.” They construct a Straw Man version of your argument and tear it down.
How to deal: The best move is to “correct the record,” says Bo. Spell out how the twister distorts the argument and then return to the actual claim.
Bully type #3: The Wrangler
Wranglers like to go on the attack, but they never offer any solutions. “They’re good critics,” Bo says. They can tell you everything wrong about your argument but never put forward anything positive.
How to deal: Pin them to a position one way or another. Ask them point-blank, “So what are you proposing? If not my ideas, what’s the alternative?”
Bully type #4: The Liar
Liars are the most maddening of bullies because they’re not even starting on common ground. They don’t deal in truth but, instead, believe in “alternative facts” and will say and do anything to win the argument.
How to deal: You’re not going to win trying to correct every lie because one of the liar’s tactics is to inundate you with “facts” that you don’t have time or energy to check. In these situations, Bo suggests honing in on one lie, showing how it doesn’t add up, and then using that lie as “a representative of a broader tactic or a misunderstanding that the other side has of how the world works.” For example, “Let’s imagine that immigrants are violent people. How do you explain the fact that they are less likely to be convicted of a violent crime than native-born citizens?”
So that’s how you can start dealing with a bully. Or you could disagree with everything I just wrote.
Let me know in the comments.
Or actually, maybe don’t.
To listen to my full conversation with Bo Seo, go here.