A technique used to become as uninteresting as a "gray rock" to
someone who is attempting to manipulate or provoke you. However, try to
avoid running out of energy arguing with a perpetrator as they do not
care about logic at
all, they just want to manipulate minds or cause anger. Also, you might
need a very strong internal defense system, a rigid, hard, stone, to
maintain composure even when they are trying to provoke you. In psychology,
this is often referred to as Differentiation of Self, where social noise
must not affect the internal system to the point of generating a visible
reaction.
This appears very detached. This is because you literally cannot
control others' actions which according to Stoicism means you don't have to
worry about such things as much, and this if you are unbothered, a.k.a
neutral, which is
the base state, and will also show who's boss...
One method is silence, or the lack of reaction. The other is walking
away. The third one is just providing generic responses, for instance,
“Ok.”, or responses that have zero hint towards what is happening “It
could be, or it may not be.” (causing uncertainty back to the
perpetrator, also kind of a counterattack?)
When dealing with difficult words from your less-than-ideal same-school teenagers, get paper and write down everything significant (i.e., mean.. etc). Do not be ashamed. Don’t have to show anyone, but do not provide any clue of whether to show anyone. If they ask what you are doing, "I am just noting my observations". If they continue, keep silent and continue to write,.. Eventually, they will stop. If they ask for the paper or forgiveness, horizontally move their head. (shake) If they try to grab it, put it in the bag. Exception: if it’s a teacher asking for it, say “it’s a personal document, i don’t feel comfortable sharing it i am afraid”
Societally, as humans hinge on emotions and affective empathy, it is seen as a bad thing, or even shows a dangerous person. But philosophically, it is a way to be as objective as possible since emotions can make a person’s transfer of information biased in one side or another.
Scary due to humans hating disinterest, or worse, the anxiety of knowing zero about what the other person is thinking of (Darwinism makes one expect the worst), and then it basically ends the conversation.
Psychology call it damaging and a bit creepy, and
inhumane.
But, I think that the absence of noise, morally, is neutral… Saying absolutely nothing
doesn’t signal anything positive or negative by definition.
I think it depends on how mature the target is and whether you are doing
it just for fun to annoy other people or actually using it to repel
bullies. Most of the time, society will view it as an abnormality though.
Though it can be used as the grey rock method to deal with surly people,
however in normal life, it can be considered passive-aggressive, making
the other person guess almost everything as they have zero feedback from
the person staying silent.