How to respond to rudeness

Stanislav Baretsky, showman, musician, actor, president of the Union of Professional Funeral Agents:

– I have been working at the cemetery since the age of 14 and have seen a lot of rudeness from my colleagues in the shovel, gravediggers, in relation to clients! Therefore, I have a negative attitude towards him. And in general, recently there has been an unspoken rule in cemeteries – to fire boors or simply punish them: either with a ruble, or physically, as they interfere with business, spoil their reputation.

In my youth, I ran into a hardened boor who especially liked to breed old people for money. He was also one of those who sat, like most of those who worked both in the 1990s and during the Soviet era. Once, when I saw how he was rude and cheating on an old woman, I approached him from behind when he was digging a grave, and hit him on the head with a shovel. And he lay in the grave until the morning. I got away with it then, since my uncle was a tough cemetery director (he, unfortunately, was killed in the 1990s). The men laughed at this fool for a long time, he became, as the youth say, “a scumbag rat” and safely retired.

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Alexander Shirvindt, People’s Artist of Russia:

– Due to old age, resentment for rudeness has accumulated, of course. But I still don’t pay attention to it. Because if you pay attention, you need to draw conclusions. And conclusions can not be drawn! It’s easier to be a little higher than this, you won’t react to everything. And it is pointless to answer, because you immediately enter the same path. And that’s embarrassing for you.

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Vitaly Milonov, State Duma deputy:

– The best medicine against rudeness is not the expected reciprocal aggression, but on the contrary, an emphatically polite explanation that this should not be done. A person must realize that such behavior is unworthy, not very beautiful.

The problem is that we are now in active communication in social networks, online, and there the norms of behavior differ sharply from the generally accepted ones. Therefore, unfortunately, the level of hard communication has now increased.

I believe that a person can have a hard day, a breakdown, and if he goes too far, and you start in response to him: “Yes, you yourself are like that!” and so on, you get nothing. But if you say: “Why are you like this, let’s talk calmly!”, It immediately disarms.

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Adolf Shaevich, Chief Rabbi of Russia according to the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Associations in Russia (KEROOR):

– With age, it became very difficult and bad to react to rudeness, which is becoming more and more. Now there is an accumulation of everything negative, and bad upbringing and education also affect. You can agree or disagree with someone, but it is difficult to accept the main argument in today’s communication – “the fool himself.”

Today, facts to convince a person of something are not the main argument. Alas! I remember Misha Zhvanetsky, who said that if you argue with an idiot, then he probably does the same.

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Stanislav Sadalsky, Honored Artist of the RSFSR:

“You don’t have to react at all! I remember: I was at a meeting of the troupe at the Theater of the Russian Army, where the young actress began to say some nasty things to the people’s artist Lyudmila Kasatkina. She laughed and said, “I can’t hear you!”

Have I reacted this way myself before – no, absolutely. It probably comes with age. Previously, I answered something: “Tyav-tav-tav”, but now I understand that I need to smile and say: “I can’t hear you …” It’s pointless not to answer at all so that the interlocutor does not cling to you, it’s pointless, since a person does not understand – it comes with mother’s milk. I can answer for myself, since I was brought up in a boarding school, there is a law of survival. But, watching great people, learning from them, I also try to develop this skill in myself.

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Mark Sandomirsky, psychotherapist, doctor of psychological sciences, candidate of medical sciences:

– My behavior is atypical: I pronounce my emotions in a silent whisper, observe my muscle reactions, and only the remaining “sediment” is voiced out loud. According to the principle of the ecology of emotions, a word can kill, or it can save.

The answer to rudeness depends on the situation: if a person is driven by emotions, and not by selfish calculation, you can answer symmetrically, as in the children’s phrase “whoever calls himself that is called that.” When faced with everyday rudeness, you can show a mirror, symmetrical reaction, especially if you are sure that you will never meet him again. In everyday life, a boor does not act according to calculation, this is his style of life, he is used to it from childhood. Usually, the one who is rude, internally lives the state of the child and does not fully control himself. After a psychotherapeutic session, such clients, having spoken out, cry.

But a person can be rude on purpose, remaining completely calm, he needs it, because he is either an emotional aggressor or a manipulator trying to control his interlocutor through emotions. Then the best way is to become a “container” for a while, to collect other people’s emotions. It is necessary to let him speak out, not reacting outwardly in any way, waiting for when it will be possible to speak with him calmly and reasonably.

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Dmitry Guberniev, TV presenter, showman, adviser to the general director of the Rossiya TV channel:

– Although there has become a lot of rudeness, indifference and cynicism, it does not hurt me much. At times I can point to the place, at times I can ignore or laugh. Since I am a Bremen Town Musician, I believe that kindness, not beauty, will save the world. And I am a happy person, because I am almost not rude, but mostly smile. And if this rarely happens, then more often the environment makes a remark or after my words the person becomes ashamed.

It is more difficult to be a Troubadour driving on our roads, but even here I strive to be smarter: I learned to smile at an inexperienced novice, but I can shout or show something to the driver who provokes an accident.

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Sergey Tsygankov, driving instructor, TV expert and blogger:

– Calmly (reacting to rudeness. – “b”) when it touches me. And if my students – then not very much. When I see injustice, I learned to suppress my emotions and not grab boxing gloves in order to “re-educate” all boors. But he is always ready to repulse aggression, and such situations are almost daily.

Every second driver believes that only he is right on the road, and the rest interfere with him. However, as soon as such lovers of beeping, cutting and expressing themselves at the student’s address already hear from me an offer to speak like a man, they rapidly accelerate into the horizon. I can catch up with such a car without even changing from the instructor’s chair. But I’m not going to fight them, but I just hope for an apology to the student. But so far I have not come across this.

Rhetorical questions also help. Once, in a dead traffic jam, a cool jeep “demanded to clear the road”. I went out to him and said with a smile: “Imagine that your girlfriend, wife or mother is driving.” He silently turned on the reverse gear and fled.

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Evgeny Safronov, editor-in-chief of the InterMedia news agency:

– I try not to react to rudeness in any way. I try to remain calm, polite and reserved. But it doesn’t always work out. And I myself try not to be rude or rude, but sometimes it still breaks through, and for a long time I am ashamed of myself.

Rudeness is often associated with a specific situation. And if it can be corrected, for example, with the help of a tough reaction, then it is necessary to do so – to react harshly. And if you can’t, and there are a majority of such cases, it’s best to just step aside, not to enter into a conflict, not to react.

Rudeness is associated with the current state of the individual. He may even be a well-mannered person, but he was brought down. Or he brought himself. There is now a tendency to increase the amount of rudeness, it is associated with a change in the state of society, which is not happening at all for the better. You can observe a general overexcitation – in short, an unpleasant moment.

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Nikolai Valuev, Deputy of the State Duma, world boxing champion:

– A reaction to rudeness may mean that you are hurt, and this boor achieves. In the case of public rudeness, a witty, not boorish answer is guaranteed to put the provocateur in his place. I like provocations, but not the level of rudeness, of course. There are a lot of stories, but I don’t remember specific ones, because I don’t hold a grudge against them (these people). This is the main thing. Well, in the end, it disarms them.

Group “Direct speech”