The danger in responding to insults with humor or with no response at all is that some insulters are sufficiently slow-witted that they won’t realize that by refusing to respond to their insults with counterinsults, we are displaying disdain for what they think of us. Rather than being humiliated by our response, they might be encouraged by our jokes or silence, and they might start bombarding us with an endless stream of insults. This can be particularly awkward if the person doing the insulting was, in the ancient world, one’s slave or if he is, in the modern world, one’s employee, student,
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