The Seed to the Craft of Art is The Art of Going Insane (And Other Acting Tips)

Today we discuss madness.

Nope, not that.

Yep.

Yep. That.
There, that is better.
Or worse.
I can never tell.
And that is really the subject of this post.

"There are no sane characters. "
-Miles Boucher

What do I mean by that?
WHAT I SAID!
(hint: that was for dramatic effect)

But, seriously, there are no sane characters.
Rather:
There are no reasonable people in drama.
Don't believe me?
Look at Oedipus:

Cast Study: OEDIPUS

That right there is a King of Thebes...

Oedipus meets his father Laius on the side of the road and what happens?

1. Oedipus's father Laius tries to murder Oedipus
2. Oedipus murders his father
3. Oedipus marries his mother and becomes king of Thebes
4. His mother has four of Oedipus's children
5. Thebes suffers plague
6. Oedipus curses himself (unknowingly)
7. Oedipus banishes his brother Creon and the prophet Tireisias
8. His mother Jocasta finds out he is her son and hangs herself
9. Oedipus gouges out his own eyes AND is banished

Why?

Why does this happen?

Because Oedipus's father Laius is told by a prophet that someday his son will murder him.

So what does he do?

• Laius sends his son away to die on the mountainside.

I would call that an unreasonable response.

Just the all of it.

Because really what it came down to was the fact that a blind hermaphrodite tells a king that someday his newborn son will kill him and that is all it takes for him to order his son to die.

Everything that follows stems from that moment.

Arguably Oedipus is a complete innocent.

But, the Greeks really don't seem to care about secular morality.

Okay. 

That is an extreme case.

But, that was the Greeks.

They worshiped dirt. 

That couldn't happen in a reasonable society.

Like the Elizabethans in England?

Case Study: HAMLET

This may seem like easy picking.
Hamlet and Horatio certainly talk about death and madness a lot.

Hamlet: Does this seem healthy to you?
Horatio: No.
Gravedigger: No.
Hamlet: I was talking to the skull.

Ophelia does literally go insane:

The King is like get this crazed bitch out of here!

Hamlet certainly feigns madness in the play scene where he woos the spurned Ophelia discussing lying between her legs and then does it!

And then of course, Hamlet speaks to a ghostly vision that no one else can see save Hamlet and the audience....scholars still debate that one.

Seriously, look at that shadow. That is my Father!

So some would say the play is filled with madness.
I would argue that they are right.
Yet again the:

1. Hamlet spurning Ophelia
2. Hamlet murdering Polonius
3. Claudius's banishment of Hamlet
4. Claudius's orders to execute Hamlet
5. Laertes's rebellion
6. Ophelia's insanity
7. Ophelia's apparent suicide
8. Hamlet's return and subsequent jumping into Ophelia's grave and fighting Laertes in it
9. Their duel
10. The accidental poisoning of the Queen
11. The accidental poisoning of Laertes
12. The deliberate poisoning of Hamlet
13. The deliberate poisoning and the subsequent stabbing of Claudius 

All of this, all of this, all of this stems from:

• Hamlet believing the Ghost who said:
• I am thy Father's Spirit AND
• Your Uncle killed me

That is it.

That is all it took to convince Hamlet that it was all his Uncle and everything that followed stems from it.

Who does that?!

Crazy people do that. 

But, those were from the Renaissance.
They did more drugs than the Flower Children.
They drank ale instead of water.
Shakespeare probably smoked cannabis.
Of course their characters were crazy.
We couldn't have that today...
(it's a leading line of thought, but still)

Case Study: HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER (or any sitcom...Scrubs/Friends/New Girl/Cheers)

*SPOILERS*
Meet Ted:

Aww early Ted is the best Ted!

Ted is a psychopath.

Crazy eyes! Crazy eyes!

Ted meets a girl named Robin:

Her name is literally Smulders...

The entire first season is about them getting together.
Second season is about them falling apart.
Third season is about them working on being together (Friends w/Benefits)
Fourth season they break up; Ted gets desperate.
Fifth season is art.
Everything after is just a sorry excuse.
And then Ted finally meets up to his promise and meets the Mother of his kids:

Sup!

And it was good.
Until she dies.

WHY?!

So sad.
And in the end, we find out that all of this is just an excuse to chase Robin.
AGAIN!
He literally asks his kids if it would be okay to date Robin after the death of his wife.


Now, here is the sanity:
It is very healthy to talk to your kids about dating again.
They are a part of the relationship and can and probably should be consulted.

But, Ted literally tells them everything about his sexual history, his conquests, his travails, his foibles.
They know Ted & Robin have the unhealthiest relationship.

That is not the action of a sane and healthy individual.
Ted is the most obtuse individual when it comes to self-awareness and self-control.

And here is the thing...
It's what we love about him.
NOT ALL THE TIME!

Oh shut up!

She is engaged bro!

To name a few.

But, there are so many precious, beautiful moments that we love.

His apparent disassociated moments with his students:

The fact that Ted made it rain for Robin:

The fact that he would have stolen an entire blue orchestra:

These are still the acts of a crazy person.
But, we can and do find them endearing.
There are reasons explored actually within the series, but are not the subect of this article:

The point is:

All drama is filled with crazy and that is what we love.

Case Study: YOUR FAVORITE STORY

Think of your favorite story.
Okay?
You have a story?
You got it in your head?
Know all the back story?
The ups? The downs? The surprises?
Good.

Now, really examine those characters.
Examine their behavior.
Examine their responses.
Are they responding reasonably?
Dare I say sanely?
I'd argue probably not.

Now, here is the thing.

EVERYONE WANTS TO BE SANE.

So far as I have been able to gather.
However, I would contend:

Art is Insane

End stop.
Art is Insane.
It is what we love about art.
People do things we would never do.

• Ted Mosby loves in spite of love kicking his ass.
• Hamlet goes off the word of a spectre and his whole family ends up murdered and his kingdom overthrown.
• Oedipus ends up blind, childless, and cursed.

We like watching these stories.
We like watching characters get kicked and getting back up again
And why?
Because it is crazy to do so!
So why is the first critical response I hear always, always, always:

• It was so real!
• That is exactly how I would respond!

Really?
Really?!
Would you really?
Would you really kill your father, mother, nieces, nephews, and children?
If so, I may want to have you committed.

Now, to be fair, it may say something about the human condition.
Namely: we are all insane.
But, that is the subject of another post.
Here is my point:

Artists are trying to make their characters sane

It is the biggest tragedy to art I see right now.

People are trying to make their characters 'real'. 

And that means by toning down their responses.

That means that instead of tearing up the contract, characters are politely saying, "No, thank you."

Instead of throwing pies in each other's faces, we see them tersely eat dinner for a half hour scene.

This is not an overall trend.

In fact, many modern comedies embrace the insane quite well: 

• Death at a Funeral
• Hot Fuzz
• Shaun of the Dead
• At World's End
• Ted
• Rush Hour
• Tommy Boy

To name but a few. 

But, if you are stuck, if you can't quite figure out why a scene isn't working, consider that maybe you or your partner or the situation isn't quite crazy enough.

Questions to Consider

• Who is right in this situation?
• Who is wrong in this situation?
• Can I make them wrong?
• How?
• Am I acting unreasonably?
• Can I act more unreasonably?
• How?
• What would an insane response be?
• Why am I not doing that?
• Is the reason: to be liked?
• Is it because I would "never" do that?
• What is wrong with doing it?
• What is the most I can get away with?
• What are the consequences for my current action?
• Is it imprisonment?
• Why not?
• Is it lower than imprisonment?
• Why?

I'm not saying everyone needs to go to prison or murder someone.

That would be formulaic.

But, the number of comedies that have a prison sequence is as high as the wedding:

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

Bridesmaids

So if you aren't risking something in the scene.
If you aren't gambling on going to prison in your play or screenplay or novel at some point.
Then, I don't think you are writing drama.
Because your characters aren't insane.
And that really makes all the difference.

How Harry Potter Cured my Depression (Or at least Remissed It)

Today, we discuss my mental illness:

DEPRESSION.

Now, before I go into Harry Potter and the wonder that it is,
We first need to discuss depression and how it affects me personally, and possibly others.

What we are talking about is stories and narratives that stem from lots of places, but culture is the key word.
Mother Culture teaches us how things work.

And the sad part is culture teaches most people to think depression looks like this.

(Cursory google search)

A sad person looking sadly in the corner. Somewhere relatively harmless.
This is not depression. This is not what it looks like. This is not it at all.
Think about the persons suffering.
Think about what they really look like.
Have you ever had a clear indicator/emblem like:

• someone sitting alone in a crowded park
• backlit by some ridiculous lighting
• holding their head 
• and looking down in shame/sorrow?

No.
No you have not.
And why?
Because this is a construction. This is a narrative perpetuated by our culture that believes depression is mere sadness that people can catch and leave behind if only they got the help they need. If only they worked at it or got the medication.
AND I BELIEVED IT! FOR YEARS I THOUGHT I DIDN'T HAVE DEPRESSION SIMPLY BECAUSE I DIDN'T FEEL LIKE THIS PICTURE.
That is the single greatest danger to this story: people with depression don't believe they have it because of their negative self-worth and not being taught to look for the signs in their thinking process.

The scary part about depression is it looks like this:

Oh Arrested Development thou heinous bitch.
It is forced. You know you are supposed to be happy. So you fake it.
Why?
Because you don't want to unburden to others. You don't want your sorrow to affect others.
And why?
Because you aren't worth it.
Which, lo and behold, makes you feel more miserable, more isolated, more depressed.
So you fake it.
You fake it.
You do.
For the sake of others, you put on a brave face and tell everyone you are all right until you are not all right. And that is not okay. Not anymore.

Because
What depression feels like is much, much scarier.
It feels like this:

Every day walking through broken glass. Every gesture or touch or interaction feels like pain.
Why?
Because it on the inside I look like this:

But, here is the saddest thing about being depressed.
You do not feel like the kid in this picture.
I did not feel like the kid in this picture.
For years, I felt like the monster in the shadows waiting to prey on little children.
But, I didn't want to.
I didn't want that to be my function in this life.
I didn't want to feel that way.
But, I didn't believe there was any other way to be.
I thought happiness and joy were for others.
They're not.
They are for everybody.
My reality looked something more like this:

Alone, cold, and afraid, lying under a bed while someone sleeps soundly above me.

• Afraid to move.
• Afraid to speak.
• Afraid to laugh.
• Afraid to love.

And why?

• Because I might wake them
• Because I might scare them
• Because I might hurt them
• Because I might kill them

It was a terrifying and awful way to live.
Nobody deserves to live like that.

I have been working for weeks to change my world view.
And it is hard.
It is so god damn hard.
Every day I struggle to fight down that gnawing sensation at the back of my skull:

• "Nobody likes you."
• "Everybody is just pretending"
• "You have no friends, they are somebody else's friends"
• "They are just waiting till you leave"

Every day those thoughts creep in and I cannot stem the tide.

All I can do is channel them.

Unlike what I did for years.

I have not changed, but how I am handling it has.

Instead, I choose to ask for help.

Ask for friends.

Ask for society. 

I am afraid every day turning down a friendly outing. Because it might be my depression. It is like an addiction. It can crop up at the most inopportune times and it could be so easy to go home and be alone and nurse my wounds for not being invited out. Or not invited out in the right way. Or not being included. 

Solutions

What can I (Miles) do to help?

Fuck included.

Fuck invitations.

I am a person.

I have a right to goodness. To kindness. To love. To joy. I will knock on people's doors. I will ask to be let in. And if people say no, that is okay too. It doesn't make me a monster for bothering them during finals or asking on the wrong day or at the wrong time. It just means that they are busy and that they are handling them for the moment. 

I am handling me for the moment.

But, I need help.

I need friends. 

I need loved ones.

What can you do to help?

Just include those who are depressed.

Make sure that they get out. That they shower. That they eat. That they feel loved.

It does not matter.

I remember in the midst of my depression I came up with a saying:

"More than anything, I just want this moment to be over."

It felt dismissive, like I was isolating the problem. But, really, I was dealing with it.
I have dealt with depression for the majority of my life and on any given day, I can handle it. But, if we are going to have fun and make me feel included instead of isolated and worried that I am a burden, the last thing I want to do is talk about my sadness. I have clinicians for that. Therapists, specialists. If you want to have a significant and meaningful conversation, we can do that. But, don't invite me over to "help" and then pretend you have a clinical degree. It doesn't work. It doesn't help. It makes me feel sad. Instead, try anything.
Anything else.

• board games
• movie nights
• clubbing
• dancing
• lunch
• tea
• coffee
• tuba lessons

It doesn't matter what it is. Just make sure that the friend is included. That they can accomplish it. And if they throw up friction, get them to do it anyway. It feels better once it is happening. It feels better once it is over. The initial part is the hardest. The admitting of the problem, the getting out and seeing people. It all takes energy. Energy that we have been directing negatively at ourselves for a while. It takes retraining to redirect that energy. And it can be hard.

These last few weeks have been incredibly difficult. 

I have been struggling to be open and inviting in the last few weeks because I cannot afford not to be.

I have destroyed relationships, thrown up road blocks, and isolated myself for years because I did not think that I was worth the effort.

Worth the time or the place or the anything.

That isn't true. 

Other people recognized it.
That is why they stayed my friends.

Now, I need to embrace that fact and start working at repairing those beautiful, wonderful, precious relationships.

Some things I learned from my depression

D: Depression lesson

L: What I learned coming out

D: My love is hurtful. (I have claws and if I hug others, they will get hurt, better to hurt myself and save others.)

L: Love is not in and of itself harmful. (I do not have claws, I have been harming myself for no good reason)

D: We are all broken. 

L: We are not broken. (Instead, we are, all of us, children, running wildly and playing, some fall and get hurt and we take care of them. Recognizing that the hurt comes from playing, but is not the playing or the children is the most important lesson.)

D: Happiness is for other people.

L: Happiness is always there provided we are daring enough to reach for it.

How I snapped out of depression

I operate on stories. That is how I live my life. It is how I understand my universe.

Story is the key.

"Life is Story." -Miles Boucher

That is what I believe.
In the midst of my depression, I believed my place in the story was as villain. The ultimate villain. I was the worst human being. Worse. I was less than human. I was a monster.
For years people told me I wasn't.
I didn't believe them.
And then, someone compared, not me mind you, but in my head I heard:

"Miles is like Tom Riddle's diary."

For those who don't know, Tom Marvolo Riddle is Lord Voldemort. The single greatest villain in recent story.
For those who haven't read Harry Potter (you know who you are) here is a primer
Born Tom Riddle, the boy remade himself into Lord Voldemort through years of magical experimentation as the greatest dark wizard, powerful, hungry, malevolent, seemingly invulnerable.
In the end, he fractured his soul and poured its essence through the murder of others into objects in order to protect his essence (horcruxes).
He was incapable of feeling love because his mother used a love potion to "get" him (Shakespearean sense).
He is tragic, beautiful, and defeated not by malice or vindictiveness, but by love. He is defeated because he was incapable of feeling love and because of that he was alone.

Tom Riddle is without doubt one of the single greatest portrayals of a villain...ever.
If I had been compared to Tom Riddle, I would have been over the moon. Somebody would have hit it on the head. That is how I see myself. That is how I cast myself. This beautifully tragic, hopelessly cursed individual who is worthy of pity, but who has to die because that is the story's function.

Instead, I felt compared to the diary. The horcrux. A repository for Tom Riddle's soul. The diary functions like a parasite, feeding off of every negative emotion and draining its host of that energy until at long last, it leaves them: a dry, empty husk, devoid of the personality and vibrancy that makes that person (Ginny) so very, very special.
Now, let me reiterate, I was not being compared to the diary. But, in my warped, narcissistic state, I believed that I was.
And so, instead of being the beautifully tragic Tom Riddle, I was instead his parasitic leftovers.

It was worse than the worst thing I could imagine.
For the first time in my life somebody hadn't said:

"No, you aren't the worst thing. You are a good person!"

And instead had slapped me upside my head and said:

"No, you are worse than you imagined."

Suddenly, I was suffused with feelings of self worth.
For the first time I felt like I was higher on the scale than somebody was giving me credit.
I didn't need to take myself lower, I needed to build myself up.
And so, I started arguing.
For myself.
For the first time in my life.

I am not Tom Riddle's Diary. I am not Tom Riddle.
According to Pottermore, I am a Slytherin.
But, let us remember: Draco is Slytherin.
Regulus Black is Slytherin.
Severus Snape is Slytherin.
Harry was Slytherin.
It is the choices we make that determine where we belong.

The house system was disbanded after Headmaster Snape.
And the single greatest tragedy of the series is that Slytherin House was evicted during the Battle of Hogwarts.
They were not given a choice in the matter.
I am sure there are those in Slytherin House who would have left, they chose the better backed side.
But, I am also sure that there are those who would have stayed to fight for Harry.
I would have.
He was almost in my House.

Making Donald Drumpf Again (One Blog Post at a Time)

Today let us discuss rhetoric.
Oratory.
Performance.
Something which in today's world is sorely ignored, much to our detriment.
Here is the best manifesto that I have ever heard on the power of words:

''

This is from an episode called War Crimes of the rightly beloved West Wing starring Martin Sheen.
In it he makes one of the most remarkable speeches.
For the lazy:

Then what is your problem?

Hackery!This guy was a hack!
He had a captive audience!
And the way I know that is that I tried to tunnel out of there several times. He had an audience and he didn't know what to do with it.

You want him to sing "Volare?"

Couldn't have hurt.
Words when spoken out loud for the sake of performance, are music.
They have rhythm,and pitch, and timbre, and volume.
These are the properties of music, and music has the ability to find us and move us, and lift us up in ways that literal meanings can't.
Do you see?All hacks, off the stage!
Right now!That's a national security order.

And he sticks the landing.

Words when spoken out loud for the sake of performance, are music.They have rhythm,and pitch, and timbre, and volume.These are the properties of music, and music has the ability to find us and move us, and lift us up in ways that literal meanings can't.

And there it is.
Words, like music, when performed for the sake of an audience are an invisible force that we can use to influence ourselves and others.

A cursory glance at the internet reveals countless scholarly journals on the effects of music therapy:
Follow this link and find articles in journals spanning decades of research into the field.
You can start to see just how deep the rabbit hole goes.

These are excerpts from abstracts from studies conducted in the last year alone:

"background music disturbs the reading process, has some small detrimental effects on memory, but has a positive impact on emotional reactions and improves achievements in sports."

Not exactly music you can dance to, but that alone is telling. 

Music affects focus with particular (mental?) activities i.e. reading and supports/encourages others (physical?) i.e. sports.

One study suggests that listening to preferred music choices may help reduce pain and anxiety in patients undergoing treatment for renal failure.

Patients undergoing an incredibly arduous treatment for renal failure: hemodialysis reportedly experienced an improvement in their lifestyle listening to music.

Music therapy acts mainly through emotional and psycho-physiological pathways. It includes a series of techniques that can respond to targeted therapeutic objectives. Some studies have shown that music therapy reduces anxiety, alleviates periods of depression and aggressive behaviour and thus significantly improves mood, communication and autonomy of patients.

And this abstract I just didn't omit anything it is so good. 

This is an abstract about the treatment of children with music.

The conclusion that they drew was that music has the potential to improve not only psychological, but physical responses.

The aim of this study was to investigate the physiological responses of long-term hospitalized children when exposed to live music.Twenty-one paediatric patients at Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital,London, between 3 months and 14 years of age, took part in the study. They were all long-term patients with cardiac and/or respiratory problems. They received music sessions for about 30 minutes, according to the child's state, during which a musician sang and played guitar. The children's physiological responses were measured with a pulse oximeter and their oxygen saturation level as well as their heart rate recorded before and after the music session. The analysis of the data showed that during the music sessions, the children's heart rate did not change significantly. However, when their oxygen saturation level was examined, a different picture emerged. In fact, the percentage of oxygen present in the blood increased significantly by the end of the music session.This suggests that music has an effect on the state of paediatric patients,potentially improving their physiological and psychological well-being.

Music is something that we do not fully understand, but is a powerful force that has a firm root in the medical community.
Now, what does this have to do with politics?
Well, given that this article started with West Wing, kind of everything.

You see, in it, President Bartlet creates a synonym between music (that powerful force we discussed) and words spoken for the sake of performance.
This is the most important time in history because media saturates all of our lives.

Average user in the US spends 5.6 hours online or connected to the digital sphere.

Facebook saturation increases every day.
According to this chart 1,550,000,000 users are on Facebook as of six months ago.
If the trend continues of 50-100 million per month growth, we hit 2 billion.
That is 2,000,000,000 users.
(Most of those are spam).

The point is, it is very easy to access an audience.
Again, how does this relate to politics?
If you saw this coming you are a god damn mind reader.

That is right.
Donald Drumpf.
Why?
Rhetoric.

Rhetoric used to be taught in schools.
No more.
It went out with Probability and Statistics and Free Play, I suppose.

But, what is rhetoric?
I googled it.
Rhetoric is the effective means by which to communicate an idea, but, and this here is important, persuade a listening/reading audience.

So here we have the world.

Saturated by Social Media

Where there is a total lack of education of anything that could be useful to a population.
For those who want some really amazing views on education check out Sir Ken Robinson's TedTalk or my earlier post.
The argument essentially goes:

1. Education (as we know it) is an institution to produce worker bees for the industrial revolution
2. Education (as we know it) has not been changed in the last 100 years since its inception
3. Education (as we know it) is rooted only in the trades/disciplines that will help worker bees

• math
• science
• english
• humanities

This is the state of the world (or at least one picture of it)
Humanity, constantly communicating, with little formal education in things like recognizing persuasive arguments.
And we get moments like this:

It cannot be plainer.
He argues and his audience reacts violently.
In fact, here is another video by the eminent Rachel Maddow where she systematically breaks down Drumpf's rhetoric and how he is using it to incite violence.

Donald Drumpf is not only a character, he is an orator.
Taking a look at the inherent message that he sends is one of hate and violence.
That cannot be questioned.
But, it is the people at his rallies who are listening.
And they are acting out.
And he abdicates responsibility.

What he is doing, if you listen closely, if you really listen is a war cry.
It sounds like a beating drum.
It is a call to arms.
He is militarizing the American public to a call to action of Hitlerian proportions.
And yes, I know I just succumbed to Godwin's Law, which states: 

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1"

But, I am not the only person making the comparison:
In fact, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan said:
AND I FUCKING QUOTE THIS

“They might be rehabilitating that fellow with the mustache back there in Germany, because I saw…what Donald Trump said about preserving America and making America great again to Hitler in Germany preserving Germany and making Germany great again and free again and not beholden to these Communists on one side, politically who were trying to destroy their land and their freedom, and the Jewish capitalists on the other, who were ripping off the nation through the banking system.”

THAT FELLOW WITH THE MUSTACHE BACK THERE IN GERMANY!
I can't even.
When you are endorsed by this guy:

The commentary writes itself.

But, the point I was making is this:
Donald Drumpf has a powerful message of hate.
Powerful because he does have followers, rabid even, for attention in the spotlight.
How does he do this?
The sound of his rhetoric is a call to arms, to attack the other guy.

But, it has got to be countermanded with a message of powerful love and peace.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you our sitting president:


Point for point it is unreal to me that Drumpf is allowed his seat in politics.
He has wormed his way to all but assuring the presidential nomination and being a single race away from the same office as President Barack Obama.
That is...unconscionable to say the least.

Now, many people are asking what can we do?
What can we possibly do?
This may be the subject of a longer post, but here it is:

In the face of overwhelming violence, as in the case with school shootings, the best thing is for the majority of the public to ignore it.
Why?
How terrible!
In fact, we get studies like this:

Recent shootings at schools around the country have resulted in widespread fear and panic among both students and parents, prompting a myriad of responses to make schools safer. Yet, empirical data suggest that despite the recent shootings, schools remain extremely safe places for children, and school violence is lower today than it was several years ago. The present research focuses on the construction of school shootings as a moral panic, with examinations of the roles played by the media, the public, and politicians in using isolated incidents (albeit heinous offenses) to support their interests. The interactions between these groups and the resultant punitive actions directed toward juveniles are discussed.

Schools are safer than we are led to believe by the media.
The whole country is in a mass panic, when in fact, albeit the crimes are heinous, they are rarer than they were.
It is a smoke screen.
A narrative perpetuated by politicians to push their own agenda (yes, even democrats).
I won't say ignore the narrative because that is not helpful.
But, be aware that what is reported may not be all that is happening.

Donald Drumpf is a bigoted parrot, regurgitating whatever comes to him in the moment.
That is probably not all that he is doing.
That is probably not all that the Republican party is doing.
 Don't ignore his dangerous rhetoric because it is inciting violence.
But, please, don't rise to his challenge.

Nuclear escalation only raised the threat of nuclear war.
It wasn't until we started nuclear disarmament that we could tear down the walls.

For those that are interested in the art of rhetoric, check out this link from the art of (wo)manliness.