The truth about violence

[Van Canna]

Andre Tippet posted this on the Okinawan Karate club...

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the- ... /?mid=5416

This is good read as it makes us think twice about how really prepared for street violence we think we are...despite our Uechi 'prowess'

[Van Canna]

Sam Harris

As a teenager, I once had an opportunity to fly in a police helicopter over a major American city. Naively, I thought the experience might be uneventful. Perhaps there would be no crime between 8:00 and 10:00 p.m. on a Saturday night. However, from the moment we were airborne, there was a fresh emergency every fifteen seconds: Shots fired… rape in progress… victim stabbed…It was a deluge.

Of course, the impression this left on me was, in part, the result of a sampling bias: I was hearing nothing but incident reports from a city of 4 million people, most of whom would never encounter violence directly.

(No one calls the police to say “Everything is still okay!”) Yet it was uncanny to discover the chaos that lurked at the margins of my daily routine. A few minutes from where I might otherwise have been eating dinner, rapes, robberies, and murders were in progress.

[Van Canna]

Sam Harris

In my experience, most people do not want to think about the reality of human violence. I have friends who sleep with their front doors unlocked and who would never consider receiving instruction in self-defense.

For them, gun ownership seems like an ugly and uncivilized flirtation with paranoia. Happily, most of these people will never encounter violence in any form.

And good luck will make their unconcern seem perfectly justified.

[Van Canna]

But here are the numbers: In 2010, there were 403.6 violent crimes per 100,000 persons in the United States. (The good news: This is an overall decrease of 13.4 percent from the level in 2001.) Thus, the average American has a 1 in 250 chance of being robbed, assaulted, raped, or murdered each year. Actually, the chance is probably greater than this, because we know that certain crimes, such as assault and rape, are underreported.

[Van Canna]

In the comparative safety of Beverly Hills, assuming the crime rate stays constant, the probability that you will be robbed, assaulted, raped or murdered at some point over the next 30 years is 1 in 16.

(The average risk in the U.S. is 1 in 9; in Compton it’s better than 1 in 3.) Again, these statistics surely paint too rosy a picture, because many crimes go unreported.

[Van Canna]

It may seem onerous to prepare yourself and your family to respond to violence, but not doing so is also a form of preparation. Failing to prepare is, generally speaking, preparing very well to do the wrong thing. Although most of us are good at recognizing danger, our instincts often lead us to behave in ways that increase our chances of being injured or killed once a threat emerges.

[Van Canna]

However, instruction in self-defense need not consume your life. The most important preparations are mental. While I certainly recommend that you receive some physical training, merely understanding the dynamics of violence can make you much safer than you might otherwise be.

[Van Canna]

I once knew an experienced martial artist who decided to walk across Central Park late at night. He was aware of the danger, but he thought “I have a black belt in karate. Why shouldn’t I be able to walk wherever I want?” As it happened, this rhetorical question was answered almost immediately:

My friend hadn’t ventured more than a hundred yards into the darkness of the park before he was confronted by three men, one of whom plunged a hypodermic needle into his thigh without a word.

Our hero bolted and escaped, otherwise unharmed, but he spent the next three months wondering whether he had been infected with HIV, hepatitis, or some other blood-borne disease. (He was fine.) The lesson: Whatever your training, you needn’t be foolish.

[Van Canna]

Another principle is lurking here that should be made explicit: Never threaten your opponent. The purpose of his verbal challenge was to get you to respond in such a way as to make him feel justified in attacking you. You shouldn’t collaborate in this process or advertise your readiness to defend yourself.

Even if violence seems unavoidable, and you decide to strike preemptively, you should do so from a seemingly unaggressive posture, retaining the element of surprise. (This requires training.) Putting up your dukes and agreeing to fight has no place in a self-defense repertoire.

⁠

[Van Canna]

“What are you looking at, ass-hole?”

“Sorry, man. I was just spacing out. It’s been a long day.”

De-escalate and move on.

[CANDANeh]

Putting up your dukes and agreeing to fight has no place in a self-defense repertoire.

I once agreed to "step outside" with a very persistent intoxicated a@s who was interfering with my date. Told him I would meet him out in the parking lot. Paid the bouncer a substantial tip not to let him back in Being young I saved face (the doorman was the only one in the know and kept me posted). Eventually we left the bar in a group and I was in full "condition red". Cost me about the price of the shirt I would had to replace by "stepping out"...or worse. Thankfully that night my intelligence managed to somehow slip past my emotions.

Learn from nature. No healthy animal will choose to engage in a violent conflict unless there is no other option and the reason for engagement is survival of the pack or themselves. Why is it that humans voluntarily engage in violent acts with very few of the situations being for reasons of survival? My guess is that our emotions are not in communication with our intelligence. We do not teach our children about violence, zero tolerance in schools isolates them from what I think is a natural learning process (puppies not learning the boundaries of play-fighting). However, video games train them to be in control of creating very real simulations of violent acts.Acts of violence they control with no real purpose of engagement. What a "dumb species" we can be.

[Van Canna]

All good points, Leo, and a smart move on your part to avoid an ugly confrontation in the 'parking lot' …

As to the why of men 'going to violence' …the psychology behind it is very complex indeed.

But I think that probably the biggest reason is 'MAN'S PRIDE' if you will.

Also if you are insulted, it is extremely difficult to 'let it go' without feeling demeaned in a myriad of ways.

We have to look at the problem of 'self image'

Face saving (or saving face) refers to maintaining a good self image. People who are involved in a conflict and secretly know they are wrong will often not admit that they are wrong because they don’t want to admit they made a mistake. They therefore continue the conflict, just to avoid the embarrassment of looking bad.

Imagine the great number of ways our self image can take a beating…something that stays with us longer than any physical damage we may have suffered had we chosen to engage.

The 'monkey dance' as Rory describes it in his books.

Then we take martial arts and become 'men of respect' …..And things get worse….you would think not….

but if someone says to you 'Shut the f!@# up or I'll beat your ass' _ the 'man of respect' inside of you, now with a high Dan rank…won't let you do it…and in you are up to your ass in consequences that later you will regret not having avoided at all cost.

The people, who might have thought you were afraid, or so you thought they thought, will longer have forgotten about you…while you will be stuck with the consequences forever.

Tough questions, Leo

[Jake Steinmann]

Good article, and good discussion.

In his Conflict Communication seminar, Rory emphasizes the importance of being able to defuse YOURSELF--keeping the monkey from making stupid decisions for you.

The article spawned some interesting thoughts from Matt Thornton, the head of the Straight Blast Gym as well. We had an interesting conversation about it.

http://sbgi-pdx.com/news/2011/11/15/occ ... am-harris/
http://honestphilosophy.blogspot.com/20 ... nd-me.html
http://honestphilosophy.blogspot.com/20 ... rt-ii.html

[Van Canna]

Very good Jake. The posted links with the conversations are most enlightening, or should be to the vast majority of us. One cannot really argue with the position of 'aliveness' in the training.

But what is also true is the fact that many students will find this type of training a bit too demanding and so they walk away from it, preferring to immerse into different 'standards' of achieving defensive proficiency_ if you will.

Ever hear the argument that 'when the time comes you will do something out of your traditional training automatically' which will be enough to deal with whatever the attack was.

We also hear the delusional belief that Uechi practitioners cannot be taken to the ground, and if they are, then the 'grapple' built in component in Uechi, will see us through, without the need to say cross train in BJJ as an example, or even learn about more dedicated techniques.

This presupposition is taught with ardent fervor by just about every Uechi sensei we know, something that results in powerful compelling feelings and emotions as to its veracity.

Well maybe… will it be good for 'self confidence' or put us in a pine box?

Who knows.

[Van Canna]

But Leo's question is a pointed one[Why is it that humans voluntarily engage in violent acts with very few of the situations being for reasons of survival?[/quote]

The following uses the example of road rage events, but I think it applies to all human interactions

The so-called "reasons" for disputes are actually triggers. In most human behavior there is a stated and unstated, or conscious and unconscious, motivation. The motivation for traffic disputes is no exception. While the event that sparks the incident may be trivial, in every case there exists some reservoir of anger, hostility, or frustration that is released by the triggering incident.

The triggers are varied and in many cases 'subliminal' _ making just about anyone potentially extremely dangerous.

Take a look at these 'reasons'

Mizell & Company analyzed the "reasons" given for violent disputes and collected the following list. Each of the reasons listed is associated with at least 25 incidents that resulted in death or injury:

"It was an argument over a parking space..."

"He cut me off"

"She wouldn't let me pass"

A driver was shot to death "because he hit my car"

"Nobody gives me the finger..."

A shooting occurred "because one motorist was playing the radio too loud."

"The bastard kept honking and honking his horn..."

"He/she was driving too slowly"

"He wouldn't turn off his high beams"

"They kept tailgating me..."

A driver was chased down and shot to death after fleeing the scene of a hit-and-run following a minor collision
A fatal crash occurred because another driver kept "braking and accelerating, braking and speeding up."

"She kept crossing lanes without signaling -- maybe I overreacted but it taught her a lesson."

"I never would have shot him if he hadn't rear-ended me"

"Every time the light turned green he just sat there -- I sat through three different green lights."

A fatal dispute erupted over which car had the right of way.

A driver accused of murder said "He couldn't care less about the rest of us -- he just kept blocking traffic."

A driver charged with attempted murder said, "He practically ran me off the road -- what was I supposed to do?"

And a teenager charged with murdering a passenger in another vehicle said simply, "We was dissed."

There are many other stated reasons for violent traffic disputes. In one case, for example, a man was attacked because he couldn't turn off the anti-theft alarm on his rented jeep.

Dozens of violent aggressive driving incidents have occurred because the occupants of one vehicle "dissed" or disrespected the occupants of a second vehicle.