Crime and Punishment - NBC - July 7, 2002

[Bill Glasheen]

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In some hairy situations, I found myself committing to dying and taking the bastard(s)with me. The thought of taking the other out rather than surviving was enough.

I'm glad david made this statement. I think it's worth mentioning a few things concerning this point of view.

You either have the feeling/opinion (would rather die) or you don't. In my mind, david is no more and/or no less an individual for having it. It is a personal choice, based on whom he is on many, many levels.

If I look at this from a standpoint of dignity, it appears noble. If I look at it from the sociobiological point of view, the jury is out on this one. Some may choose to be compliant in such a situation and live for another day. Many (not all) SDTs can be cured. Unwanted pregnancies can be removed. Life is precious, and must be put on the scale in balance with dignity.

On the other hand...there are clearly some cases where taking a stand proves to be the wise choice from the standpoint of survival. Statistically speaking, this woman was nothing short of lucky. The survival statistics for someone going to "the second crime scene" are pretty grim. Her final victory was a rare one, even if precious and celebrated.

And then there is the issue of "dumb luck" (or intuition/instincts if you believe it to be important). On September 11, 2001, the prevailing wisdom for hijack situations was to buy time. Whoops!! Good thing the Newark flight had the benefit of cell phones and hindsight. Otherwise we'd also probably be rebuilding either The Capitol or The White House.

At what point is compliance a matter of wisdom (and personal choice), and at what point is it an issue of a purely reactive personality with low self-esteem?

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We can also recover somewhat during or even after an incident, assuming we live, by mustering sincere outrage at our treatment. People succeed because they keep getting up after they are knocked down.

Amen. The interesting thing here is that "getting knocked down" occurred once in the literal sense, but many times in the metaphorical sense. It's intriguing to me in this scenario, Ted, to think of when the outrage and resilience could have (and/or should have) kicked in.

Van

I can put faces behind those stories... The tarnished reputations will unfortunately (for those individuals) eclipse the accomplishments. It's tragic.

To some extent I have learned to feel a bit of outrage at some of my own experiences. But the benefit of wisdom and time has caused me to reassess all this a bit. Do you think, Van, that there's such a concept as benevolent abuse? The military has boot camp. What do we have as martial arts instructors, outside of our own (sometimes deluded) ideas about what builds character?

- Bill

[Dana Sheets]

hmmmm.

What comes to my mind are all the cheesy scenes in chop suey films where the master takes his young protoge to the local watering hole and gets him totally drunk and then picks a fight for him with the local tough guy. Sometimes the protoge gets beaten up, sometimes he comes out unscathed - depending on where he is in his journey.

We could do stuff like that - but that would be pretty darn stupid. So what are we left with? The question of how to match "traditional" training with a modern society. Additionaly, you're matching a system of training built for men to teach men into a system to train men and women. This is no small task.

The woman in the tv show broke all the rules of common sense and it cost her.

"she was way too polite"

Boys are raised to be good. Girls are raise to be nice. And we're nice right up to the bitter end. It is a terrible side effect of lots of social conditioning that many women get. "Don't hit, don't yell, don't talk back, be nice" While each message has a time and a place - girls are much, much more likely to get them than boys.

Dr. Spock needs to write one more book. "How to raise your children with common sense, a strong sense of self and a strong sense of personal boundries."
Not a very catchy title but I really think a lot this goes back to how women are raised.

So then you try to correct the issue. You take a self-defense seminar or two. You sign up for "self defense" martial arts. You read one of a ten thousand articles on the web for women on how to be safer. But that's not most women - statistically it's very few women.

I think a self-defense curriculum needs to be taught in junior high and high school. It has to be at least as important as being able to memorize that states and capitals, no?

Dana

[This message has been edited by Dana Sheets (edited July 17, 2002).]

[Bill Glasheen]

Dana

I don't know how much of this attitude is nature, and how much is nurture. However...I grew up with six sisters - one of whom is a twin. There isn't a butch in the bunch. In fact, 3 were classic high school cheerleaders, and one was a beauty contest winner (Miss Longwood). However all six are now professionals, and they are nobody's fool. Very little of it is martial arts training (only two studied, and then only for a few months each). It's just common sense, and a strong sense of dignity and self worth. I can honestly say I learned a few things from them.

But yes, there is that subset of women that aim to please and are easily manipulated by predator types. But then I know some men like that too. You know...the kind that end up in a cult somewhere.

It isn't the technique that is the problem here, Dana. A self defense course per se isn't going to do it. It's mindset. One can keep from being a victim without knowing a thing about self defense. One can be a victim even though one is a karate sparring champion.

- Bill

[Dana Sheets]

Bill, I agree with you. I guess what I'm talking about is more of a mindset curriculum. Which goes along with some of the things Len is talking about on the VSD forum.

There are many folks sharing information about the interview process that a predator does to select his prey and what you can do to appear to be a difficult victim and thus an unlikely target. This is the stuff I think needs to be transmitted to the general public AND all martial artists on a regular basis.

You, and it sounds like your sisters, have a healthy sense of self and self-worth. I think that is most of what is takes, plain and simple. The hard part is that not everyone (male or female) is raised with this sense or through the course of life it is somehow shattered.

[Colleen]

A 17 year old girl killing herself over the humiliation of a rape and trial.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2163606.stm

Could you imagine your daughter (mother, wife) going through a rape trial, similar to the one Bill described on Crime and Punishment? It makes me really sad to hear stories like this.

[Bill Glasheen]

Like STDs, it (rape) is the "gift" that keeps on giving. What a tragedy.

What is sad about cases like this, Colleen, is that a retrospective review points to multiple violations in the past. In the Crime & Punishment episode, the convicted rapist was a former convicted felon. In a highly publicized rape and murder of a child in Florida (I believe), the alleged attacker whose DNA was found on the dead child victim had been acquitted of a charge of molesting two other children. Locally there were open cases (Silva, Lisk) of abduction/murders that appear to have been resolved. How? Richard Marc Evonitz was cornered and committed suicide after a kidnap and rape victim escaped. It turns out he had been under surveillance for years as a suspect. His path of human destruction may turn out to be quite long.

Some people on this earth are just missing a few cards. It's unfortunate we can't identify and respond earlier.

- Bill