Todays entry deals with the real goal behind Self-Defense.
This definitely is not what you’ll read in most Self-Defense Books, see in Self-Defense Videos, or hear taught in Self-Defense Courses. But I think you’ll agree this unquie perspective really makes the thought of dealing with violence much easier.
See what you think…
THE AWFUL TRUTH ABOUT VIOLENCE — A MANIFESTO
For too long fallacies have held sway while common criminals exploit fear and ignorance; the simple facts that govern the effective use of violence as a survival tool are well known to them, and denied to the law-abiding, successfully socialized citizen.
Know, then, these simple facts and let your power increase:
Violence is available to everyone.
You are a predator born with stereo vision for hunting prey and teeth for ripping and tearing flesh. You are a member of the only species that makes an art of war. The average human body is an awesome engine of destruction, driven by the most dangerous thing in the known universe–a human brain. You are a survival engine, the descendant of winners; your ancestors didn’t get you here by laying down and giving up. They made the losers do that. Violence is your birthright.
Violence works on everyone.
Superior physical ability, knowledge, experience and iron will are all trumped by the thumb in the eye. There is nothing anyone can do to make themselves immune to the laws of the physical universe. Bullets are not swayed by opinion or presence, they are maddeningly impartial.
Another way to state this, and the above, is: “Violence: anyone can do it and no one is immune.”
These two facts, taken together, are simultaneously reassuring and terrifying. Reassuring in that you can get it done on anyone. Terrifying in that anyone can get it done on you.
We tell ourselves comforting lies to get over it (‘if I do this-and-such a technique there’s nothing he can do’ and ‘if I’m stronger/faster/meaner I’m better off’), but you’re much better off accepting the reality of it: all you can ever really do is level the playing field.
Knowing how to use violence as a survival tool–and being willing to do so–puts you on nice, flat terrain, even and equal with the worst of humanity. You can see the people who still have their heads in the sand, asses up, and the predators who stalk among them taking advantage.
Before you knew how to grab the tool of violence in both fists and swing it hard and sure you were at a disadvantage. Now that disadvantage is gone, and in its place is the stone–cold truth–you’re responsible for you, all alone. Either you can rely on yourself or you can’t; either you’ll get the job done or you won’t.
You have a choice: you can be afraid, or you can be resolved.
Violence is biomechanical.
It is purely the interplay of physics and physiology. Magical thinking and psychic powers are trumped by the tire-iron to the head.
All violent acts are identical.
Regardless of the infinitude of circumstances leading up to the violent act, and the myriad of outcomes on the other side, the actual point of violence–where injury occurs–is always the same. The thumb in the eye, the boot in the groin, the bullet in the brain–they are all identical in that they are injuries.
Violence is about destruction, not competition.
The breaking of the human body, the shutdown of the human brain, these are the things that success in violence are made of.
Anything that takes the delivery of injury and tries to transmute it into a tit-for-tat exchange (his technique vs. my technique, defense, etc.) is missing the point, and will very likely get you killed.
To believe you are engaged in a competition is to plant your head in the sand. Violence is simply one person injuring another. The serial killer who just wants to murder will be undeterred by counters.
The one doing the violence tends to prevail.
Violence is one person injuring another person. This is the definition of the effective use of violence. While all violent acts have injury in common, they also share another trait: at the end, the person walking away is typically the one who did it.
The one getting the violence done to them tends to get injured.
Defense wounds are found on corpses. ‘Nuff said.
It takes no training or physical conditioning to murder someone.
Serial killers are rarely impressive physical specimens. They tend not to lift weights or take kung-fu. They are, however, intimately familiar with the contents of this manifesto.
Violence is neither good nor evil.
It is a tool, and as such it takes on the moral color of the user–but only after the fact. Bludgeoning someone to death with a claw hammer can be murder in one instance and justified homicide in another–but in both cases someone bludgeoned someone else to death with a claw hammer. Knowing how doesn’t make you a bad person.
The goal of violence is injury. Period.
This is last because it is most important–you will not forget it. Anything that advances this goal is useful to you; anything that ignores, postpones, or otherwise hinders this goal can get you killed.
After all is said and done, the only thing you need to remember is… INJURE HIM… NOW!
