It boggles my mind sometimes, how we can be as careful and clear as possible in making the case for surviving and winning in violence and still have it come out garbled on the other end.

But I suppose people hear what they want to hear, and if all your preconceptions about violence have you in the victim role, then all violence is about victimization. And fear.

I’ve always said I’d much rather teach the resolute than the fearful — people who are resolute take the tool in both fists and get busy swinging it; the fearful need to be coaxed to even get near the tool. (I’ve had plenty of fearful people become resolute after exposure to the tool, but having to overcome that victim-mentality just adds a needless speed bump to the process.)

Seeing yourself first and foremost as the victim in violence
colors everything that comes after.

The simple idea of gouging an eye becomes you getting your own eye gouged out. You may not have considered it before, and now you’re aware that there are people out there — in this very room! — who not only think about it, but know how, and, most chillingly, are willing to do it. Again, fear finding fear, and growing.

Someone who approaches the tool of violence pragmatically realizes two things about a gouged eye:

  1. If they do it first, the situation resolves in their favor and,

  2. They themselves are not immune to such an injury.

Number one is simple enough. It’s what separates the winners from the victims in violent conflict. The real power, however, comes from number two. If it works the same on you, then it probably works the same on every human on the planet.

This base understanding — that violence is available to everyone and no one is immune — is simultaneously liberating and cautionary. It’s liberating in that you can stop worrying about what a badass monster that guy is, how mean he is, how dedicated, how big, fast and strong he is — his eyes are just as susceptible to injury as yours are. It’s cautionary in that no conditioning, training, or skill can make you immune.

It should follow then, if this training does nothing to protect you from injury — indeed, if there is no way to protect yourself from violence — that you should be very reluctant to use the tool. That’s just being smart about it.

If given the choice, the answer is ‘no.’ The luxury of choice gives you more options than just ‘injure’ — you can ignore, talk, or run. All three of these are brilliant social tactics, and I’m sure you’ve used them all to great success.

But they don’t work when you have no choice.

If you’ve already been stabbed because stabbing is what he’s up to, ignoring it, trying to talk to him or running only keep you in the victim-space he needs to get the job done.

We have never advocated using violence while social options are open. Violence is only appropriate when it’s either injure him or die.

This should be an incredibly rare event. About the same as you shooting someone to death.

If you’re smart, a full understanding of violence should make you literally go out of your way to avoid the avoidable. For the leftovers, that very small sliver of true life-or-death situations, you take responsibility for yourself through preparation. You consider the unpleasant, the awful, the unthinkable and learn what to do should you find yourself smack dab in the middle of it.

No one wants to swim to save their life. For all of us who know how to swim, only a small percentage have ever had to swim or die. If you’ve been there, you’re really, really glad you know how to swim. If you’re lucky (or smart) enough to never have had the need to save your own life by swimming, it’s a comfort to know you could. And only the stupid would willingly put themselves in that position for no good reason.

Victims are trapped seeing themselves on the wrong end of the tool, for violence is the tool of choice for victimizers.

The resolute understand that the severity and seriousness of the tool brooks no screwing around — pulling it out is only appropriate in the most dire of circumstances because there is only one way to swing it: in both fists, as hard as you can.

Chris Ranck-Buhr

Bookmark and Share