The Truth About Violence

[MJS]

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-truth-about-violence

Taken from the blog of 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.

For the most part, I agree with what he said. Obviously alot of this stuff is a no brainer. There are a few things that I do disagree with, but thats me.

Looking forward to everyones thoughts.

 

[Big Don]

Interesting article.

 

[Carol]

Good stuff.

I agree with Principle #1 very strongly. I think most of us learned this as the Three Stupids rule...don't go to stupid places, be with stupid people, or do stupid things.

I have to admit find it a little bit ironic that he dismisses his "friends who sleep with their front doors unlocked" as being lucky...I suspect its a bit more than pure luck. I think his friends have made their home in a place that follows Principle #1 quite well. I also suspect if you take the same friends, and put them in hotel in a city with even a moderate amount of crime, they would be quick to lock their hotel door.

Also agree with Principle #2, as long as I am not threatened. -- but I have my own corrolary to that. If you think your property that your stuff is worth defending...then your stuff is worth insuring! Not to sound like Captain Obvious, but I'd rather face an insurance claims rep over a trauma team any day of the week.

That being said, not all property is equal. My car outside I can live without, it is insured. Heck, it would be far easier for me to live without my flatscreen TV -- that's insured too. However, to get at my flatscreen TV, a perp would have to be in my living room...and that's a whole 'nother issue than a perp vandalizing my car outside in the common area parking space.

Principle #3 - to me this is very important. Something that has been important for me to learn in my own sporadic training is defences from grabbing attacks. What will that lead to? More violence? Sexual assault? Kidnapping? There are a number of nasty possibilities. Someone -- may have been Doc -- said (I'm paraphrasing) that you hurt your own chances of surviving an assault if you let a perp take you wherever it is they want to take you...and if you find yourself in such a situation to fight like hell to get away. I realize this is a more specific scenario than what Sam is alluding to, but its one that IMO emphasizes the importance of escape.

 

[Jenna]

Another informative piece, thank you for posting Mike

I think these principles are logically sound and but in a practical sense maybe are missing the psychological intricacies that cause people to act contrary to "common sense" and get hurt for it. Perhaps there was just not enough space to account for all the derivatives.

Even if it is just a stupid assemblage of metal, plastic and leather (could be my car or my purse) I still feel my property is still a part of me. To disengage property from body is not always forefront in our minds when property is damaged. Having had my car smashed up some years ago, I would argue that an attack upon property can feel physically threatening enough to cause us to almost anthropomorphise that property. It is not worth being hurt over. A purse is a purse and but its ownership almost makes it a part of what is me or you and is thus not so easy to forfeit.

Anyway, I do not argue with his principles. Further elaboration might be pertinent and but would probably not fit with the nature of blogs.

 

[seasoned]

While I do agree with much of what Sam Harris is saying, and much of it is common sense, not everyone reacts the same way where "common sense" is concerned.
I would use the analogy of driving a car, where the majority of adults have a drivers license and it is assumed that they are "proficient drivers", but to many, this is not the case, because accidents still happen with the change of weather conditions along with varied road conditions, that take people by surprise.
The saving grace to the above is to remain ever vigilant behind the wheel, and have a keen awareness of what is in front of you as well as what is behind you, hens the reason for rear view mirrors. The buzz words are to drive defensively or "defensive driving".
If people would treat their comings and goings as defensively as they do while driving, and stay alert, this may advert a lot of needless hardship.
Just a few thoughts to ride on sams blog entry...............

 

[chinto]

the truth about violence is simply, it is nasty, it hurts like hell, its scary, its unpleasant and dangerous! In short its great to avoid it if you can. that said, if it comes in your house to you, I would suggest that the proper response is EXTREME VIOLENCE to remove the threat of violence to you and your family. On the street, well running is not bad, but you have to use your judgment, Fight or Flight and YOU may literally LIVE or DIE by that call.