Social Violence

It’s Monday again! A little while back I wrote about the three things that I feel make up a “protector” mindset; awareness, confidence, and purpose. Well it is time to start expanding on those three topics. Today we look at part of what makes up awareness, How to recognize “social” violence. When you are confronted with a possibly violent situation, it is important to be able to recognize the type of violence that you are seeing or may need to deal with.

Imagine with me if you will, you are out at a bar with your friends. You and your buddy walk towards the bar to get another round and your friend accidentally bumps into a guy with his friends. He turns and tells your friend “watch it a**hole”, well your friend (having had a couple glasses of liquid courage) responds with an equally “witty” comment. What happens next?

If you are a male born in the last 10,000 years or so you can probably see the event unfold like you are watching a rerun of your favorite T.V. show. If you happen to be a time traveling caveman or a toll bridge troll reading this lets walk through it really quick.

insult, insult, someone throws their arms out and says “what are you gonna do about it”, they get nose to nose, another couple insults, one pushes the other, big haymaker punch, a few quick blows, someone on the ground with a bloody nose or busted lip, friends pull the two apart.

Why is it that we all saw this before I said it? It’s really pretty easy to understand. Humans at our basic level are just animals, and as animals we have a social hierarchy that we are always trying to find our place in. What we just described is an example of “social” violence. This is the typical type of violence that we see in high schools, bars, etc. There are a few tell tail signs that you can watch out for that are dead giveaways that you are dealing with social violence.

• Requires an audience – whether present or to be informed later, an audience is required for social order so that the audience knows where their place as well as the aggressor’s and your places are in the hierarchy.
• Non-violent option – There is (almost) always a non-violent option to get out of the situation. The more aggressive person will typically give the other person a chance to walk away, allowing the aggressor to save face without physical conflict.
• Communication Skills – Almost all social violence can be resolved through good communication and defusing skills. “Those who talk can be persuaded to walk” – Tony Blauer

The common thing that drives social violence is ego, We as humans want and need our peers to respect us and, we need to respect ourselves. Unfortunately for too many people this does not manifest as self-confidence but, as an inflated and fragile ego. As such, we allow any threat to our egos to control our actions and most times make poor decisions. If we carry a weapon for self defense these ego driven decisions can lead to far worse than a bloody nose. It can lead to criminal charges, jail, or if things escalate farther, the loss of life either our own or someone else.

By being aware of and letting go of our own ego we can avoid or defuse almost all instances of social violence. When confronted with these situations it can be as simple as telling the other person that they win and walking away, Yes of course there will probably be some more insults but, they are just words and as the old school rhyme goes “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”  

If you would like to learn more you can register for our “Situational Awareness and Protector Mindset” course where we go far more in depth into the different types, causes, avoidance strategies, and how to respond to social violence. Learn More