5 Responses To Violence

Last month, I mentioned in an article, that there several ways that you can respond, when dealing with violence. In this article, I would like to elaborate on them, as there is often confusion within the martial arts and reality based self-defense communities, about what these responses are, and how they operate. When face with an aggressor(s) there are five ways you can respond:

Reason

Posturing

Submission

Fight

Flight

There is a sixth, involuntary response, which is, Freeze. However, this is an involuntary response, and is not a conscious response. Although, the Fight and Flight responses, can sometimes be involuntary, and initiated by our subconscious fear system e.g. we see a bear and we immediately start running (and only then have the conscious understanding/realization of our situation) etc. more often than not, when dealing with social violence, that develops along a timeline, the flight and fight response, is a conscious rather than instinctual one. In most types of human violence, the initial interaction, is made up of some form of verbal exchange rather than an actual assault; this may be to disarm us and/or for an assailant to emotionally prepare themselves, and build themselves up, before they make a physical attack etc. this means, that we have to consciously stimulate a flight or fight response, rather than rely on our fear system to do so. We may feel a certain pull in one of these two directions, this would make our fight and flight responses, in most situations instinctual rather than instinctive i.e. the urge to respond in one of these ways is derived from our instinct, instead of driven by it – this may seem like a matter of semantics, however there is a crucial difference between an urge to respond, and a natural reaction/response.

We clearly see our fight and flight response kick in, when the threat or danger, does not come from another human e.g. immediately running when we hear loud noises, such as gunfire, or are confronted by a wild animal etc. It should also be noted that when our flight response, instinctively kicks in, it has only one goal: to get away from the danger – it is not trying to get us to safety. This could mean that it causes us to run away from gunfire, into a road with on-coming traffic etc. Our fear instinct, and responses are designed to work in the majority of cases (they are there to ensure the survival of the species, not always the individual). If running away from a threat works 9 times out of 10, then it’s a pretty good survival response. If it had to be changed, to running to safety, so many factors would come into play, so much information about the environment, would need to be processed that the response time would increase so much, that the success ratio may fall to something like 3 in 10; not good for the species or the individual. A quick response is required in more instances than a slower, “better” response.

In most social species e.g. humans, dogs, wolves, elks etc. most conflicts are not resolved through fighting. Most packs, herds and groups, survive largely by strength of numbers. Using fighting as a means of resolving disputes, could cost the collective dearly e.g. a significant contributor to the groups well-being could be injured (or even killed) and no longer be able to participate in the groups survival – if two dogs in a wolf pack, consisting of eight members fought, and were both injured to such an extent that they were unable to hunt with the pack, the pack’s hunting ability would be down 25%, reducing the groups survival chances significantly. In most social conflicts, matters are resolved through acts of posturing, and submission i.e. one party demonstrates their physical superiority, and the other either postures back (escalating the conflict), or acts in a submissive fashion, such as cowering, apologizing, retracting a challenge/insult they may have made etc. More human conflicts are resolved this way, than we may realize; most people don’t want to fight, and will tend to escalate situations only when/if their judgment is impaired by alcohol or drugs, or if there are other people present – there is a fear of losing face, and a possible social standing.

One of the important things to understand about the way in which posture and submission work, is that they operate hand-in-hand; when somebody is posturing, they will recognize when a person is responding in a submissive manner – through both their body language and what they are saying. In a wolf pack, when there is a dispute between two dogs, both will normally posture, until one rolls over on its back, and shows the other its throat; this ends the conflict. In my time working door, I’ve seen many occasions where during an aggressive exchange, one person will suddenly offer their hand out, and apologize. In almost all cases I’ve witnessed, the other person will immediately cool their jets, and shake hands. This is normally accompanied by a state of relief, with both parties acting amazed at the exchange they just had. I have also witnessed situations, where drink has impaired this process, and both parties have rapidly moved into fight mode. It should be noted that acting in a submissive manner, is not part of the de-escalation process, as in some cases, submission can be seen as a weakness, and encourage violence. Rather, responding submissively, should be seen as an act of conflict resolution, that can work when an aggressor isn’t overly emotional, and does not have any predisposition or premeditation to act violently – this is why de-escalation, should be attempted before submission.

Where aggression and violence are concerned, reason has little place, and in fact can make matters worse. I once witnessed a middle aged man, try to explain to somebody younger, and obviously more aggressive in nature, why he couldn’t have knocked into him, and spilt his drink. The younger man, had little time to listen to “reason”, all he knew was that somebody had knocked his drink over him, and that in his mind he was justified in acting violently, and wasn’t able to think of any other suitable alternatives to this. Emotional people rarely, if ever, respond well to reason.

Understanding how social violence works is extremely important, as it allows us to respond appropriately. There are situations, where posturing may work as a deterrence, and times where it may be disastrous. There may be times when we instinctively run or fight, however we should recognize that if we aren’t doing these things, then we will have to make a conscious decision to do so. Thinking about and visualizing the types of incident where these responses are appropriate, will allow us to create effective, pre-built decision trees, that we can employ when we face these types of danger.