Violentization & Self Defense

Violent crime is a process. An aggressor, regardless of their motivation, needs to go through a series of identifiable steps to commit an act of violence e.g. they must select – or find themselves in – a location, they must select a victim, assess them, etc. But before they orchestrate (or find themselves in) such a situation, they must go through another process: they must become comfortable with the idea of using violence, or, as the criminologist Lonnie Athens would put it; they must go through the “Process of Violentization”. Just as a predatory criminal must come to accept using violence to achieve their goals, so must we, though our goals are largely singular; to defend ourselves, through a variety of means, to survive their assault. If the individual we are dealing with is better prepared to use violence against us than we are to them, it is likely we will not be successful in achieving this. There are those who may not be happy with me describing “self-defense” as violence, but really self-defense is just a legal term, that could be substituted for “justifiable violence”. I think it is better to recognize a violent incident for what it is: different parties using violence against each other for different ends (ours, as the defendant, being both moral and legal).

If we look at the process of Violentization that the criminal goes through, to become comfortable with using violence against another person, we can better understand how we can prepare to use violence, as well as the obstacles that we will need to overcome, if we are going to become as adept at using it as our assailants are. In my time working door security, I witnessed a lot of violence in bars and clubs. Those that were most “successful” in an altercation were usually those who were quickest to act violently (i.e. they were decisive), and were prepared to act more violently than the other person e.g. they would hit harder (rarely through any greater physical ability, but more because of the emotional intensity of their attacks), and be more sustained in their attack – most of these fights were over in seconds, with one party emotionally crumbling under the ferocity of the attack. Learning to become violent, and using violence, is a process that violent criminals go through, and we need to go through a similar - though different - process in order to reach, at the very least, the same point as them. To be successful in a violent confrontation, we can’t come in at a lower level than our assailant.

Athens saw Violentization as comprising of four stages. Rather than detail them, I’m going to describe them as barriers to violence, that must be overcome, so that we can see how we might overcome these same barriers in a training process. In the first stage, the individual experiences and understands the horror of violence, through a subjugation to it. In the second, they resolve to do something about it i.e. to use violence when (not if) threatened or attacked. In the third stage, they act for the first time, by using violence. Quite correctly, Athens’ research – which is quite extensive – recognized that this isn’t as easy a step or transition, as many suppose – I’m often amazed at the glib responses those involved in self-defense and Krav Maga make, regarding how they would act and what they would do in certain situations, when they’ve never actually been in a real-life altercation before. Athen’s research, showed that moving from a resolution to use violence, to actually using it, involved clearing many emotional hurdles; and these were violent criminals he was studying, not law-abiding citizens i.e. they’d already satisfied themselves as to the legal consequences of hurting and injuring somebody. It is one thing to have confidence in your training, it is another thing to be confident in implementing it; it is one thing to spar with gloves on, and another to punch somebody full force in the face with bare knuckles, possibly more so when you have a roomful of people watching you have a face-to-face argument with an aggressor – most violent altercations happen nose-to-nose, and are preceded by a verbal exchange. In the fourth stage, in Athens’ process, the individual was able to use violence without provocation.

If Athens is right and it is not ultimately “poverty or genetic inheritance” that causes violent behavior, but a social process that violent criminals go through, then it is one that we can replicate in a lawful, and controlled manner. This shouldn’t be confused with “aggression training”, it is something else i.e. it us learning to be comfortable implementing aggression training, in real-life situations, and overcoming the moral, legal and emotional barriers that may prevent us from doing so. Whereas in Athens’ model, criminals come to understand that the legal system and society’s rules, doesn’t represent or protect them from being victimized themselves, so we must recognize that in the moment when somebody threatens us with violence, neither the law, nor society, is going to protect us; it’s simply a framework within which we must operate. If you train outside the scope of the law, believing that it is better to be “tried by twelve than carried by six”, good luck implementing your extreme solutions in that moment when all your doubts about acting violently come to visit you i.e. giving yourself another hurdle that you will have to overcome.

It is not enough to say that we have to use violence to defend/protect ourselves, it is not enough to simply do aggression training that trains us to operate in a certain emotional state, but like the samurai, who meditated upon their own death, we should seriously think about our ability to use violence. Some of us may have already made the transition, from resolving, to actually using violence, and we would do well to go back to that moment, and acknowledge the doubts we may have had and the reluctance we may have felt; what it was to overcome that moment of hesitation. These things are valuable experiences to share. We should look at training methods that allow us to practice punching with full force, that have a potential consequence to them – board breaking is one training method I use to accomplish this i.e. if you don’t break the board, there’s a consequence. Spar, without gloves and shin-guards, and feel what it is like to connect bone-on-bone. Start knocking off those things which may cause you to doubt your ability to use violence, so in that moment when you are required to do so, there is no hesitation.