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Gandhi with a Nuclear Weapon

September 17, 2024/0 Comments/in Kinder than Necessary/by Chris Ranck-Buhr

If a killer kills someone, no one is much surprised. Likewise, if the killer is killed by their intended victim, it’s just “job well done.” But if no one meant to kill anyone, and someone ends up dead, well, then it’s cartoon exclamation points all around. Everyone, including the newly-minted killer, is surprised. Cries of “How could this happen?” and “But I didn’t want to kill him!” ring out. In the end it gets labeled as an unfortunate accident.

But these “accidents” happen often enough that when a new one pops up, I can still recall the last one I read about. Primates have a territorial dispute, and begin vocalizing at each other to communicate their displeasure, then aggression in a sideways request that the other capitulate. When neither one backs down, it goes to blows, again to run the interloper off. Usually, this works out fine, as nature intended. But when it’s bodyweight + brain + concrete, one can end up running their rival not just off their territory, but off this mortal coil entire.

These things happen often enough that I would suspect you’re more likely, on balance, to be involved in this sort of situation than purely asocial violence. In other words, you’re much more likely to get slapped at than outright murdered. Misery comes from confusing the two.

If you train to kill and think that means you’re physically trained to handle the antisocial, it’s the same as carrying a gun in case you get into an argument.

If you train to kill and think that means you get to ignore the antisocial, you’re setting yourself up to be ready for the most unlikely event while ignoring the most likely. Chances are, you’re going to get caught wanting.

Because we train to use our bodies to cause injury, it’s easy for people to get the wrong idea—on the surface, martial arts and combat sports look similar to what we do. And since martial arts and combat sports do a great job of preparing folks to navigate that antisocial fog-zone, they then tend to think we’re training for the same thing, only in a “super effective” way. That’s like pulling a gun in a bar fight and “shooting to subdue”. There’s no such thing.

Still, people get all eager to lock horns. It’s funny to me (funny-strange, not funny-ha-ha) seeing as how we can still end up with unintended fatalities. If you ask a civilian gun owner, “How many gunfights do you want to be in?” the sane ones will all tell you, “None.” The sane ones understand what goes on in a gunfight, and would never choose to be there if they didn’t have to. If they should find themselves there, they will shoot to kill. But sane civilians don’t walk around looking for gunfights.

Again, this is painfully obvious when we talk about guns. But for some reason it’s less obvious with empty hands. Why? It comes down to expectations. We expect someone to die if a gun is involved—that’s what the modern handgun is for, killing people at close range. We don’t expect someone to die from a standard, everyday session of monkey politics. And yet death is one of the possible outcomes.

Me, I expect someone to die every time violence is used, and then breathe a sigh of relief when everyone survives. I have absolutely no interest in going physical with monkey politics. I don’t leave the house looking for opportunities to use my skills.

My aversion to violence runs so strong that it makes me something of a walking contradiction to my friends—I will do whatever I can to avoid physical, antisocial confrontation and yet won’t hesitate to stomp someone into the morgue in the asocial realm. I’m like Gandhi with a nuclear weapon.

For those of you feeling eager, or emboldened by your training, some advice:

You’re all set for the asocial. If someone wants to murder you, you’re well-prepared—knowledgeable, practiced, resolute. But don’t forget to make sure you’re prepared for the antisocial—sharpen those social skills, actively think about how you want to be in those situations. Will you join in and play along? Throw fuel on the fire? Push until they either back down or go after you? Or will you go completely sideways on them, defusing the situation, seeking to reduce their fear and channel their anger elsewhere?

Know where your buttons are and put lots of padding between them and the outside world. Work to recognize when you’re being pushed into a corner. And remember that simply walking away could save your life—or keep you out of prison.

As with the asocial, so with the antisocial: be prepared.

Chances are you’ll go your entire life without anyone trying to kill you. I wouldn’t make the same bet about some jerk calling you out.

— Chris Ranck-Buhr (from 2008)

Time to Stop Lying to Yourself

July 16, 2024/0 Comments/in Mindset/by Chris Ranck-Buhr

Experienced instructors are some of the most relaxed people I know.

The question, of course, is why?

When you have the mechanical ability to cause injury and couple it with the driving motivator of intent, everything throttles back and gets calm and easy—you’re not out spoiling for a fight or giving yourself an anxiety disorder by obsessing violently over every human being who brushes up against you.

This is what I was getting at in “Scenario-Based Training vs. The Hard Knot”. You simply cultivate the skill, and the will to use it, and then sit back and relax into the rest of your life. Should the need arise, you pull out the knot and brain people with it. Then you tuck it back where it belongs and get on with living. (I should note that I’m not talking about a ball of twine here—in my mind it’s an infinitely folded tessellation of agony, a world-heavy, fist-sized sphere from which no light can escape.) You don’t walk around brandishing it high over your head, mad-dogging all comers with a halo of purple lightning dancing about your enraged features. You tuck it behind a smile.

Without intent, without the implacable will to wield the knot, it’s not much better than yoga. Physically challenging, yes. A survival skill, no. (As an aside, it’s critically important to note that the criminal sociopath has very little training—a deficit they more than make up for with vast, raging reservoirs of intent.) So why do people have such a hard time with intent? And most importantly, what can you do about it?

People have a hard time with intent for a number of reasons: They suffer from a natural disinclination toward violence, they worry about what the other person will do, and they think violence is mechanically difficult.

The natural disinclination toward violence

Not wanting to physically hurt people is healthy and sane—but ultimately an impediment to survival when someone poses the question to which violence is the answer.

You need to get over the idea that anything we’re up to here is social in nature. This is why it’s so critically important that your mat time is as asocial as possible—no talking, no nervous laughter, no checking your partner’s face for feedback. The only time you should be looking at a face is if you’re taking an eye out of it.

I’m not talking about getting fired up and hating your partner. I’m talking about dispassion. Lose the emotional triggers—you’re not here to communicate, and raging at your partner (or their targets) is still communication. If you’re working with your “war face” you’ve kicked the social but are busy reinforcing the antisocial. What you really need is to get off the any-social, and get to its absence. That voidspace is the psychic storage shed for the knot.

Worried about what the other person will do

Let’s be blunt: Injured people are helpless. Ask anyone who’s done it. The first injury converts a functional person into a gagging meat-sack. Every injury after that is like busting apart a side of beef with your boot heels. This is why experienced instructors are so damned relaxed (and courteous, for that matter). This is also why they won’t hesitate to be the first one doing it. (It’s the ugly truth that no one wants to talk about—how people really respond to serious injury, about how when you cause one, you’ll know it because what you see next will stick to the inside of your eyelids for the rest of your life.)

What is the other person going to do? They’re going to break and behave like an injured person. They’re going to go to the worst place they’ve ever been. And you’re going to put them there.

The question you have to ask yourself is, will you worry about what they’re going to do, or will you make them worry about what you’re going to do? (Hint: pick the one where you’re in charge.)

On this same topic, you need to get off the whole “attacker/defender” merry-go-round. In any violent conflict there’s going to be, by definition, at least one person doing it to another. Be that one person. Decide it’s you, now, and every time after now. Out there it’s always your turn. If you must think in terms of there being an attacker, then it’s you.

Choosing to put yourself in second place is not the best strategy for a win, no matter how much we may venerate the underdog. In a “fair fight” or a contest, the underdog is the hero. In violence, they’re dead.

Quit empathizing with the dead person. You’re doing it because you’re nice, you’re doing it because you’re sane. In a social context, it makes perfect sense. In violent conflict your social skills and mores do nothing but prevent you from surviving. Empathizing with the dead person at the funeral is sane and normal. Empathizing with them while we’re all trying to decide who the dead person is going to be means you’re it.

Bottom line: decide who has the problem—is it you, or is it them?

Believing violence is mechanically difficult

Outside of the psychosocial issues, violence is really, really easy. We’re all predators, we’re all physically built for killing. Violence is as easy as going from where you are to where the other person is and breaking something important inside of them. The rest is academic.

How easy is it? General consensus says easier than free practice. You get to strike as hard as you can, follow all the way through on everything, you don’t have to take care of them, and it’s over so fast you won’t even have time to break a sweat or even breathe hard. The only hard part is giving yourself the permission to be inhumanly brutal, giving yourself the permission to survive. (I recommend you vote for you every time.)

Thinking that violence is mechanically difficult (and thereby trying to give yourself an out so you don’t have to face your own intent problems) is akin to thinking that swimming in the deep end is any different from swimming in the shallow end. Mechanically, it’s the same—swimming is swimming—the difference is all in your perception. In the shallow end, you can touch bottom and can save yourself from drowning by standing up. In the deep end you’re on your own—it’s sink or swim. So everyone thinks free practice is the shallow end; there’s no risk, you can always “stand up” when you get into trouble. That would make the street the deep end—no backup, no safety net, just swim or die. I’ll grant all of that as true. Just remember, always, that no matter where you’re swimming, mechanically it’s all the same. The idea that there’s a difference is an illusion that takes effort on your part to make a reality. Stop feeding the phantoms and just swim.

Intent—your will to cause injury, your drive to get it done—is completely up to you. You need to start thinking about it now, personally letting go of the things you’ve kept between the “you” you love because they’re a lovable, good person, and the “you” that can stomp the throats of screaming men.

We can only show you how to mechanically take someone apart—pulling the trigger on it is up to you, and you alone.

— Chris Ranck-Buhr (from 2006)

Scenario-Based Training vs. The Hard Knot

July 9, 2024/0 Comments/in Social-Asocial/by Chris Ranck-Buhr

When people say “scenario-based training”, it’s code for “all the crap that comes before the actual violence”. The yelling, the approach, the grabby man-dance. Of course, once the violence starts it’s all the same old, same old: injury, injury, injury. Pedestrian, predictable, and downright boring. All the stuff that comes before, all the stuff that people are fascinated with, is, for our purposes, a waste of time.

The lead-in to violence for any given scenario is typically antisocial in nature, leading to questions like “How do I deal with his behavior?” and “When do I decide to injure him?” You already have the skills to deal with the former—talk him down, capitulate, or get the hell out of there. As for when to tear into someone, that’s a personal judgment call you have to make in general terms ahead of time; in specific terms it’s based on your read of the situation. If you recognize a threat and you think you can’t live with it, then get busy shutting him off. If you think it’s something you can live with—merely antisocial in nature—then act accordingly. Use your social skills, or set a new 100-meter dash record, or tear into him as you will. In other words, act according to your comfort level.

This threshold will vary from person to person based on life experience. Some people can stomach all kinds of crazy antisocial behavior; others will brook no threat whatsoever. Either way, it’s a personal judgment call. This means your response to that stuff is up to you to figure out, for yourself, on your own time. We’ll hand you the tool—you have to decide when you’ll swing it.

Another reason people want all the upfront stuff is because they are not in a hurry to get to the wreckage. They’re afraid. They want to stay in the semi-social realm for as long as possible and want to hang onto the idea that they are the Good Guy. If we maintain an attacker/defender dichotomy, i.e., “He came after me, so therefore he’s the Bad Guy, which automatically dubs me the Hero,” we keep things nice and social. And for us sane humans, social equals comfortable. Remember, we have, as a species, a natural disinclination to violence; society wouldn’t function if it were otherwise. Violence turns our stomachs. People will go to great lengths to avoid discomfort.

Do you really want to spend your precious training time working within your comfort zone in contrived, antisocial scenarios, with only a small percentage given over to the actual work of violence? Or do you want to work where actual change occurs, the point where all violent acts become the same—the point of injury?

Look at it this way: we could waste your time by having you role-play stage productions of Serpico such that for every 20 minutes of mat time you only get two where you’re actually booting people. Instead, we have you experiencing violence for the full 20 minutes. Yes, half of that time is spent reacting for your partner, but you are still working where the buzzsaw hits the bone, at the point of injury. If you know what you’re doing you can actually learn more about violence while reacting than when it’s your turn. Ask anyone who’s been used by an instructor for a demo. It’s a difference you can feel. (Sometimes unfortunately so.)

Free practice is the only “scenario” you want to train in. To maximize your skill, you need to practice that skill. In this case the skill is injuring people; it stands to reason that you want to spend as much time as possible at the point of injury. That’s what free practice is. It’s you, changing everything in your favor, taking control of the man, the situation, through injury. What came before is immaterial—it has no bearing on what you’re doing to him. Did he yell? Or pull a gun? Did he grab you and knock you down? His ruptured groin doesn’t care. Neither should you.

Now, for all that, the single caveat: if your job is hallmarked by common occurrences that lead to violence (as in law enforcement or the military) then working those specific scenarios has merit. Car stops, room clearing; these scenarios are useful exercises for those who can expect to encounter them—but they’re pointless for the rest of us.

Here’s what it comes down to: use free practice to wrap and entwine the hard knot of skill within you, learn to use your mind as a weapon and your body as a tool for violence. Then you can walk the Earth free of “rehearsal anxiety”, free in the knowledge that if your current problem—no matter how it developed or came upon you—can only be solved by shutting down a human being, you know where the off switch is. And once you reach for that switch, all violent conflict becomes the same.

— Chris Ranck-Buhr (from 2006)

Access the Meat

May 14, 2024/1 Comment/in Competition/by Chris Ranck-Buhr

Choosing the level of interaction in violent conflict.

One of the key features of the sociopath is that they see everyone as essentially the same—a piece of meat to be butchered. Sociopaths look at everyone this way, regardless of personality, skill, or ability: a big strong guy with a black belt looks the same as a sleeping child. The sociopath understands that both their skulls open the same way, their eyes yield to equal pressure, and they both die when their throats are cut.

The sociopath disregards the things that set them apart, and won’t waste time interfacing with their personalities, or the big strong guy’s black belt skill, or his massive muscles. They will only concentrate on the things that both victims are susceptible to. In order to use violence successfully, in order to have an equal chance of survival, so must you. Don’t get caught in the sucker’s game of interfacing at higher levels, of showing respect for the person, their skills, or physical power. Go straight for the meat.

The Four Levels of Interaction

As a person – social

This is trying to change behavior, mood, or motivation. This is where most people would like to keep the situation.

As a skill set – antisocial

This is trying to out-wrestle him, or out-technique him in a 90-mile-an-hour chess game. This is a duel in which the most skilled practitioner will typically win. It is “civilized violence” and seen as “fighting fair”.

As an animal (via strength, speed, stamina) – antisocial

This is pitting your strength against his, trying to out-maneuver or out-last him, going blow for blow—this typically looks pretty brutal and ugly. A lot of struggle where the best specimen prevails. This is seen as brutish, desperate, and decidedly “uncivilized”.

As a piece of meat – asocial

This is regarding him as a physical object beholden to the natural laws of the universe. Paying no heed to the person, the skill, or the ability. This is seen as almost universally “bad”—people who do this naturally are classified as “evil” in a social setting. This is interfacing with him as a thing that can be broken down and rendered nonfunctional.

It’s interesting to note that these four levels correspond to different ranges and comfort zones.

Interfacing with the person can be done from across the street, a distance from trouble where most people feel safe (they can always take off running if it gets out of hand).

Interfacing with his skill set is almost always done at a pace away, with the contestants circling to get a feel for their opponent’s skill level, feinting and parrying and otherwise dancing around. It’s all about giving yourself enough room to see what he’s doing and try to counter it.

Interfacing with his physical abilities is done skin-to-skin, but that’s as deep as it goes.

Interfacing with the frailties of the flesh is done beneath the skin—true injury is about disregarding the sanctity of the body and simply destroying it.

What-ifs, Buts and Maybes

The kinds of questions people ask during training can tell you a lot about where their head is at and at which level they’re stuck on. The important thing to note is that none of their worries have any impact on injury whatsoever.

The “Socialist”

The person who is uncomfortable with the whole idea of conflict will ask questions that dance around the issue from across the street, like, “How can I tell if he wants to hurt me?” and such.

The Duelist

People trained in martial arts usually get hung up on interfacing with his skill. They’ll ask the most what-ifs, like, “What if he throws a spinning back kick?”, “What if he counters my joint lock?” and “What if he’s holding the knife like this?” They are also overly concerned about defensive reactions like blocking and counters—both in doing it and worrying about having it done to them.

The Animal

Untrained people who can come to terms with the idea of conflict usually end up fixated on physical attributes. For smaller, less athletic people it manifests as worry about how they’ll fare against bigger, stronger, faster adversaries; big, strong folks have the opposite problem—they typically believe they cannot be defeated by “lesser” beings.

Sociopaths & Butchers

Almost no one shows up comfortable with injury as a starting point.

Another interesting thing to note is that progressing through the levels is not linear. Socialists don’t usually walk through the others to arrive at injury. They go one of two ways—either they dig in their heels and cram their heads into the sand and will never, ever cross the street, or they go straight from where they are to injury (though sometimes with a short stopover at the animal level).

Duelists are another thing entirely. It is often very difficult to wean them off of the idea that they need to respect and/or thwart his skill before they can be effective. If they do move on, it’s usually with a long stopover at the animal level. His skill bothered them before; now they’ve transferred that worry to his physical abilities. Those who have taken the long walk from skill to animal to injury are typically the most evangelical about the whole process. (As opposed to those who went straight from social to injury. They usually don’t see the whole experience as that big of a deal.)

Animals are easier to nudge into interfacing directly with the meat of the matter. They’re pretty close, conceptually, and they just need to be shown how to direct their efforts away from strong points and into the weak ones. (Instead of going strength-to-strength, go strength-to-eyeball.)

If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume that you don’t have a problem with violence in a general sense, that you’re not hung up on the social aspects from across the street. So where are your hang-ups? What are you stuck on? Are you worried about what he’ll do if he’s skilled? Or bigger-stronger-faster? Be honest with yourself. You’re letting yourself down if you lie—you’re not going to get any more effective that way.

If the idea of going after a trained Goliath makes you sweat (more than the usual, healthy amount, I mean) then you need to buckle down and study up on injury. Seek out photos of sports injuries (for broken joints and twisted, nonfunctioning limbs). Autopsy reports from non-firearm killings—especially where the victim was beaten to death—are illuminating. Troll the internet for videos of prison fights and violent muggings. Essentially, look for anything where the survivor is interacting with the other person as a piece of meat.

You’ll be repulsed and comforted simultaneously.

– Chris Ranck-Buhr (from 2006)

The Absence of Choice

April 16, 2024/0 Comments/in Violence in the Wild/by Chris Ranck-Buhr

Violence starts where choice ends.

For social and antisocial interactions, this means you get to choose whether or not to be involved, and how deep your involvement will go. On the asocial side, you won’t have that choice. This gives us a nice, clean delineator between violence and Everything Else. As you’ve heard us say time and time again: if you have to ask, the answer is “no.” The reason we say this is because once you commit, your choices dwindle dramatically. Once you cross that line, you’re in it till you finish it. There are, to be sure, small choices to make—which target to wreck, when to stop—but none of them involve “unviolencing” him. Once you break that arm, you can never go back to just holding hands.

Make the choice you can live with. Be confident enough to be called a coward. I’ve walked away from situations where I was legally and morally in the right and no one present would have objected if I’d laid the jerk out. I’ve walked away while dodging ego-withering epithets and slurs to the accompaniment of the loud and obvious sound of my social standing being taken down a peg. (A whole peg!) I did this gladly because I was handed the luxury of choice and, to be quite frank, I just didn’t feel like it. “It” being the stomping, the screaming, and then having to do it to all his friends while getting punched in the head until I can’t remember second grade, maybe getting stabbed or shot or killed, or arrested and spending the night in jail, making bail, paying a lawyer and then getting sued. Not to mention having to look over my shoulder every time I stop to take a piss. All that crap is worth my life, but it’s not worth my time. Social standing is a manufactured illusion; losing it is nothing compared to the loss of an eye, or freedom, or your life. If your friends are truly your friends they will remain so; everyone else can go hang.

Asocial means you have no choice, or, rather, the choice is something decidedly unchoosy like “kill or be killed”. (Which one would you pick? Yeah, everybody picks that one, too.) Because it’s hallmarked by a lack of communication, asocial comes on without warning, without preamble, like lightning out of a clear blue sky. One minute you’re worried about which curry joint to patronize and the next you’re getting stabbed. You’re down to those small choices, like which target to wreck, and when to stop.

From a purely mechanical point of view, in social and antisocial situations he gets to choose whether or not a technique works. All of your sundry come-alongs, pain compliance, joint locks and submission holds fall into this category. If he decides you “got him” and gives up, all well and good. If he decides the pain in his elbow doesn’t matter, well, now you’re stuck holding a tiger by the tail. And your Plan B better be really, really sharp. Especially if the choice he makes is to take it into the asocial and get to the work of injuring you.

The mechanics of the asocial violent interaction can be summed up in a single word: injury. Injury removes choice from the equation. He has no say in whether or not his eye comes out of his skull or if his throat crushes. He has no say in how his body will move next. The physical laws of the universe, and how well you’ve employed them, are the only arbiters here. If you did it right, everything breaks. He may wish double-plus hard on a falling star it wasn’t so, but it’s not going to matter one whit. Violence is the absence of choice, and he’s just along for the ride.

— Chris Ranck-Buhr (from 2006)

Violence in the Antisocial Realm

April 4, 2024/0 Comments/in Violence in the Wild/by Chris Ranck-Buhr

The use of violence can have unintended consequences. Tearing into someone physically can end up killing them, even when you didn’t mean to. And if the after-the-fact circumstances don’t allow for killing, you can be subject to serious legal (and life-changing) consequences down the road. These consequences are the reason we do not recommend using violence in antisocial situations—wrong tool for the job and all that. It’s far better, in the short- and long-term, to disengage and get the hell out of there.

That’s all well and good, and in a perfect world things should be so clear-cut and easy. But we don’t live in that world, and they’re not. Those “unintended consequences” cut both ways—say the other person just want to “kick your ass” and you end up brained on the sidewalk as a result. Everyone ends up sad, and they’ll cry in court about how they didn’t mean it, it was all a terrible mistake, their life is ruined, etc. Fat lot of good that does you.

And that’s why I’ll never tell you to hold back and take a beating.

So the question is, how do you use violence in the antisocial arena?

The sad answer is, pretty much the same way you do in the asocial arena. You need to break things inside of them so they don’t work anymore.

There are a couple of important ideas you need to understand, and keep in mind, if you’re going to use that stick of dynamite to open your car door, after all:

Don’t pull any punches

You cannot “go easy” on them just because this started out as an antisocial situation. You have to strike them as hard as you can, every time, in a target, to smash it beyond functionality.

Go in 100% dedicated to tearing their head off

If your intent is anything less than full-bore, you will get less than effective results. If you don’t want to hurt them, don’t worry, you won’t. They may not be so kind to return the favor if given half the chance. You can’t afford to screw around—the only way their ribs are going to break is if you make every effort to do so.

This all-or-nothing approach will save your ass—it gets them to nonfunctional so rapidly and efficiently it’s over before you know it. This is where you have to take it, as soon as you decide it’s on; you have to finish it on your terms, immediately. You cannot afford to get drawn into any back and forth—you need to injure them, take control of the situation, and end it on your terms now.

Take one of my brother’s stories for example: the man was inviting him to participate in an antisocial interaction. Tony knew that that’s nothing to screw around with, and he was only willing to take it very seriously, by dishing out man-stopping injury. That’s where his reluctance stemmed from. But when push literally came to shove, my brother was unwilling to simply take a beating and risk injury for himself—and so he ended the situation with a single strike.

Non-lethal target selection (or tool switch-up)

You probably don’t want to start things off with a fist to the throat. Or a baton to the head. Or a knife through the solar plexus. In general, you’re going to want to stay away from targets and striking profiles you know to be lethal. Absent that, be sure to use tool configurations that change the nature of the injury (an open hand to the throat (choke punch) instead of a forearm; a forearm to the side of the neck instead of a knee drop).

But let’s be brutally honest here—don’t be fooled into thinking this changes anything, really—they could still die as a result (reference every “man killed with single punch” news story). What I’m saying is don’t do anything you know for a fact will kill them.

Understand that once you go physical, their conception of the encounter may change dramatically

Perhaps they were only thinking of “teaching you a lesson” but now they’re afraid for their life and willing to defend it with lethal force (pulling a tool or otherwise “getting serious”). If you’re going in with less than everything you’ve got, chances are you’ll screw up, lose control of them and give them an opportunity to, for argument’s sake, shoot you dead. Also, be aware that they may have allies who may come to their aid—be fully prepared to have to injure pretty much everyone in the vicinity.

Those last two issues, the fact that they could die regardless of how “careful” you are and the fact that your crossing into the physical plane can get you killed, are the chief reasons we don’t recommend using violence as a tool in antisocial interaction. More often than not, your life (losing it or changing it forever) just isn’t worth whatever it is you’re “fighting” for. Betting your life in order to win it back will always make sense—that is, in essence, what the asocial is all about.

The above issues are what you need to be aware of, in advance, should you decide to use the tool of violence in an antisocial situation. Whether because the situation has turned or spiraled out of “social tool” control or other factors lead you to act, you need to know what you’re getting yourself into and enter into that decision with full knowledge of the pitfalls and possible outcomes.

While I will never expressly recommend it, sometimes you are forced into a position where it’s either that or take a beating (or worse) that risks your own well-being.

What I will recommend is being smart about such things and hewing always to the idea of exhausting all options when given the luxury of a choice, and carving a path of destruction through the other person when you’re not.

— Chris Ranck-Buhr (from 2007)

Everyone’s a Badass

March 28, 2024/0 Comments/in Rabbit v. Wolf/by Chris Ranck-Buhr

(Note: Much of this revolves around intermale aggression, male power fantasies, and the paleolithic kabuki of male dominance rituals—but the message at the end is good for everyone, I promise.)

Human societies are fascinated with strength and power, especially obvious personal power: height, musculature, and a hair-trigger willingness to do violence are eternally impressive to us. We all desire what those attributes grant the possessor—to be respected, to inspire awe, and, perhaps, fear. When we are intimidated, we feel all those things acutely, most of all the gut-snarling fear. We feel it, and we want to make others feel those things, too. We feel it and realize we don’t want to confront the intimidating person… and wouldn’t that feeling be a very useful thing to project? Only if you want to take it to the physical, to have to use violence to back up your newfound badass attitude more often than you’d like. Intimidation is like juggling 13 double-edged swords and playing with fire simultaneously.

For our purposes we’re going to define “intimidation” as the antisocial process of going out of your way to make someone afraid of you. Most people take this a step further, not stopping at mere fear but going headlong into humiliation. Once they realize they’ve made someone afraid, they will typically push it and rub it in to humiliate the affected person.

(As an interesting aside, it’s a common truth that people who use intimidation as a social tool tend to do the things that intimidate them—they will project the behaviors that they, themselves, fear most.)

Why is intimidation so dangerous? Because it can get you killed, whether you fail or succeed. If you fail to intimidate the man, you have just escalated the situation—by saying, in effect, “Do you want me to hurt you?”—and now, unimpressed, he’s calling your bluff. If he’s the kind of guy who responds to threats with physical action, then it’s on. You just called it down upon yourself because you wanted to be a badass.

Usually, it’s not going to be a problem—if it went physical all the time very few people would do it, right? The problem is the people who get set off by this are the worst kind… and I hope I don’t have to tell you that choosing to escalate a screaming match to a life-or-death situation is asinine.

Let’s say you succeed in intimidating him. Mission accomplished, right? You put him in his place, you showed him (and everyone in earshot) who’s boss, you made him feel afraid. How could that possibly go wrong?

Yeah, I know—it’s a rhetorical question.

Let’s flip it around: He succeeded in intimidating you, he made you feel afraid. Maybe even made you feel afraid for your life. How do you respond? You know how to handle the physical side; you can take it there in a blink of an eye and shut him off. Maybe you just feel socially embarrassed and walk away. Or maybe you knock him down, knee him in the face and stomp on his head until he’s nonfunctional. Who can say? It’s going to be decided on a case-by-case basis.

What if you make him feel afraid? Most people will back down and disengage, usually while making even more noise than before. But there are some, the worst out there, who will take it as a threat and work to destroy that threat. They may go off instantaneously, or they may simmer for hours, days, months. In the long-term case, you probably won’t have the luxury of seeing it coming. And if you truly terrified them, they’re going to want to do things to even the odds—bringing accomplices and firearms, say. So, succeed or fail, intimidation can get you killed. It’s a sucker’s game.

“But Chris,” you say, “If I’m not intimidating then I’m prey!”

Let’s make a quick clarification here: the opposite of being intimidating is not the same as appearing meek, weak, or helpless—it’s simply not registering as prey. Looking like you know what you’re doing, that you are aware, yet comfortably unconcerned, is more akin to being socially remote. That is, you’ve got the NO SOLICITING sign out without being a jerk about it. Appearing unimpressed and unafraid is not the same as trying to be intimidating. You can project the confidence that you can handle yourself without threatening anyone.

A high order social skill? Probably one of the highest. And for many people, elusive. But it’s a lot less harrowing than running around being intimidating, which is exhausting and scary at the same time. I think of it like this: “Go out of your way to get to the rest of your day.” When in the social arena, be social, use your social skills, and treat everyone like people. In the asocial arena treat everyone like meat. Don’t confuse the two.

It doesn’t mean you have to be everyone’s friend, a pushover, or smile at daily human ugliness. It can be as simple as biting your tongue instead of spitting fuel on the fire. Of course, the hard part is if you’re successful, you’ll never know it. You’ll never even be aware of the trouble you’ve dodged—you can only know the trouble you’ve caused.

— Chris Ranck-Buhr (from 2007)

Tag Archive for: antisocial

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