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“Escalation of Force” = (My very rough definition) The changing of tactics through various levels during a conflict. Moving from attempting to break off a situation, to an attempt to contain the adversary’s attacks, to an attempt to stun/disable the opponent, to an attempt to take the opponent’s life. Based on your perception of the intentions of the attacker which is decided not only by the attacker’s tactics, but by their words, the location and situation of the encounter, and…by the culture you are in.
My question is this: Do ya’ll (I’m a southerner) think that our culture itself is changing the way that we should react to situations?
Our culture (world) is quickly losing the understanding of the value of a human life. There are many situations where even fifty years ago, if your opponent won the fight, he’d stop beating on you once he figured you’d “had enough”. Today, it seems that casual murder is so accepted that people have no problem with the idea of “finishing someone off” if it brings them even a slight advantage (no witnesses etc…) or satisfaction. You have no guarantee that someone will stop. Even among teenagers and younger the sheer violence and disregard for human life has increased substantially.
Frankly, the current culture has made me re-evaluate my reactions to a number of possible situations. I don’t live in a great neighborhood right now, but it’s not very bad either. The chances that I would have a fight with a neighbor or a family member are non-existent. The only physical confrontations that I worry about right now are simply random violence, mugging, home break-ins (it’s been threatened), or car-jacking. My family and I are soon going to be moving to an area where the risk of these is easily ten times worse than here in Gastonia, NC. The conclusions that I’ve come to about certain situations have been these.
If someone wants my wallet, they’re more than welcome to it and anything else I have on me at the time. However, if they do not immediately leave after they get that, if they want to move me somewhere, if it goes any further; I believe I’m in a deadly force situation.
If someone confronts me with any weapon, I believe I’m in a deadly-force situation.
If I find someone in my home or entering my home, I believe that I’m in a deadly-force situation.
It just seems to me that our current culture has in many ways changed the way we have to perceive situations. Of course, it’s a guessing game to an extent. If you decide to escalate your actions at the wrong time, you’re at fault and liable. If you decide to escalate your actions a fraction of a second too late, you’re still dead. With a question like this it would be very easy to argue specific situations or tiny details into infinity and BEYOND! I would love to hear some specific case instances, but I would also like to know what people think about whether our changing culture should change our perceptions of a fight situation more. Agree or disagree?
Jesse
Re: Is our culture forcing a change to how we escalate a fight?
I agree
I feel that it is our exposure to simulated violence that has changed our moral threshold on this issue. Being said, its now a choice to stop watching that crap and return to healthy and LIMITED visual-sedentary entertainment. I’m a NOVA fan myself
Re: Is our culture forcing a change to how we escalate a fight?
Americans are saturated with violence to the point where we just don’t care anymore. How many times do you see a murder on the news and just change the channel? We accept murder as the norm.
I think it comes from that. Plus it seems that morals are snowballing down hill. Very few people have respect for other people. We’ve gone from a community based culture to a society of individual greed and vanity.
Re: Is our culture forcing a change to how we escalate a fight?
quote Nixxon:Americans are saturated with violence to the point where we just don’t care anymore. How many times do you see a murder on the news and just change the channel?
We’ve gone from a community based culture to a society of individual greed and vanity.you hit the nail on the head. In kc it’s not that horrible, but a couple of years ago I can remember durring the winter every day there was like 1 or 2 murders. I just went on, and on, and on….. until finally I stoped getting supprised. I was just like “oh, someone else got shot over on the paseo.”
And in retrospect, I find that seriously disturbing.Re: Is our culture forcing a change to how we escalate a fight?
So does this type of change cause us to have to change the way we view confrontations?
It appears to me that at least for situations in which there obviously is criminal intent, we now have to assume that there much more often is deadly intent also.
I guess another symptom of our culture is that we also have to assume that even in well-populated areas we can’t count on having help from onlookers. If we have someone attack us, the most that a lot of people will do these days to help is videotape it….
Re: Is our culture forcing a change to how we escalate a fight?
quote Jesse:So does this type of change cause us to have to change the way we view confrontations?It appears to me that at least for situations in which there obviously is criminal intent, we now have to assume that there much more often is deadly intent also.
I guess another symptom of our culture is that we also have to assume that even in well-populated areas we can’t count on having help from onlookers. If we have someone attack us, the most that a lot of people will do these days to help is videotape it….
I basically try to disengage any situation I can before getting physically involved. I just don’t feel our justice system will defend me in any situation so I find myself holding back. It actually worries me that one day if need be I’ll be wondering “Will I go to jail for this?” rather than defending myself to the level nessecary. This is strickly speaking from a bar fight perspective.
In general, bar fights are also of some kind of stupid alpha male ego building bull**** for meat heads and I try to avoid them, but alot of the times I can’t help but get very aggressive with them.
I was walking across a sidewalk one night in a strange down by myself after a night at the bars when 3 guys walked past me and one just said outright “You wanna fight pu$$y?” and I immedietly replied back with “Yah, lets do it right here” and kinda stood in an agressive manner. The guys friends immedietly pulled him back. I think that sometimes an extremely agressive posture is needed in certain situations. Confidence breeds unrest in an opponent and makes people guarded about what could come next especially if somone is so willing to escalate something so quickly.
If confronted with any weapon, bat, stick, chain, knife, gun, whatever I’ll fight back against a deadly threat and I’ll tell anyone who asks that my opponents intent was to kill me.
I think the way our culture views defending ourselves crap, considering how our foreign policy is completely contradictory of it.
Defense of the Nation= Fight first, ask later
Defense of ourselves= Back down, ask why you got hit later, press charges, sue for damages, sit in a wheelchair for the rest of your daysAmerica while great, has alot of work to do.
Re: Is our culture forcing a change to how we escalate a fight?
quote Jesse:Our culture (world) is quickly losing the understanding of the value of a human life. There are many situations where even fifty years ago, if your opponent won the fight, he’d stop beating on you once he figured you’d “had enough”. Today, it seems that casual murder is so accepted that people have no problem with the idea of “finishing someone off” if it brings them even a slight advantage (no witnesses etc…) or satisfaction. You have no guarantee that someone will stop. Even among teenagers and younger the sheer violence and disregard for human life has increased substantially.Interesting topic. Now, in regards to the above, I’m wondering if it is really true that there is much more violence today than there used to be, or whether it may just be a perception. There are so many more TV channels out there today, the internet, youtube, cell phone cameras, so that if there is an instance of violence, it is much more likely to be photographed and brought to our attention than it used to be. Fifty, or even thirty years ago, there sure was violence as well, you just didn’t see as much of it on TV, so it might have appeared that there was less.
Here’s an article from 2002, that stated that violent crime had actually decreased over the years:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-09-09-crime_x.htm
As for how to fight back during a violent confrontation, I think you’ll just have to follow your instincts. As long as you are hitting the assailant, because you are truly fearing for your life, I think you’ll have every right to do so and you should make it clear to police (and possible witnesses) that’s that what you were doing. If, during the confrontation, the attacker no longer poses a threat and you feel yourself hitting (or even stabbing/shooting) him because you are looking for revenge, than that would be crossing the line and might get you in trouble later.
It’s all common sense. Do what you have to to get away safely and explain to police that you were fearing for your life. Personally, I’d rather live and try to explain my actions, than be too cautious and end up dead.
Re: Is our culture forcing a change to how we escalate a fight?
I guess I should say that our culture currently has been trending towards being more violent. It’s not that we suddenly have something completely different than any other culture has ever had. There have been cultures throughout history which have been extremely violent. They had a callous disregard for human life and frequently people died in those cultures for little or no reason. They range from the Aztecs to the Romans, from frontier situations to firmly established cultures that had violence as a part of them whether as religion or recreation. Some cultures were extremely violent due to extended periods of war (whether by them, against them, or over them). The Israeli culture (in Israel itself) in my opinion has been an extremely violent culture not by choice, but by necessity. Others such as the Romans were that way by choice and fed on violence recreationally. My opinion is that the Roman empire fell from within due to corruption of their ideals and goals. Their glorying in violence was both a symptom of their condition and a cause of it continuing.
The problem with today’s global culture seems to be that communication is so quick and so total that it’s very easy for someone to sit at home and see violence for hours a day and never be personally effected by it. They watch people die and do searches on the net, rent videos, and do quick replays just to see how gory it is without ever actually having it hit home exactly what is happening to those people. Violence is glorified, focused on, and commended…but never quite real. Even if we die in some game we’ll always be able to ressurect and go on so physical injury and death is not something to be taken seriously. If you kill someone, it ultimately doesn’t matter! Then when situations happen people simply react the way they’ve been conditioned to think is okay. There are some places where violence has gone down. By and large it’s due to a lot of people working very hard to exert external controls on their society…not by the people themselves deciding to be less violent. In many more places it’s getting worse.
For myself, I simply want to have the training to do what I can to defend myself and my family. My point about the culture is that I feel that I have to be ready to defend against situations with much worse consequences for failure than we would have faced in my area fifty years ago. In addition my family and I are planning to be moving out of the country soon. The homicide rate per 100k people in 2006 for the USA was 5.7. I live close to Charlotte and the homicide rate there for 2006 was something like 6.9. The homicide rate in the city we’re moving to is 55.7. I simply feel that I have to react very differently to situations now than I would have had to in the past.
Re: Is our culture forcing a change to how we escalate a fight?
I guess I should say that our culture currently has been trending towards being more violent. It’s not that we suddenly have something completely different than any other culture has ever had. There have been cultures throughout history which have been extremely violent. They had a callous disregard for human life and frequently people died in those cultures for little or no reason. They range from the Aztecs to the Romans, from frontier situations to firmly established cultures that had violence as a part of them whether as religion or recreation. Some cultures were extremely violent due to extended periods of war (whether by them, against them, or over them). The Israeli culture (in Israel itself) in my opinion has been an extremely violent culture not by choice, but by necessity. Others such as the Romans were that way by choice and fed on violence recreationally. My opinion is that the Roman empire fell from within due to corruption of their ideals and goals. Their glorying in violence was both a symptom of their condition and a cause of it continuing.
The problem with today’s global culture seems to be that communication is so quick and so total that it’s very easy for someone to sit at home and see violence for hours a day and never be personally effected by it. They watch people die and do searches on the net, rent videos, and do quick replays just to see how gory it is without ever actually having it hit home exactly what is happening to those people. Violence is glorified, focused on, and commended…but never quite real. Even if we die in some game we’ll always be able to ressurect and go on so physical injury and death is not something to be taken seriously. If you kill someone, it ultimately doesn’t matter! Then when situations happen people simply react the way they’ve been conditioned to think is okay. There are some places where violence has gone down. By and large it’s due to a lot of people working very hard to exert external controls on their society…not by the people themselves deciding to be less violent. In many more places it’s getting worse.
For myself, I simply want to have the training to do what I can to defend myself and my family. My point about the culture is that I feel that I have to be ready to defend against situations with much worse consequences for failure than we would have faced in my area fifty years ago. In addition my family and I are planning to be moving out of the country soon. The homicide rate per 100k people in 2006 for the USA was 5.7. I live close to Charlotte and the homicide rate there for 2006 was something like 6.9. The homicide rate in the city we’re moving to is 55.7. I simply feel that I have to react very differently to situations now than I would have had to in the past.
Re: Is our culture forcing a change to how we escalate a fight?
quote Relli Kant:Interesting topic. Now, in regards to the above, I’m wondering if it is really true that there is much more violence today than there used to be, or whether it may just be a perception. There are so many more TV channels out there today, the internet, youtube, cell phone cameras, so that if there is an instance of violence, it is much more likely to be photographed and brought to our attention than it used to be. Fifty, or even thirty years ago, there sure was violence as well, you just didn’t see as much of it on TV, so it might have appeared that there was less.Here’s an article from 2002, that stated that violent crime had actually decreased over the years:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-09-09-crime_x.htm
…
It could be that the frequency of violence has declined while the intensity of the violent incidences that do occur has increased.
It does seem like common robberies more frequently end in killings vs. ones in the past. Although, it may just be a perception.
Re: Is our culture forcing a change to how we escalate a fight?
From the way I have always saw it:
I think the only thing that has increased is societies fear of violoence rather than violence itself.
The reason it seems that so many people are percieving violence to be so savage today is that people lack the intestanal fortitude to stand up for themselves or that they have been told so many times “Violence isn’t the only answer” they forgot in certain times it is a lgitimate answer.
When I was in grade school I fought almost daily on the play ground, when I was in High school I fought almost daily in the halls, most kids thease days are 10-12 years old with not one scrap, while when I was younger a good ‘ole fashioned throw down was no big deal.
A fight in my days really had little consequence, if it was mutual you both a got a slap on the wrist.
If it was a bully situation…Bully got busted, kid who stood up for himself got some pride and respect.Albiet that not having been into fights can be a good thing (Decreasing Violence), they havent learned the ropes, they don’t only phsically not know how to deal with violence or confrontation but mentally and emotionally.
As people in thier adult life find themselves more and more sedentary, more and more isolated from real human contact and deal with everyone through email, text and type, they to are loosing the same skill set.
The lack of confidence and expirence in defending yourself coupled with the constant pacification of the average citizen leaves a gut wrenching fear to violence and a “sheeple” mentality.
violence hasn’t really increased any only our reaction to it.
Violence invokes fear, bullies have known it for a long time = INTIMIDATION, we are such a paranoid, fearfull, untrusting society we are compleatly intimated by anyone and everyone and have no coping skills to deal w/it.
More people of more cultures of more varrying point of view of more class distinction are continually being crammed together….It stands to reason when the melting pot boils it boils.
More bad neighborhoods is an obvious more violent crime.
Larger amounts of poverty vs upper class results in more robbery.
It’s not sign of the times it’s simple numbers.I’m not really voting for the violence on TV theory, violence has been on TV since the Lone Ranger and such back in the days, kids played with Die Cast Cap Guns for ages, along with the fact that kids also got in fights and also wre punished w/whippings, and slappings….Only exposure to violence desensitzes us to violence.
Graphic TV and video although easy to blame and very slick and realistic looking is very quickly distguishable in real life.
Your kids and teens may rape, kill, torture, and murder each other online, but are also tucked away very far removed from committing real violence.
My heart has never pounded anywhere nearly as quick playing a video game than it has realizing that I am about to have someone throw a blow at me…and when all the desensitized youth find themselves in the same situation they quickly realize it as well becuse it is the human reaction to real violence that is easily recognized as different in real life.
There are entire regions of the globe in which TV is virtually non existant and people are cutting eachothers heads off, rioting, looting exploitng each other, shooting each other and forming militias in thier own neighborhoods, children are killed daily, children carry AK’s….A 13 year old kid who hasnt been in a real fight and plays grand theft auto and SOCOM all day long is looking mighty non violent in my comparision.
Re: Is our culture forcing a change to how we escalate a fight?
quote Nixxon:Americans are saturated with violence to the point where we just don’t care anymore. How many times do you see a murder on the news and just change the channel? We accept murder as the norm.I think a lot has to do with the location of the crime or the repetitiveness of the details. When I hear about yet another murder in the west end, that’s vastly different than if I hear about one in my neighborhood.
The desensitization comes from the familiarity of the scenario, not the loss of life in my opinion. We as a nation still shudder at the lives lost on 9/11… but another roadside bomb in Iraq plays second fiddle on the news to the latest American Idol winner.
I don’t really see it as callousness tho. It’s a coping mechanism we have which keeps us from unraveling over time as our psyche is bombarded with the negativity of daily news reports. IMO, the real danger to ourselves begins if we can’t somehow disengage.
Re: Is our culture forcing a change to how we escalate a fight?
quote Snake Eyes 88 USMC:… I’m not really voting for the violence on TV theory, violence has been on TV since the Lone Ranger and such back in the days, …Ah, but today we have all the gruesome dead body shows on TV (CSI, etc.) where you get your weekly desensitizing treatments (assuming you watch).
Re: Is our culture forcing a change to how we escalate a fight?
quote KMCat:Ah, but today we have all the gruesome dead body shows on TV (CSI, etc.) where you get your weekly desensitizing treatments (assuming you watch).Heres a long post not ment to really fire back at you KMCat but just to try make my thoughts come through in type.
The point with the TV I want to make is….It’s not real.
TV, Movies, Video games no matter how realistic is not real death and violence, even on the news it’s not real becuse it’s removed, not right in front of you to deal or be confronted with.The sight of a real dead body staring back at you with lifeless eyes will cause much more reaction than CSI, it will cuase a real reaction.
Even going to a funeral where the body is not mangled, is all dressed up, passing by the coffin is an uncomfortable thing to do for most people, let alone just be able to casually stare at lifeless, bloated, disfigured corpses.
The only thing that will desensitize you to dead bodies is to be continually exposed to them.
The only thing that will make comfortable with violence is to be continually put into violent situations.Sliding out of a Helo on a Rappelling rope with your MP5 right into the enemy HQ and putting rounds into thier chest at rapid speed as they send bullets just inches from your head in a heated firefight w/out even missing a beat with cool composer racking up 30 more kills on your belt may be just another days work….
Jumping in your stolen car and going on a high speed chase with those damn cops as you speed through the city streets running whoever gets in you way down as the buildings and streets blur by you, cops leaning out the window shooting at you, your car is flaming and smoking, you have to ditch out and take off on foot with only your pistol, now the target of a city wide manhunt, maybe take a hostage or two maybe as easy as 123 or button R1, L1, R2, L2, A, B, C.
….But I bet in real life the reaction to even having someone walk up to you raise thier voice and push you into a wall is much different for the average person, Child, Teen or Adult and all the Spec-Ops hard ass, and Ruthless Hitman stuff from the video games and movies is instantly gone and replaced with a reaction much different.
Trust me, trust me well, real death, real violence invokes a hardwired psyiological reaction that cannot be mimiked by the media and can only be turned off by continual exposure to such events.
You cannot take 18 year old kids and turn them into hard core Special-Ops killers by playing Syphon Filter, they still need to be conditioned in Boot Camp, Fire real rifles, get a gut a check, and go to real combat and over come the fear and revolting reaction humans expireince when faced with mortality and harm.
You cannot take a person and sit them down in front of the TV and play a non-stop horror movie marathon and then expect them to be able to go out and cut people up with a chainsaw or be comfortable sitting down to a nice dinner cooked out your neighbor, only a failure in ones brain during childhood development, exposure to abuse and violence, leading in a lifelong build up inside someone would allow them to rationally do such things.
It is common thought that the lines of fantasy and reality are getting blurred thease days and thats in part a truth.
The problem though isnt the abiltiy to distuignish fantasy from reality resulting in inapproprate behavior on a major scale that is sucking the human race into oblivion as most think.
The problem is being able to distuingish our reality from our fantasy, we are not living in a burning society filled with rampant chaos and destruction, in reality we are becomming more behaved, more pacified, more sedentary, less questioning and adventurous, and more and more scared to even go outside our front doors becasue the monsters in our fantasy will catch us, steal our credit cards and take our identity, beat us up and turn our kids into meth freaks after they get done stalking them on the internet, and then slash the tires to our SUV and put a bomb under our front porch and then send us a letter filled with anthrax, and if that doesnt get us they will send us a flood of spam full of viruses to our email…leading the human race into a new era of boredom and dullery (Making us have to rely more and more on fanatsy).
Re: Is our culture forcing a change to how we escalate a fight?
All very good points.
Jesse, you are not saying what country you are moving to, but one of the best things to do to prepare would be to find out as much as possible about the culture and living conditions that exist there.
First of all, the law regarding self defense may be different in that other country. If that’s where you will be living, that’s the laws you will have to be concerned about.
Also, if the homicide rate is that much higher, are these murders being committed against random victims, or is it mostly bad guys (rival gang members or the like) killing each other? If it’s the latter, you may have to be slightly less concerned. as I assume you would be unlikely to join a gang there. 🙂
Also, what part of town would be considered most dangerous? Will you be living close to any such area, or will you ever have to go into any of these parts of town? What areas should you stay away from at all times and which parts are okay to go to during the day, but are not safe at night?
What weapons are criminals most likely to use over there? In some countries it may be guns, others knives. If you only have limited amount of time to train, it’s probably best to prepare for the attack you would most likely face.
Also, cultural considerations could play a part. Is it a country where Americans are generally not well-liked? Should you try to conceal the fact that you are American in some places and under some circumstances? Are there racial tensions in that area, that you might need to be aware of?
What about the police? Can you trust them the way you can over here? In some countries, people are actually afraid of the police.
I think finding out as much as you can about the country in question, would help you a lot to prepare and maybe form some sort of strategy, which might aid in preventing a violent confrontation altogether. Of course, you can never be 100% safe, but maybe you can better your odds. Trying to learn the native language there could also be useful, in that you could better communicate with someone accosting or threatening you, who may not speak English. That might give you at least a chance to try and diffuse a potentially dangerous situation.
As for how to react when every precaution has failed and you are already being attacked or threatened, I suppose the circumstances (and the country’s laws) would dictate your response. Even if it is an overall more violent area, the person attacking you may still not pose enough of a threat to justify killing him. Likewise, an aggressive assailant in a much quieter part of town, could possibly justify such action. You just never know. You could be living in the most peaceful place on Earth and have the misfortune to run into a sole crazed drifter with a machete and a chain saw, or you could live in the most dangerous city in the world and never get attacked at all.
Best thing to try and be prepared for anything and avoid trouble whenever you can.
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