Update: Check out Vinod's blog, he tells about resisting a mugging...and proves that resistance is not futile!

Yesterday my girlfriend and I were watching a Real World: San Diego wrap-up show which depicted stuff that "you should have seen." One scene involved a fight where one individual was "strutting" and "posturing" to intimdiate some other guys who were (it seemed to me) getting the shit beat out of them by his friends. My girlfriend joked that that's the walk that I try to affect. Well, I won't comment on that.

The first thought that came to mind when I saw the guy puffing his chest and walking back and forth in a stylized fashion was some type of male bird doing a "display" or "bluff." I really find it amusing in hindsight that Skinnerian tabula rasa behaviorism dominated human psychology for so long when the similarities to animal display are so clear when you watch two guys staring each other down before a fight (a fight that often never starts).

Perhaps it is a function of the fact that researchers at universities don't get to see this sort of display very often in their everyday life. Going to high school in a rural area of Eastern Imbler, and being a thin and somewhat short (I was 5'8, and often 130 pounds back then) and a person of color, I understand that violence is a crucial form of male communication. There wasn't a week that went by where I didn't see two assholes staring each other down, puffing their chests and glaring for what seemed ages. I would always get frustrated by this. I didn't ever puff and preen, I wasn't a large guy, so when confronted by someone where violent communication tactics had to be an option, I knew to not hesitate and not look back, surprise was a crucial ally when the physical odds were stacked against you. Of course, it helped when the physical odds were more even, and surprise can really tip the balance.

Let me relate a story of a fight I was invovled in....

Scene: Locker room, 8th grade, physical education. Someone calls me a "nigger." He was about half an inch shorter than me.

Evaluation: Not the most popular guy. I judged that it would be a fair fight and I could take him, especially since I tended to not fear pain that much.

My Response: "After school, where the fuck are you going to be?"

His response: He puffs his chest up and looks at me.

My Response: "Stop acting like acting like a jack-ass, I'll see you after school."

His response: "Uh...I have a dental appointment."

Evaluation: I see fear, I need to push it, doesn't matter now about the physical parity, he's a pussy and I can pound him into the ground.

My Response: "After school...."

Intermission: I have two periods. My best friend is friends with a lot of people, I tell them to hang out by the track field as the buses park up there. The stupid kid that called me a nigger isn't too popular, so not much resistance, they will follow and watch. My friend spreads the word. A few kids are dubious, I'm skinny and generally reputed to be cerebral. I moved from back east that year, so they don't know I've gotten in a reasonable number of fights, and yes, I have gotten my ass kicked, so I'm not scared of it, you live.

After school: About 30 kids are following my best friend and we're looking for the kid who called me a nigger. I see his back pack and start chasing, he runs away from the school bus and some of the faster kids are sweeping around me. We're screaming. He's scared, he thinks the mob will get him. Finally I catch him. He's my size, might be heavier, but he doesn't fight back, I see his eyes for a moment, and there's terror. He curls up and I start kicking him. When he gives me an angle, I punch over and over. I don't think, just allow the anger to be channeled into violence. Probably 1/4 of the 8th grade class is watching, so I better perform well, I'm upping my status. After 10 minutes it's all over.

Aftermath: The kid who called me nigger was all smiles from that moment on. He was always asking if I needed help with this or that. It's happened before. In 7th grade when a kid was making fun of me and put some of his snot on my shirt when I was at a locker I turned and punched the shit out of him. After that, he never did anything but smile around me. He became one of my best "friends" for that whole year before I moved.

Why do I tell this tale? This was the sort of thing that was commonplace in much of Eastern Imbler. There were several classes of boys:

1) The large and athletic who rarely got into fights, they had nothing to prove.
2) The small and fearless.
3) The small and pussy.

I tried to put myself into #2, though fear is always there, I had gotten into enough fights to know that the risk of death or serious injury was low, and if there was an audience you fought partly to impress them rather than to beat your enemy. When two guys puffed and displayed the audience always wanted to go further, after all, they would be entertained and wouldn't accrue any risk. Play to the audience, and the risk can yield a lot of respect and social status. The audience will give you props and respect for not being a pussy even if you lose, and quite often guys that have fought become OK friends, the dispute has been resolved in a way that matters to both of them.

When I went to college and rubbed shoulders with kids who grew up in the liberal Portland suburbs I encountered some who had never been in a fight. Large, small, courageous or pussy, they didn't have any mechanisms to figure out what to do when confronted with the genuine specter of violence. My first encounter was freshmen year when some assholes jumped me and threw me into the showers. I got pissed off and picked up a small fucker, about 5'4, and chucked him against the wall.

He stated: "Do that again and I'll fucking break your nose."

Evaluation: The pussy is 5'4, he must be pissed if he's going to threaten me, he might be serious, I need to head this off.

Response: I walk back to my room and take my glasses off (hey, they were expensive!) and walk back to the hallway and I see the little fucker. I swing and hit him in the face.

His response: Terror. I could see it. I'd barely done anything and I'd won. I suspected he was shocked, he wasn't even running!

Next event: Six guys pile up on top of me and prevent me from tearing the little fucker limb from limb. I'm kind of glad, I would have been kicked out of the dorms if I beat the shit out of him seriously (a schizo had beat the crap out of someone earlier in the year and been kicked out). In the midst of my rage I wondered if he had the capacity to fight back. As he walked away and I threatened to kill him he glared at me, always keeping an eye on me, never turning his back.

Postscript: A few hours later he comes to my room and tries to joke and shoot the shit. I know him for a few years after that as an acquaintance. Any hint of violence on my part, or even the whiff of uncontrolled rage sends him into a placatory mode.

Nugget of college experience: Whether small or large, I encountered many guys who simply hadn't fought. One guy was four inches taller and much heavier. He said "Let's fight!" after he found out that I had been prank calling him for 6 months and scaring the shit out of girls he was inviting over (his room was diagonal from mine so I knew when he was home, I also pranked called him from the room across from his while both doors were open). He was pissed. He was bigger than me, I didn't want to fight him, but if he was going to fight.... So I pushed him and he slammed against the wall. He wasn't even bracing! He really didn't want to fight, he was just using words! He had some of the bluff strategies going, but the violence wasn't something he had ever contemplated.

Our society is just like the EEA in many ways, but also radically different. The idea that humans have a natural propensity for violence is not that difficult to accept when you grow up in a region where a "manly" and somewhat physical ethos is still dominant. But from talking to my friends from more suburban backgrounds this seems to be fading in some regions to the point where they have no coping mechanisms when confronted by violence. But that doesn't mean that they don't have any instincts, they still strut, bluff and bluster as if they might do violence. But it's like one hand clapping, there's something missing.

Reminds me of a story from Grover Norquist about his Harvard days. Some radical students were talking about armed revolution. Norquist asked, "Do you have guns? I own a gun, and so do my friends." They had nothing to say to that. In my opinion many liberals (and some conservatives) use language that elicits violent mental imagery, but they have so little experience with personal violence that they can't imagine the connections and triggers that it launches in the minds of others.