The Little Black Book of Violence

as entertaining as watching bullies decide to fuss with the wrong person. (The guy was in the marching band! Who knew drummers were so strong?)

I often say, “Murder is easy. Dealing with someone who’s coming at you just as hard, ain’t.” Recognize that there is a distinct difference between killing and murder.

Manslaughter is usually the taking a life during the moment. For example, in the heat of an argument someone pulls a gun and ka-pow. (This is also critical as to why one must understand the importance of threat displays, predatorial vs. territorial violence and the dangers of escalato, because, face it, the stupidest last words ever spoken while looking down the barrel of a gun are, “You don’t have the guts,” (especially when said in Spanish). This also can include someone falling down and cracking his skull during a fight or drunken driving. While killing someone was not the intent, both are conditions that could have been avoided.

While murder tends to be much rarer, manslaughter is the more common charge. Most of the time, you will see people so wrapped up in their game of escalato that violence isn’t combat per se, it is in fact another stage of threat display. No lie, the intent to kill wasn’t there, the waving a weapon around was just another ante into the pot trying to get the other guy to fold. This is especially true in light of the “Oh sh*t, I killed him!” so commonly seen after the heat of moment has passed.

Homicide just means the killing of a human by another (Homo sapiens, ergo homicide). Homicide can occur for many different reasons, including self-defense. I tend to use the term ‘killing’ for ‘homicide,’ because people understand it better. I bring these distinctions up because they are important to understand how death can occur with risks and without risks to the individual. For example, a drunken driver can hit a pedestrian with very little danger to himself. This also is true in the case of a murder. The person committing the murder is doing so with minimum risk to self.

On the other hand, two guys ‘fighting’ are taking a risk of injury. The degree of resulting damage may be far greater than either intended. This brings us to combat, which—as I define it—is when two or more combatants ARE intent on killing each other and actively engaged in the act. In these circumstances, the risks of death and injury to everyone involved are very great. This is why fighting is rare—and combat even more so—it’s too damned dangerous.

Generally speaking, murder is the taking the life of someone incapable or unlikely to defend oneself or in a situation where the person doesn’t have a chance. And putting in a legal definition, it is thought out and, if not evil overlord’s worth, to some degree planned. Generally, if there is an altercation, the heat of the moment has passed, and now it has festered into something else. Another legal definition of murder is a killing that occurs during the commission of a crime. In both cases, there are intentional and willful steps towards the commission of this killing (for example, running home, getting a gun, and coming back to shoot someone or robbing a place using the threat of force).

Many moons past a group of questions were asked of gang bangers. Basically, the questions were: “Is _______ worth killing over?” The answers were unanimously, “YES!” If someone did this to them, they’d cap his ass. These kids were willing to kill over these subjects. Then the questions were rephrased as: “Is _______ worth dying over?”

“WHOA! Wait a minute! Nobody said anything about US dying now! It’s okay for him to die over this, but I ain’t volunteering!”

Now gosh golly gee, isn’t it an interesting point, that most of their strategies and tactics reflect this same attitude? Take a look at a drive-by shooting. They’re willing to kill, but they don’t want to risk their own precious hides.

Here you run into some things that were mentioned in the clip of Steve Pinker speaking at the Technology Entertainment Design (TED) conference. He mentions Payne James Payne’s views about places where “life is cheap” the hesitation to use violence is less. It is interesting because while I have not read Payne’s works, I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment… with a very distinct clarification. Pinker ascribes to Payne, “When pain and early death are every day features in one’s own life, one feels fewer compunctions about inflicting them on others.” It would be easy to think, “Okay, you live in a violent world, therefore violence is no big thing” which is true. However, I personally think it goes a little deeper than that.

Look at Pinker’s/Payne’s next line: “As technology and economic efficiency lengthen and improve our lives, we place a higher value on life in general.” It is here that we realize it ain’t just about violence; we’re also talking about living a hard scrabble existence chock full of ‘death professions,’ disease, starvation and being ‘expendable.’ I’m talking this is the danger you face every day WITHOUT the threat of violence. “Oh yeah, violence, that can kill me too… get in line.”

It is here that we have to take a look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and realize that someone who is living on the lower rungs has a totally different mindset than these gang bangers. Ever seen what a life of death professions can do to a man? Torn and twisted bodies and 45-year-old men moving like they’re 80. Manual labor, if it doesn’t kill you outright, will kill you sooner than later. (As an aside, this is where gender feminism got it wrong; they were speaking from a postindustrial perspective and totally ignored the fatality rate among the men doing this kind of work). Under these hardscrabble conditions then, yes, life is very cheap. I mean who’s afraid of violence when your job is guaranteed to kill you? And yet death professions are taken by these men because they are the only way to support one’s family.

And that is where the real difference between these gang bangers and—for example—suicide bombers can be seen. The gansta’s aren’t really in a hardscrabble existence. They aren’t always a hair’s breadth away from starvation, disease, or death (a.k.a. real poverty). Their biggest threat to life and limb is violence brought about by their lifestyle choices. Contrast this, however, to a poor suicide bomber—whose death will ensure the financial comfort of his family. (That’s another factor, but we’ll get to that in a minute).

Pinker/Payne is correct that the better the life conditions one has the more value one puts on life—especially one’s own. This brings us back to the issue of if you engage in violence you risk injury/death.

Often youths claim that they aren’t afraid of dying. In fact, often death is looked at as an escape route from a f%&ked up and emotionally painful existence. However, let me add something that a friend’s grandfather used to tell him, “Don’t worry about the man who isn’t afraid of dying. Worry about the man who doesn’t mind.”

People who aren’t afraid to die can usually be easily accommodated (a.k.a., they’re most often sloppy). Whereas someone who is willing to kill you, but isn’t willing to die himself in the process, is also usually pretty easy to handle. All you gotta do is shoot back. Usually their desire to whack you evaporates in light of the realization that their butts are on the line, too. It’s the guy who is intent on achieving a goal and who calmly accepts that he might have to go down in the process who is going to require some overtime on your part.

People who talk about the “will to kill” almost all forget that part of you also has to have the willingness to die. “No, no, no!,” I hear them squeak. “You have to be willing to kill so you can survive Ragnarok!”[35] Yeah, right… and that’s how come they so often choke when it comes down to it. Despite all their posing and grandstanding, they freeze up in the actual face of “there ain’t no such thing as guaranteed survival.”

While we’re at it, there ain’t no such thing as guaranteed success either… which is another ‘hold the phone’ issue when it comes to dying. I’m not just talking about you didn’t achieve your goal of whacking someone. That’s, “Oh well, I missed. Golly gee. Guess I’ll go home and watch The Simpsons.” Nor am I talking about a grand and glorious last stand where you die while heroically protecting others or achieving a great and grand end.

I’m talking about you both dying AND failing. I’m talking about a kamikaze pilot who gets shot down and flames out in the ocean. I’m talking about the suicide bomber who gets isolated and is left standing there alone with nobody else to kill. I know of only one guy who blew himself up in those conditions, and it’s questionable if he or his handlers did it. I’m talking about the assassin who flubs the hit and gets taken down without killing his target. I’m talking about a valiant effort that gets you killed, as well as the person you are trying to save.

In more affluent lifestyles, we like to think that our lives mean something. And by extension, we hope that our early deaths would, too. That’s part of the reason why stone killers scare people. It’s nothing personal. We at least want our deaths to have some significance. We just hate to think that our deaths would go something like this: