34. Meditations on Violence

We read Meditations on Violence by Sgt Rory Miller, a US corrections officer and martial artist, discovered in some Reddit argument on martial arts. We absolutely tore through it, sub 24 hours, on a weekday too, day job in disarray.

Miller is one of the men who is sent into a prison riot to sort it out, a member of that class of humans who confront violence every day so the rest of us don’t have to. He spends the book pointing out stuff you’ve always known subconsciously but have never really thought about. Stuff that’s obvious when you think about it, but one never thinks about it. Powerful mental models to help you assemble the various observations we’ve all made out in the world.

The premise is that a martial arts competition is nothing like violence in the real world. Violence in reality is nothing like what you think it is like, or how it is portrayed in media or in your daydreams.

What is violence? Violence in films, books, video games and even the UFC is ritualised - everyone knows it’s a fight, there are rules, there’s a lot of back and forth, the parties are evenly matched, it lasts a long time, and the fight ends when someone is knocked to the floor. Violence in reality is almost never like that. It’s not a fight, it is a predator ambushing, and a victim unaware they are in a fight until they have been struck. And the victim freezes, both psychologically and as a result of the hormone dump. The biggest challenge in self defence is not freezing. The second biggest challenge is unlearning the unspoken rules that govern our society - like how you’re not allowed to gouge someone’s eye, like how you should stop when you’ve been hurt badly.

But the best thing to do is not be there, or to avoid being drawn into a confrontation, or to project enough of an aura for predators to pick a victim who isn’t you. And the best preparation is to have thought about it - under what conditions do you act, and what are you prepared to risk and sacrifice when you do. Because when you act, you have to commit.