[Bill,
March 7, 2008]
Confrontational readiness
Dr. Helen here has an interesting article on what I'll call "confrontational readiness" and the "new feminized majority." Her thesis is something along these lines:
Here's the thing: Unless you've been trained to handle potentially mortal confrontation, or you've actually been tested in a real-life-threatening situation (by another person), you don't know how you'll react. In the military, they talk about troops being "combat hardened." That means they've gotten over their initial combat jitters and actually learned to fight under fire. For non-combat veterans, how you'll react is a question mark. You don't know.
You could step up and fight. You could freeze up. You might do one or the other depending on your mood that day. But if you react effectively and aggressively largely depends on your training to handle a moment like that. And yes, I mean me, too.
My two cents.
I often think how few people in our society would really know what to do if they were confronted with a mortal confrontation. Sadly, our mindset is now more like The New Feminized Majority in which soft power and discussions are slowly taking the place of the Combat Mind-set. Is this a good thing?
Here's the thing: Unless you've been trained to handle potentially mortal confrontation, or you've actually been tested in a real-life-threatening situation (by another person), you don't know how you'll react. In the military, they talk about troops being "combat hardened." That means they've gotten over their initial combat jitters and actually learned to fight under fire. For non-combat veterans, how you'll react is a question mark. You don't know.
You could step up and fight. You could freeze up. You might do one or the other depending on your mood that day. But if you react effectively and aggressively largely depends on your training to handle a moment like that. And yes, I mean me, too.
My two cents.