One of my philosophies was put to the test last night. I was at some sort of musical performance, featuring the usual irate white people making a racket, and had escaped outside for a smoke. (The single upside to the smoking ban is that it always gives one a back door.) My friend and I were joined by another chap, a band member from Windsor. Immediately after being introduced, he went on a bit of a tirade.
It started by him saying that we were “too Toronto” for him to even speak to. He then proceeded to insult everything about this city. My friend debated him on his opinions but he was far from being swayed. Instead, he decided to hold me up, my pipe in particular, as an example of everything that he was talking about.
My old approach to that sort of affront would have been to tell him to go fuck himself and then to hit or be hit by him. But I was in the mood for something new. I had a theory to test. I said: “Perhaps if you started conversations with something other than insults, you would get better results.” And it worked. He calmed himself, apologized, shook my hand, took a seat next to mine and engaged me in pleasant gibberish for the next fifteen minutes.
I offered him a hit from my flask. Though I don’t drink, I make it a habit to carry one. You can only go to so many bars before running into a hostile Irishman. This, friends, is a law of nature. I used to be that fellow. Those days are behind me but I remember parts of them well enough and I know this: Any real peace involves free liquor. So I’m always thus armed. The rye I offered worked its magic and, though he spoke a good deal of incoherent nonsense, he was placated. We even became friends of a sort. The sort that won’t be remembered.
But this is not the theory that I was talking about.
These days, I feel that I have a rock solid grip on hostility, its origins, causes and solutions. People only feel hostile when they feel that they are out of their depth. They feel angry when, for some reason – usually an inability to comprehend our mutual desperation and terror — they feel inferior. Because the human mind cannot support the idea of its own inferiority, interpreting it as a threat, it seeks to regain superiority. It often does this by degrading those around it. Violence is the final resort. It is, as Asimov said, the last refuge of the incompetent.
I have acted this out myself and have seen friends act it out. Put a person in a different reality tunnel, one that they somehow feel is superior to theirs, and they react badly. Moved by a natural and cruel mercy, people never attack what is below them. There is nothing to be gained from that and something to be lost. We only wish to attack what we think above us. Humans operate like sharks. We calculate, without being aware of it, how much energy we need to expend to eat. If it is more than the energy we gain, we do not bite.
But much of this is in our own heads. Once a person starts feeling threatened, they start acting threatening, causing them to meet with a bad reaction. This creates a feedback loop. They are treated poorly, feel more threatened, act more threatening and so forth. Just look at what led to Sept. 11. Look at the ensuing shit-storm. Look at the Treaty of Versailles and the rise of Hitler.
The only way out of this violent loop is to avoid debating the surface points –which can only cause further spiraling towards violence– and to jump right through the flaming hoop. You need to get to the meta-level of thinking, where mental processes can be evaluated and altered. Then you need to be honest.
It takes genuine confidence to do this. It takes a good deal of individualism to overcome the feelings of inferiority that give rise to violence. Ninjas believe that knowing how to use a sword well — and knowing that you know — ensures that you never want to. You have nothing to prove. And why should you have anything to prove?
We humans have everything in common except the surfaces. We’re all the same desperate conniving creatures and we all want to be loved. We all hurt. And we should remember that. Forget it and you wake up with a guilty broken-nose on top of your hangover. And who the fuck needs that? The hangovers are bad enough.
7 comments
1 ping
Anonymous
June 28, 2007 at 10:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Really like your ideas on this. Makes me think that there might actually be some hope for all of us . The flask idea is priceless. Grumpy, I love the sober owl ..not that I knew the inebriated you but love the insights of someone who knows the other side and remembers enough to tell the tale . My memory fails me in that regard. Cheers
Ryan Oakley
June 28, 2007 at 11:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The important thing is to always remember that AA is full of shit.
geekigirl
June 29, 2007 at 11:52 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That was beautiful Ryan. Even more so in print.
Ryan Oakley
June 30, 2007 at 9:10 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’ve always been better in print than in person. The good news is that I only have to be half as good in person to still be great.
Hostile Irishman
June 23, 2009 at 8:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I feel obliged to comment on this because I was this hostile Irishman once. Funnily enough it was in Canada too I was on holidays in Montreal and some midget with a French accent was asking me so many questions I felt like I was in the midst of an interrogation and for reasons I don’t consciously recall I headbutted him. After I read this I realise what the cause of me turning hostile was. I was intimidated. I was even thinking about how intimidating a situation it was being interrogated by a French midgit was at the time but the next morning I just rationalised it as “I was drunk”.
Your spot on. Intimidation is the mother of all instigators.
Hostile Irishman
June 23, 2009 at 8:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I don’t usually take the time to read long stories like this it was just the fact it said “hostile Irish” that I decided to but after reading this I’ve realised that other peoples opinions can convey profound insight. Before this I never connected my hostility with intimidation but looking back I see that that explains a large percentage of my “irrational” hostile moments.
Ryan Oakley
June 25, 2009 at 2:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Your comment has made me very happy.
Thank you.
Updating the Accouterments « The Grumpy Owl
March 21, 2008 at 3:05 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[...] snuff, is a great help when people are not allowed to smoke indoors or carry their drink outdoors. It can also serve to calm people down and to avert violence. Try it sometime. It works. And offering a drink is much preferable to beating up or being beaten up [...]