Beyond Rivalry

David Foster Wallace, postmodern author who ended his life last week at the age of 46 (RIP), talks about the real value of education in his 2005 Kenyon College commencement speech.

I'm going to be away until the end of September and won't be posting, but I leave you with Foster's exceptionally honest words to college grads, which include these:

"Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe; the realist, most vivid and important person in existence.

"We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness because it's so socially repulsive. But it's pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real. ...

"As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head. ...

AN EXAMPLE: Having to shop for dinner after working 8-10 hours at a challenging, boring, stressful, daily job and dealing with crazy traffic and awful muzak and carts with bad wheels and people who get in your way and aren't nice, and so on:

"The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop. Because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me. About MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home, and it's going to seem for all the world like everybody else is just in my way. And who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are, and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line. And look at how deeply and personally unfair this is.

 

"Or, of course, if I'm in a more socially conscious liberal arts form of my default setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic being disgusted about all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUV's and Hummers and V-12 pickup trucks, burning their wasteful, selfish, forty-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper-stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest [responding here to loud applause] (this is an example of how NOT to think, though) most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers. And I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel, and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and selfish and disgusting we all are, and how modern consumer society just sucks, and so forth and so on.

"

You get the idea."

Read the rest for something sublime.

"My father took a camera everywhere. He took photos of everything. He had separate photo albums for sad photos. He said these were just as important. The pictures in these albums were of family funerals, of my mother returning from being fired at work, of my brother after he broke his wrist trying to jump over a tennis net. There were pictures of each of us having just vomited, or holding a failing test mark, or the moment after we found the cockatoo or the team we were supporting had lost. There was a picture of me, aged nine, looking up at the camera. In the middle of the night, I had knocked on my parents’ bedroom door. I was holding my blanket and in tears because I didn’t want to die. My father held the camera steady and pressed the button."

I started my photography career this way (still have the photos to prove it) but fast learned that others found my observational interest in their sadness and pain to be evidence of a cruel, cold, harsh, mechanical, sick, aloof, unsisterly, and decidedly misaligned heart and soul. The zoom lens circumvents some of the judgment but not entirely.

Anyway, read Crispin Best's essay. ... "My father seldom insulted people and only ever by using the names of edible fish: flathead, pilchard, pollock or scrod."

Years of experience in your given field does not make you an expert performer. It can help -- if you have 10 years experience or more, that is -- and it can also hurt -- acting unconsciously and missing key information, being overconfident -- but what really helps is to spend most of your time practicing the hardest aspects of your job, profession, skill, talent, or field: "In other words, we like to practice what we know, stretching out in the warm bath of familiarity rather than stretching our skills. Those who overcome that tendency are the real high performers."  Another factor that helps make experts expert is "regularly obtaining accurate feedback." This is true for a variety of fields, including nurses, doctors, athletes,  crossword puzzle solvers, chess players, drivers, and, perhaps, politicans.

More at "The Science of Experience" in Time.

"Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist whose 'last lecture' about facing terminal cancer became an Internet sensation and a best-selling book, died Friday. He was 47." He'd been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer almost two years ago.  More at NYT and at Carnegie Mellon.  This is his update page, which I've been following for about a year (servers at Carnegie Mellon must be overloaded; it's taking many tries to download today).

His Last Lecture is moving and inspiring, imo. Watch it.

Notes from Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety (2004). This is the fourth post on this topic; the first is here.

CHAPTER 3 - MERITOCRACY

Explanations for why one might be poor and what one's value to society is have grown "notably more punitive and emotionally awkward in the modern era."

From AD 30 to the latter part of the 20th century, there have been three stories for the "lowest in Western societies" that were consoling:

(1) The poor are not responsible for their condition and are the most useful members of society.  This is the medieval and pre-modern story. God and/or the natural order are responsible for societal position. In this story, there's a sense of mutual dependence among the classes, and the lowest classes are acknowledged for making life easier for the upper classes.

(2) Low status has no moral connotation. Per Scripture. Neither wealth nor poverty are an accurate index of moral worth. Jesus was poor and good. If anything, poverty was good because it led to the recognition of one's dependence on God.

(3) The rich are sinful and corrupt and owe their wealth to the robbery of the poor. 1754-1989. Rousseau, Marx (1887), Engels (1845)

These weren't the only stories, but they were widely credited.

Beginning around the middle of the 18th century, 3 more troubling stories (if you were poor) began to form:

(1) The rich are the useful ones. Bernard Mandeville's The Fable of the Bees (1723) is the written origin of this story, which says that the rich contribute more to society because their spending provides employment for everyone under them. The impact of the rich on others is the most beneficial even if their intentions and motivations are not beneficent. (To those of us in the 21st century, this 'fable' seems to have been always with us, but it's a relatively new take on things!)  Hume repeats this idea in 1752, and Adam Smith seals the deal in 1759: "The whole of civilisation, and the welfare of all societies" depended on people's desire and ability to accumulate unneeded capital and show off their wealth. The greedier they are, the better for all.

(2) Status does have moral connotations. Seen in Thomas Paine (The Rights of Man), Napoleon, Carlyle -- all against hereditary aristocracy and for meritocracy, i.e., an aristocracy of talent. Inequality is OK so long as there is equality of opportunity (e.g., in education). This led to public schools, SAT tests (scientifically proven meritocratic standard - could rank people by their "real worth"), and the 1946 Universal Declaration of Human Rights which required compulsory education in the countries that signed on. Also led to equal opportunity in the workplace (1961, Kennedy) and competitive entrance exams (1870, Britain). 

Now worldly position was obviously related to inner qualities: "Faith in an increasingly reliable connection between merit and worldly success in turn endowed money with a new moral quality." The rich were not only wealthier; they were plain better.

Christianity in the U.S. revised its thinking: now to possess riches in this world was evidence that one was deserving. The Rev. Thomas P. Hunt's The Book of Wealth: In Which it is Proved from the Bible that it is the Duty of Every Man to Become Rich (1836), was a bestseller.  More on this connection between moral goodness and prosperity here at Talking Pentecostalism. 

(3) The poor are sinful and corrupt and owe their poverty to their own stupidity. The poor were no longer seen as unfortunate. Now they were seen as undeserving failures. Poverty became a matter of shame.

Social Darwinism -- the weak are nature's mistakes and should be allowed to perish. Herbert Spencer in Social Statics: or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and the First of Them Developed (1851) argued that biology is opposed to charity. Andrew Carnegie, in his autobiography, said that "Those worthy of assistance, except in rare cases, seldom require assistance. The really valuable men of the race never do."

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Current Events Tie-In: Extremely wealthy Americans evoke sense of awe in their wealthy psychiatrists: "Dr. [Byram] Karasu acknowledged that he was not immune from taking satisfaction in the success and fame of his patients. 'Wealthy people bring about a degree of awe, even in their therapists sometimes,' he said. 'This is the biggest problem I see in the doctors I supervise. And these are fully practicing doctors, doctors making $400, $500 an hour.'"

In news related to status anxiety, ruling class ideology, materialism, and creating desires: Marketplace reporter Benjamin Barber lauds shopping camp -- held at a mall, at which girls ages 6-12 visit stores to learn how to accessorize outfits -- as patriotic. I'm pretty sure he's being sarcastic ....   More here.  And Jezebel readers have something to say about it, too. 

A friend asked me to check out this Collective Wisdom Initiative website, so for the past couple of days I have been reading it, in bits and pieces. As she so understatedly said, "There is a lot of material here." I have a lot more to explore, if I choose to, and some time I probably will.

I want to respond to (my interpretation of) what I've read here, instead of sending long emails to a few people, which might be seen as personally meant when they're not; these comments are about me -- they're my response, my experience, my beliefs, etc., all subject to change any minute now.

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GENERAL RESPONSE

There is so much material here, too much for me to synthesise now, so I will comment on the bits and pieces I've explored that speak to me.

I think I have a vague sense of the overarching theme, something like "collective wisdom comes from truth and leads us to truth."  Perhaps? I like some of the basic elements of: Seeking the Edge, Invoking the Daimon, Blessing and Invocation, Beauty, and Wholeness. They all speak to me deeply, as I interpret them.

The fundamental (I think?) belief that "Together we know more" (from 'What is Collective Wisdom?') doesn't resonate for me or excite me. My experience is that "the wisdom of crowds" is powerful, and often in destructive ways. Maybe, though, the principles discussed at this website can keep the group more wise than complicit.

This quote that I came across this week (by someone I heard speak about ethics at a conference years ago) expresses my wariness: "Neither the intensity of your feelings nor the certainty of your convictions is any assurance that you are right." --Michael Josephson

I think this is as true in groups as in individuals. Groups may help individuals to discern, and they may also rafity, enforce, and increase individuals' certainty and intensity.

BITS & PIECES #1: A Circle of People to Talk with and Listen to

I like the initial quote on the home page:

"Few needs are as pressing and as often go unmet in our world as the need for a place to converse. We all require somewhere, some circle of companions, where and with whom we can enter into the demanding task of trying to say what we experience and to understand what others say in response." -- Michael J Himes, Doing the Truth in Love: Conversations about God, Relationships, and Service

I have almost never found this circle or place in the physical world. (Have others?)

I've been part of many small groups and what feel like meaningful conversations -- lots of nominal "places to converse"  and "circles of companions" -- but I rarely feel I can meaningfully talk with others about my deepest experience. That depth -- the stuff that really matters most to me (which is what this website seems concerned with, yay) -- just feels nebulous, inchoate, a swirl, something shimmering. 

I'm watching Ingmar Bergman talking about making (writing, directing, editing, etc.) the film Winter Light -- it's a 145-minute documentary, Ingmar Bergman Makes A Movie, included in the trilogy boxed set, in which none of the films is more than 91 minutes long! -- and talking about his ideas of God and so on; and he is talking to the interviewer about what matters to him, at some length, in such a thoughtful, serious, integrated, eloquent, whole and often light-hearted (perhaps mildly self-mocking) way. It feels so clean and clear, not too tidy. He speaks slowly and seems to build his ideas as he speaks. He seems to have a through-line that connects it all for him, or if he doesn't, he doesn't mention what doesn't connect and he doesn't get derailed by it.

I don't seem to have that clarity, that through-line. I can speak clearly and with passion like he does about many things, particularly about "how I do" things, some of which have great bearing on things that matter to me: research, which I've successfully spoken about at length to small and large groups; cooking and baking, dog-training, travelling, travelogues, gardening, meditation, the order or non- of my day, poetry, even some philosophical or psychological concepts. But remaining at the "how-to" level doesn't fully accommodate the other levels, or swirls, or paths that aren't "hows."

Watching Bergman, listening to him, I feel that he has the great luxury of a certain kind of focus, the power to slow and channel the stream of ideas, feelings, etc., that I don't have. I can sometimes get into that state, when writing a poem e.g., or when taking a photo, but I doubt I ever have been so focused when participating in a group conversation and rarely when talking with just one other person. Other people -- their presence, spirit, eyes, bodies, projections -- are very distracting for me, for better and worse.

Maybe if someone were interviewing me, I could speak clearly and cleanly, because I would be answering one question at a time (would have an externally imposed focus), and I wouldn't be getting signals and vibrations from other people in a group (except the interviewer), I wouldn't be listening to anyone else, I wouldn't be absorbing a constant stream of feeling, ideas, thoughts, assumptions, contradictory messages, etc. Maybe then I could concentrate, words would surface. 

But that seems quite different from the idea of group resonance that the CWI talks about, when group members' feelings, thoughts, ideas, spirits, etc., would sort of harmoniously vibrate together.

I got a further sense of the possibilities of "collective wisdom" today when someone spoke at worship about her passion for evoking the artist in kids who need a way to express themselves safely.She seemed to believe in and be working to cultivate the magic of the group process, the wisdom that the groups knows. She was very passionate, felt to me authentically charged by her calling and her work. For her, the process is where it all happens, but the product -- the artistry of the artwork? -- is also important. That sounds like what the CWI is all about, using group work (in this case, both art and conversation, and relationships that evolve over time) for conflict-resolution, for generating possibilities and finding good solutions, for healing.

Back to Bergman: I do wonder whether Bergman is sometimes saying more than he knows, i.e, lying, making stuff up. I don't mean 'saying more than he knows' in that way that intuition and the body can overtake us and give us the true response when our mind is busy spinning stories; I mean 'saying more than he knows' in the way that the mind makes up stuff because it sounds so damned plausible. I sense that he is doing this at times, and I think it's a temptation for me, too, when talking about these 'deep thoughts' and emotions to rationalise, to seek reasons that aren't there (yet), to string something together that sounds quite true and likely but that is really just making up explanations for what can't be explained (to oneself) yet. I verbally flail about for cliches and truisms sometimes, because they half-capture the response -- and sometimes I let them substitute for my true response -- because it's easier than slogging around. I wonder how a group seeking collective wisdom would work with this. 

Writing is different from speaking. When writing, I don't have to focus my thought or energy like I do in spoken conversation. I can go in different directions and occupy different layers, more than one part of the circle, almost simultaneously, in a way that I can't in speaking. Still --

Silence and settling into 'being present' with each other is usually more meaningful or satisfying to me than anything I say.

Maybe, in a way, that's the more pressing need (or fantasy) for me: a group (or person) to be with, to be silent with, that (who) can endure many moments of silence until something can be said, and then has patience to listen and wait, and maybe ask a few wise and open-ended questions, make a few connections, while we follow where the threads lead. Who doesn't hold me or themselves to one response, or twenty, and who can let me refine and rework, erase, cut and paste, attach, hit delete and start all over. (As I say it, it sounds idealistic, because it's hard for us to hear something, process it, and then forget it when the speaker tells us it's not relevant anymore. But that's what I'm asking. That it be forgotten as significant and remembered as once-significant at the same time.)

Except mostly I don't feel such a group as a need. I just like it when it happens, which is very rarely. I feel that most interactions with people happen too quickly and I have the sense that most people want to 'achieve' something through group interactions and conversations. That gets in the way of everything for me (and for most people, I would guess?).

This essay, "There are exactly two ways: one, and many" (not on the CWI website) by Bill at Notional Slurry, interests me, though I don't know who I am in it. He seems to say that longitudinal being is related to "the Life of the Mind," which is "the cultivated ability to span boundaries, cross borders of disciplines, bring what you’ve learned over there to bear over here. ... [It] is merely acting on the belief that what we see around us fits together."  He also says that the things that we see, that we notice, are of use, which in the ordinary sense of the word 'use" I don't see as true. What attracts me, what I notice, is what seems to be not of use, except that it's what it is. 

He goes on to say that when people ask him "Just what is it that you do?," he  responds: "This." Then he explains to us: "It's true whenever I say it. No matter where I go… this is what I’m probably doing." What he's talking about, I think, is noticing, exploring, experiencing, thinking about, and perhaps finding connections among the things that distract him: "There is something interesting in everything; if not in the act or the thing itself, then in what it implies."  

These distractions the things that really matter to me and what I am 'doing' most of the time is being distracted. And when I speak, it shows! 

BITS & PIECES #2: A Call to Convene, and Flow

Vicki Robin's paper (Call to Convene) spoke to me because I do think I have often felt and followed a call to convene groups.

For me, there isn't a purpose in convening and conversing other than being together and conversing. Collective wisdom, group enlightenment, conflict resolution, solutions to anything, pooling of resources -- these don't seem to intrinsically matter to me in the context of this call. When I am responding to a feeling of being called, I'm not looking for "collective resonance" or group magic. I seek to be in the midst of people struggling aloud and silently with what matters to them (us), even when it's awkwardly unmagical. Sometimes in a group (or one-on-one) conversation I hear or see something that gives me a glimpse into something amazing and jarring and life-altering. Maybe it happens for others, too. But if that never happened, I think I would be happy to be in conversation about things that matter to people.


I have been in long-term groups that really gel, where there is some kind of magic, maybe trust, maybe a recognition of our shared urge to dive to and explore a similar depth of ... meaning? life? experience? love? pain? I don't know. Those groups have felt very comforting, very safe, true, boundary-blending, loving. Still, even in that context, I have so much trouble wording what matters to me. The magic in those groups (one I'm thinking of in particular) derived partly from our struggles to try to speak these vibrating, disappearing, enduring things with each other, and partly from the deep secrets about our lives that we shared, and partly from intention, and maybe most from touch (massage, dance, holding hands), singing together, doing art together, sitting and looking at/into each other's faces, eating and drinking together, and other non-conversation. It was a space to be, also rare in my experience. It wasn't exactly spontaneous and it wasn't exactly planned. Most weeks, it somehow flowed.

BITS & PIECES #3: How Do We Know It's A Commons?

Michael Jones, in his paper on Artful Leadership says this:

"So in the commons the alchemy of the third is found in wholeness. This suggests that when the question arises in those beginning the practice of the commons, "Is this a commons?" it may be answered by sensing how much wholeness is present and actualized. And because wholeness is invisible, we know it primarily through its effects. For example, we may know we are in the presence of wholeness when we feel ourselves to be deeply heard, perhaps because there is sufficient stillness amongst us to allow what we say to be fully received. Or suddenly we sense that our voice carries new clarity and strength, and those with us can hold strong voices without fear. Perhaps we know it because we feel whole and complete, and there is a warmth in us that lets us engage the deeper subtleties of meaning and connection. Often there is an accompanying, heightened trust in ourselves and others, so that we can move with grace and ease from a reliance on memory and past knowledge to the forming of new insights. Or we know that wholeness is present because we feel involved and engaged, that is we feel that we have a home here; the essence of our gifts has been taken in and embodied by the whole.

"Most important, it is the sense that the part of us that has felt orphaned in the world has now been taken in by the commons. This makes room for us to find our own thinking, and follow our own feeling in a way that is free from any need for defensiveness or self-deception. This in turn makes the fuller experience of wholeness possible. Furthermore, to be in the presence of wholeness is to acknowledge that it cannot ever be replicated; it comes to us as a gift and in a moment that is unique and unrepeatable."

I like these words, and 'wholeness' and its effects as a 'measure' of whether the commons is a commons, a place of collective wisdom and magic.

Even though, as I said, I usually feel unable to verbally express what matters most to me  -- even to myself at any given time, because it all feels like an amorphous  tag cloud, except all the words and phrases are visuals, memories, what I overheard, how it works together, that moment, colours, patterns, under water, something half-remembered, who you were, poem fragments, a death, more fragments, music, her letter, a mark on a calendar, some bits of dreams, a breath, a frisson, your smile, sand, what didn't happen, that moment, etc -- I do sometimes feel that I am heard when I speak, as much as is possible. Mostly I feel that people are trying hard to hear and are misunderstanding, assuming, personalising, biased, listening to something else, and all the things we are and do, the ways we miss each other and then solidify the illusion of the other. It happens.

I'm not sure we can be "fully received" or that we can do the same for others, no matter how strong the intent and the stillness. But something of significance, something that evokes compassion, the reminds us that "the other is me", that lives and breathes life, can be received, and that's good.

I don't think I know what it means to feel like an orphan in the world. I feel whole and at home no where (maybe on a moving train) but anywhere, that I belong where I am, even when I feel unheard, misjudged (imo), different, ignored, excluded, lost and sad. I don't think I look to the commons or conversation to make me whole or to find home. Even when I feel fragmented and scattered, at times, I can still locate myself (though, again, no where), in the pieces, like a shimmering hologram.

 
Jones also says:

"The commons is a listening field within which we may reawaken to the longing, wonder and belonging from which all new life begins. It offers a remedy for the isolation, loneliness and absence of meaning that have become the sickness of our time."

I can't recall not feeling longing, wonder and belonging. Not necessarily belonging to people but to where I am, if that makes any sense. And I also feel lonely, desolate, disconsolate, broken -- and it feels good to feel all of that. When I can't stop crying, I know I'm alive. (Reminds me of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah": It's not somebody who's seen the light / it's a cold and it is a broken Hallelujah ... " For me, all the things Jones says CW can awaken, and all the things he says CW is a remedy for, are summed up in the beautiful longing of the phrase "broken Hallelujah."

I know that people feel isolated and lonely and desolate and it doesn't feel good at all. There's pain, and then there's denial, unendurable restlessness, stomach-churning fear, passive numbness ... and I think that a place to converse or just be together is helpful, healing, even saving. It's the idea of establishing or convening such a thing in order to help or save that feels unwieldy, imposed and sideways.

I don't feel that way about the local coffee shop, though, which was established partly as a place for people to get together, as a commons of a sort. Maybe that feels different because the owner wanted it for herself as much as for anyone else. Or because she doesn't force it but lets it happen as it does (or so it seems to me). She set aside the space, she created and re-creates the spirit of the place, and her presence (and the presence of her staff) in the space is what saves, if anything does.

What I like about what Jones says is the emphasis on staying with "not knowing," the pleasure of kicking ideas around without having to come to conclusion, resolution, an outcome.  The emphasis on exploring and discovering. That we can "listen for the space between" (lovely phrase) and that "confusion and uncertainty" may be "our new reality."

I get the instability of the last concept. Confusion and uncertainty seem like quite different entities to me, though, not synonymous. Buddhism speaks of confusion somewhat ambiguously, as "the path" ("whatever occurs in the confused mind is the path" -- that is, it's all workable) and as a kind of energy that we can (perhaps will find it to our advantage to?) transmute "into clear wisdom" through the practices; it speaks of uncertainty as an accurate  reflection of what is, something to sit with, make friends with, and not flee, because life is uncertain and trying to make it certain causes suffering. These Buddhist views feel true to my experience.

BITS & PIECES #4: Vulnerability and Silence

I agree with the part of the Collective Resonance Shifters map that shows that vulnerability and silence are considered the strongest identifiers or predictors of interpersonal resonance.

Gavin de Becker's Book, The Gift of Fear, and Other Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence (1997), is a book I recommend to everyone. To women as a handbook, to men primarily as insight into most women's experience, though I think we can all benefit from learning to recognise signals of violence, and from distinguishing between risks that our intuition warns us of, and unlikely risks, about which we worry fruitlessly.

A few bits that have spoken to me so far (1/3 through this time, my second reading of the book):

FIRST, that criminals are basically like us, not inhuman monsters, not other and therefore unknowable; and SECOND, that we successfully predict human behavior every day: 

"People do things, we say, 'out of the blue,' 'all of a sudden,' 'out of nowhere.' These phrases support the popular myth that predicting human behavior isn't possible." Yet, de Becker says, we predict complex human behaviour every time we drive: "We expect all drivers to act just as we would, but we still alertly detect those few who might not." We also successfully predict "how a child will react to a warning," "how a consumer will react to a slogan," "how a spouse will react to a comment," and so on. 

 

"Predicting violent behavior is easier than any of these, but since we fantasize that human violence is an aberration done by others unlike us, we say we can't predict it. ... The human violence we abhor and fear the most, that which we call ' random' and 'senseless,' is neither. It always has purpose and meaning, to the perpetrator, at least. We may not choose to explore or understand that purpose, but it is there, and as long as we label is 'senseless,' we'll not make sense of it. 

 

"Sometimes a violent act is so frightening that we call the perpetrator a monster, but as you'll see, it is by finding his humanness -- his similarity to you and me -- that such an act can be predicted. ... [W]e want to believe that people are infinitely complex, with millions of motivations and varieties of behavior. It is not so. ... We want to believe that human violence is somehow beyond ourunderstanding, because as long as it remains a mystery, we have no duty to avoid it, explore it, or anticipate it. We need feel no responsibility for failing to read signals if there are none to read. We can tell ourselves that violence just happens without warning, and usually to others, but in service of these comfortable myths, victims suffer and criminals prosper."

He says that the behaviours of "violent people" will resonate with our own experience if we let ourselves make the connection. One example he later gives is of a person who seems to enjoy the fear he causes in other people: "Getting pleasure from the fear of others is something most of us cannot relate to -- until we recall the glee of every teenager who startles a friend or sibling by jumping out of the dark."   

de Becker insists that someone who commits even the most heinous and gruesome crime is as human as the rest of us. He quotes Maya Angelou at the start of a chapter, who says "I am capable of what every other human is capable of. This is one of the great lessons of war and life." But then, in other spots, he makes a repeated distinction between "decent men" and "violent men," as if they are two different species, as if the "violent man" were not capable of being decent or the "decent man" of being violent.

THIRD, de Becker describes some signals of violence from strangers that can help us anticipate it. Strangers account, he says, for only 20% of homicides, while 80% of committed by someone known to the victim, and most of the book is about the 80%. Nevertheless, imo, these signals are useful to know about not only in the context of someone seeking to do you physical violence but also in the context of people seeking to pick you up, sell you something, get you to serve on a committee, do something for them, or otherwise control your actions. The signals are:

Forced teaming:  The would-be attacker implies that he shares something with the victim, that they're in the same boat, so that boundaries between them blur and trust and rapport can be established. This is done by projecting a "shared purpose or experience where none exists: 'Both of us;' 'We're some team;' 'How are we going to handle this?;''Now we've done it.'" The defense is "a clear refusal to accept the concept of partnership."

Charm and Niceness: A charming man is a man seeking to charm you. It's an ability, not a character trait. "Charm is almost always a directed instrument, which, like rapport building, has motive." Similarly, niceness. "We must learn and then teach our children that niceness does not equal goodness. Niceness is a decision, a strategy of social interaction; it is not a character trait." Remember that both are strategies and look for the motive.

Too Many Details: People who are lying give too many details, because even if you believe them, they don't sound credible to themselves, so they keep talking. de Becker says that when confronted with the disorienting blur of too many details, designed to make the would-be attacker (or clunky Casanova, or pyramid-scheme salesman) appear to be familiar to you, a friend, someone you can trust, it's most important to remember the context, that this is a stranger who has approached you.

Typecasting: Typecasting is when the potential perp labels the potential victim in "some slightly critical way, hoping she'll feel compelled to prove that his opinion is not accurate." Examples will be familiar to every woman and some men: "You're probably too snobbish to talk to the likes of me." "There's such a thing as being too proud, you know." "I bet you think I'm just no-good, like everyone else." The defense is silence, acting as if the words aren't spoken. Don't engage, and don't try to refute the words with actions (talking to him because you don't want to seem snobbish, allowing him to help with the groceries because you don't want to seem too proud), because that's what he wants you to do, to increase the illusion of a bond between you. (Here, that Buddhist slogan of "nothing to protect, nothing to defend" comes in handy for me. So, I'm too proud. So, I'm snobbish. Let it be.)

Loan Sharking: This is when someone helps you in order to put you in debt to them, "and the fact that you owe a person something makes it hard to ask him to leave you alone. ... The predatory criminal generously offers assistance but is always calculating the debt." The defense is to remember that he approached you and that you didn't ask for help; "then, though a person may turn out to be just a kindly stranger, watch for other signals."

de Becker notes that many of these strategies are employed by "men who want little more than an opportunity to engage a woman in conversation. I don't mean to cramp the style of some crude Casanova [he says], but times have changed, and we men can surely develop some approaches that are not steeped in deceit and manipulation."

The Unsolicited Promise: Similar to Too Many Details, the unsolicited promise is given because the would-be attacker sees that you don't trust him, that you aren't convinced, so he hopes his "promise" will overcome your doubt. The defense is simply to recognise that the unsolicited promise comes because you are hesitant to trust this person, because there is reason to doubt and you know it.

Discounting the Word 'No': "Declining to hear 'no' is a signal that someone is either seeking control or refusing to relinquish it. With strangers, even those with the best intentions, never, ever relent on the issue of 'no,' because it sets the stage for more efforts to control." Don't negotiate from 'no,'  because "negotiations are about possibilities, and providing access to someone who makes you apprehensive is not a possibility you want to keep on the agenda."

FOURTH, de Becker talks about pre-incident indicators (PINs). These are the clues that occur before every violent act:

"Behavior is like a chain. Too often, we look at just the individual links. When we ask why a man committed suicide, someone might say, 'He was despondent over major financial losses,' as if this could possibly explain it. Many people are despondent over financial losses and don't kill themselves. Though we want to believe that violence is a matter of cause and effect, it is actually a process, a chain in which the violent outcome is only one link. If you were predicting what a friend of yours might do if he lost his job, you wouldn't say, 'Oh, he'll commit suicide' unless there were  many other PINs of suicide present. You'd see the loss of his job as a single link, not the whole chain. The process of suicide starts way before the act of suicide. 

 

"The same is true for homicide. Though we might try to explain a murder using simple cause-and-effect logic (e.g., 'He learned his wife was having an affair so he killed her'), it doesn't aid prediction to think this way. Like the earthquake [whose initiation might start thousands of years before we are aware of it], violence is one outcome of a process that started way before this man got married."

I think what resonates for me about his book is that though it is focused on predicting and intuiting the most violent human acts, which is in itself worthwhile, it is at the same time about predicting, intuiting and to some extent explaining (or at least seeing patterns in) the most minor, subtle and common acts of human violence, too -- manipulation, control, power-mongering, some advertising and sales strategies, influence-peddling, coercion, etc.  All the ways we try to change people so that they do what we want them to do, so that we get what we (think we) want.    

Obsolete Skills, which is a wiki (edited by anyone who wants to, whether they are experts on the topic or complete dolts), not only lists them but describes some obsolete, almost-obsolete, and perhaps debatably obsolete skills in lucid detail. Not all of them, though. And some (q.v. previous link) aren't all that obsolete, which is sometimes acknowledged. Many are computer-related, but not all.

A lot more research is needed, but this report in the WSJ of studies led by Wayne A. Gordon, Ph.D., director of the Brain Injury Research Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, and Mary Hibbard, Ph.D., which have found a mild to strong relationship between previously unidentified traumatic childhood brain injuries and 'ills' such as learning disabilities, addiction, and homelessness, could change the type and efficacy of treatments for many people.

Descriptions of some of their studies, including classroom studies and studies among addicted and homeless populations, are in the article. One epidemiological study, in which 5,000 people were interviewed door-to-door in 2000, found that the 7.2% who remembered a "a past blow to the head that was followed by unconsciousness or a period of confusion" also reported "more than twice the rate of depression and of alcohol and drug abuse as others" and "had sharply elevated rates of panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and suicide attempts" compared with those who didn't report a head injury.

Article accompanied by an embedded video.