|
Anything You Can Get Away With
Anything You Can Get Away With
I hear it entirely too often, and it never ceases to infuriate me. “Hey, you have to do anything you can to survive.” Because I know the average person hates wordplay, I’ll get to the point: this is a disgusting way to live. So many people today operate under the philosophy that if they are presented with a problem, they are perfectly justified in doing anything and everything they think they can get away with to solve it. This conveys two equally false messages to anybody who hears such a thing:
First, that a person facing difficulty can do no wrong. If a solution presents itself, you cannot be blamed for the results of taking it.
Second, that such concepts as Honor and Dignity are of a nature that they can be discarded on a whim and resumed again at the bearer’s leisure.
By way of example, let us use an all-too-common scenario. I am walking down a sidewalk in downtown Portland, intent on reading the newspaper that was delivered to my doorstep that morning. From somewhere off to the side, a man appears and directs a gun at me, demanding that I hand over anything of value I am carrying, and insisting that my failure to do so will result in my death. For the sake of the example, let us assume that no help will come, and that no deus ex machina can be employed. I am utterly on my own against this unsavory individual. The solution is obvious: if I give the thug my wallet, cell phone, and the laptop in my backpack, he will most likely go away and leave me unharmed (this is a lie, as most people of this type cannot be trusted). But to add difficulty, let us say that the money in my wallet is to be donated to an orphanage, my cell phone is an extension of a suicide hotline, and my computer contains all of my tax information and personal data. Thus, the solution is no longer so simple. I cannot simply give him what I have, and in any case he will probably shoot me no matter what I do.
Some background on myself. I have nearly fourteen years of experience in the martial arts, making me more than capable of eliminating an average street thug with relative ease. It was discovered some years ago that I was a natural at knife-work, and on an ordinary day I may be carrying such an implement in an “emergency access” location on my person. Finally, I have quick reflexes and can run very fast.
My objectives:
1. Escape the situation.
2. Avoid injury.
These objectives can be accomplished by:
1. Neutralizing the threat.
2. Finding and utilizing a means of egress.
The most peaceful solution is, of course, to pray that my reflexes and legs move me out of the line of fire and away from the threat before he manages to shoot me. This presents several problems. First, if his reflexes are as good as or better than mine, he will fire at my first twitch. Second, while I am fleeing he will have a clear shot at my back. Third, he will escape and will probably attack another innocent at some point before the police capture him. Although this solution grants a fair chance of survival, it also provides a good opportunity for me to die. We will give it 1:1 odds.
My martial arts training presents several options in itself, so we will go over them quickly.
Option 1: Disarm and escape
The best possible position to be in when being threatened with a gun is with the weapon against your flesh or very close. If he is coming at me from either side, it is a simple matter to sweep a block across his gun arm and push it to the side, them proceed to attack and, while he is surprised, flee. If he comes from the front or back, I have but to spin left or right and apply the same maneuver. My attack knocks the weapon from his hand, and my follow-up hopefully leaves him stunned long enough for my escape. We will give this a 2:1 chance of survival.
Option 2: Disarm and neutralize
While applying the same maneuver as in Option 1, I continue the counteroffensive by making attacks to the throat, diaphragm, temples, knees, solar plexus, and groin (although it should be noted that the latter gives you approximately a 2:3 chance of missing and hitting instead the inside of the thigh and angering the opponent). As long as I do not allow my attacker to bring his weapon to bear on my torso, throat, or head, I am almost guaranteed to subdue him. Once I have brought him down, I can either run away or call the police. This receives a 2:1 chance of survival.
Option 3: Disarm and cripple
Again the opponent has his aim thrown off by my arm smashing against his wrist, but this time I opt for a more surefire solution. His gun pointed safely away from my vitals, I am free to jam my fingers into his eyes, blinding him and causing rather extreme pain. From there it is a simple matter to get his weapon from him and either escape or call the police. 3:1 odds of survival.
Option 4: Disarm and eliminate
I am angry at being delayed in my routine, and there will be recompense. Once his weapon is dealt with, I attack the vital points from Option 2 until my opponent is subdued, then apply the appropriate throat lock and pull and squeeze until he shuffles from this mortal coil. “After all, it was just self-defense.” 3:1 odds of survival.
Finally, we come to the knife, a favorite of Villains and Heroes alike. It is within such easy reach that I could produce it and bring it to bear before my opponent had time to stop me, so it would be simple to, say, slash the wrist holding the gun, then stab him somewhere it hurts. The more vital the target, the higher the chance of survival on my part. An arm or leg will slow him down but will not stop him entirely, whereas the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, diaphragm, throat, eyes, and temples will almost certainly bring him to heel. The options are fair to limitless. Let us average them and give this a 3:1 chance of survival.
Oh goodness, what am I to do? A perceptive reader will note that the more lethal options grant me a higher chance of walking away from the situation intact, while going easy on my opponent increases my odds of being killed. I can enact any solution I like, so every option is very much at my disposal.
The average reader will wonder why I don’t simply kill him or gouge out his eyes and be done with it. It’s “in self-defense,” after all, so I can’t be held accountable for it. And anyway, what good are my personal Pride and Dignity and Honor and everything else in the face of a man with—horrors!—a firearm?
My opponent’s position is not difficult to understand. Odds are he doesn’t want to kill me, or even harm me at all. He simply wants what I have, and he is willing to injure me or end my life if he doesn’t get what he wants. That said, he is putting me in danger and I have just as much desire as him to survive, if not more (although this is unlikely, given that most criminal types have a stronger desire than any of us to stay alive). True, I am more than capable of offing the silly bugger and going about my business, but what purpose would this really serve? A life is still being wasted. Of course, it’s not my life, so you’re all wondering what the problem is.
The problem is that the mugger, like myself, is Human. He has the same one-hundred-and-forty years to live as I do. I have no more right to cut his life short than he has mine. While we both of us are entitled to do what we must to ensure our survival, we also have the capability to not go overboard and do unnecessary things. I could kill him. I could gouge out his eyes and leave him blinded for life. I could do any number of horrible things to this man, and he to me, to resolve. But it’s not necessary. Although it is certainly easier to break his neck than to restrain him until the authorities arrive, it is a despicable thing to think that such is the correct course of action.
This “do whatever you can” way of thinking has turned Humans from being corrupt, evil, savage beasts to being more corrupt, more evil, more savage beasts who think they can go around stealing from and killed each other to further their own ends so long as they can justify it as “survival.”
Aside from being wrong in every sense, excessive solutions escalate situations faster than they resolve them. If he and I are standing face to face, he with a gun to my stomach, we are currently in a non-lethal scenario. As soon as I draw my knife, however, my opponent thinks “well, so it’s okay to kill him, then, since he obviously wants to kill me” and will do so if he thinks he can get away with it. The same is true of attempting to kill him unarmed. If I try to cripple him, he will try to do the same to me. By refraining from showing more force than I absolutely have to, I am telling my opponent that I have no desire to end his life and that he can defend himself without worrying. There is definitely still a chance of me being killed if I use less force, of course, but the difference is that in an ordinary situation the opponent will not deliberately try to end my life unless he thinks he has to.
Humans think they can do whatever they want as long as they survive. What sets Us apart from Them, speaking from my perspective, is that We respect the value of life and take precautions not to waste it. Once a person is dead, they are dead. That is the end. Thus, it is our duty as Humans to avoid the senseless waste of life. Granted, there will be times when maiming or killing is the only viable solution, and that is unfortunate. An appropriate quote for closing comes from one Winston Churchill:
“Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter.”
I have given you this story. Do with it what you will.
That’s the Kaiser’s take on things.
|
