Why We Should Train for the Worst Case Scenario
Harry Potter, usefulness, and overcoming our environment
There is an ancient truth of the human condition woven through Harry Potter, pre-state peoples, and our daily lives.
It is this: violence exists.
I argue in this essay we should train for it.
Let us begin.
I have always been in awe that our ancestors inflicted such ungodly levels of violence upon one another that it shaped nearly every feature of our brains and bodies. No matter the circumstances — feast or famine, wealth or poverty, pre-agriculture or post-agriculture, pre-state or state-based, arm-thrown spears or trigger-squeezed AK-47’s, religious fervor or devout atheism — two groups of humans inevitably commit acts of violence against one another.
It is even more striking how we can watch violence spread like a cancer across the globe from the safety of our pixelated screens, and how far removed from violence this safety leads us to think we are.
I was reading an ethnography called Semai: A Nonviolent People of Malaya when I stumbled upon an epic irony: for a people priding themselves on nonviolence, they were incredibly good at violence.
The ethnographer wrote: “Most people who knew the Semai insisted that such an unwarlike people could never make good soldiers. Interestingly enough, they were wrong… Taken out of their nonviolent society and ordered to kill, they seem to have been swept up in a sort of insanity which they call ‘blood drunkenness.’ A typical veteran’s story runs like this. ‘We killed, killed, killed. The Malays would stop and go through people’s pockets and take their watches and money. We did not think of watches or money. We thought only of killing. Wah, truly we were drunk with blood.’ One man even told how he had drunk the blood of a man he had killed.”1
For my part, this part of their recollection was the most revealing: “Talking about these experiences, the Semai seem bemused, not displeased that they were such good soldiers, but unable to account for their behavior. It is almost as if they had shut the experience off in a separate compartment, away from the even routine of their lives. Back in Semai society they seem as gentle and afraid of violence as anyone else.”
What then?
Academics believe we possess evolved psychological adaptations for violence that can be triggered by the right environment, a fact verified by any non-academic who has ever set foot in such an environment.2 The crucial point is a handful of tweaks in the world around them were enough for people priding themselves on “nonviolence” to find a savage pleasure in drinking blood from the carcasses of their enemy. And even when they knew they could go cuckoo for cacao puffs, they merely shook their heads at their silliness. They did not care they might do it again.
My hunch is what is true for the Semai is true for us all: the same person can become two different people in two different environments. More specifically, who we are in peace can be radically different than who we are in conflict — unless we learn to control it. It is something I am still struck by having seen this transition within others, and within myself.
How, then, could the Semai so easily pivot from saying sorry to the chicken they beheaded for dinner that night to slaughtering humans for pleasure the next day? It may be because adrenaline, serotonin, and dopamine are dumped into our veins in extreme physical effort such as that found in violence. By engaging in violence we are able to tap into these hormonal pathways.3 The MMA fighters of today, like the Semai of yesterday, are not necessarily fighting for monkey meat, for cash, for justice, or even for glory. They are after a “high” from a shotgun blast of hormones. For much of mankind, violence simply felt — and still feels — good.
So not only will violent people always exist, but the potential for violence will probably always exist as an un-squeezed trigger in us all. If it did not, we would not have survived very long after our split from our ultra-violent chimpanzee brethren.
“I disagree,” a displeased reader says. “I have no tolerance for violence. Only a moral monster can think it feels good.” This reader must not like Harry Potter. How so? Well, the plot is he-who-must-not-be-named slinging an Avada Kadavra at a baby boy’s loving mother, and then dedicating his life to murdering the helpless child and happily slaughtering many others along the way with the help of his Death Eaters. In my personal favorite, the Lord of the Rings, a semi-God named Sauron wants to implement a totalitarian government “to cover all the lands in a second darkness” and liquidate those wretched hobbits, what with their cheerful red faces, long-stemmed pipes, and annoyingly rugged spirits. And what about the Hunger Games? What about teenagers shooting, smashing, slicing, spearing, and stabbing each other to death for the amusement of woefully bored and affluent elites?
If it were not for violence, would any of these books have been read? Written? Would billions of dollars have been invested to turn them into movies? Would viewers passionately align themselves with the survivors and their epic — and violent — trials of good-versus-evil and us-versus-them? I think not.
It seems, then, a negative exposure to violence will lead to terrorists donning suicide vests filled with ball bearings. A lack of exposure to violence will leave us at the mercy of those with terroristic leanings, and at the mercy of ourselves lest we go the way of the Semai. A positive exposure to violence, on the other hand, teaches us to use rifle, spear, tooth, and knuckle so that we may be of use to those we care for when our world is swept up by Death Eaters, Orcs, and those who are bored.
What follows?
Let us not be hasty and start sharpening spears in the backyard. It is a good we are less violent. My point is there is a violence-shaped hole in our lives. This abyss has, to an extent, been filled with art, philosophy, and science, but it has also been filled with the glorification of the mediocre, the marginalization of those cautioning against the illusion of peace at present, and the boldness of those who want to see our world burn.
There are a few practical things we can do: build Go-Bags for vehicles and basements; talk through plans with family to meet at specified locations in the event communications are shut down; learn to shoot pistols and rifles in safe and controlled environments; train jiu jitsu, Muay Thai, boxing, and other form of self-defense; practice basic first aid.
But as important as these fundamentals are, they are merely matters of the body and not the soul if they are not done with the right mode of mind.
I believe the deepest reward we gain in training for violence is what it forces our attention on: our meaning in life.
As terrible as violence may be, training for it offered our ancestors throughout the brutal crucible of our species youth what may be the most profound source of meaning in our lives — keeping kith and kin alive one more firelit night when the Voldemorts and the Saurons and the Communists and the Nazis and the bored nihilists forget their place in the cosmic order.
The goal is not to be two radically different people in two radically different environments and thus a liability — it is to be the same person no matter the environment and thus an asset. It is to be willing and able to protect kith and kin whether we are in a Whole Foods in suburbia or a jungle glittering with bronze bullet casings, in a warm home or a street lined with charred cars, in the Shire or Mordor.
This is the training I am arguing for.
To help What then? reach more readers, please consider adding a like, restacking, and sharing this essay to help spread the good word.
Dentan, Robert Knox. The Semai: A Nonviolent People of Malaya. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968.
Buss, David M. Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind. 6th ed., Routledge, 2019.
Gat, Azar. War in Human Civilization. Oxford University Press, 2008.
You’ve generated Food for thought. I always wonder when I watch kids play video games where they are killing masses of enemy and their avatar being killed only loses them a few points in a game. What are they learning? Will that affect them when they are faced with reality. I am from a generation before video games. I vividly remember the first time I pulled a trigger “ in anger.” I’ll admit I was slow on the uptake. It was a shock that a guy was trying to kill me. Then I pulled the trigger. Thank God I was a better shot, otherwise my hesitation would have been my last thought.
We have some of the world’s best warriors, so I guess we still have a seam of violence as part of our makeup as you suggest. I do wonder if we are breeding it out however as we further isolate and protect ourselves from nature. Sorry for rambling.
Great article! I completely agree. Without violence, there would be no appreciation for peace, for good. We need the yin to define the yang. I would also say that the person who thinks they have no capacity for violence has obviously never been punched in the face😬 (or had their kids threatened, or had to protect their neighbor—both of which are sourced from compassion, not anger as violence is often attributed to).