Continuing on from my post Self Defence 8:

Fortunately, your chances of experiencing asocial violence are very low, but how do you know whether you’re dealing with anti-social or asocial violence?

Think about an altercation outside the local takeaway late Saturday night. It looks and sounds like it does because it is a display meant to be seen and heard by everyone in attendance. The participants have no intentions of seriously injuring each other, just enough to teach someone a lesson or increase their social status.

However bad and incoherent it may be, anti-social violence is still communication. This means even though the other person is threatening you, they are still attempting, in the crudest possible way, to communicate with you.

Holding a knife to your throat and saying, “Give me your money” is still communication. They wouldn’t bother telling you what they wanted if it were an asocial act. They would take it.

If you use your social skills to deal with anti-social pre-violence behaviour, you may be able to diffuse the situation and essentially ‘make the nasty person go away’ by giving them what they want and then hoping they choose to leave. But there’s an inherent risk in trying to reason with someone in this situation because there is still a possibility of the situation resorting to physical violence, even if capitulation gives them what they want.

Imagine a scenario where they have threatened you with a knife to “give over your wallet, and you won’t be harmed”, but after you have given it to them, they have decided to stab you anyway. This goes against the verbal contract you think you have with them. It ceases to be in the realm of anti-social violence and is now in the world of asocial violence.

There are no grey areas in anti-social vs. asocial. If you have a choice whether to respond with violence, then that situation is in the realm of anti-social. When you have no choice, then it is asocial.