Nonviolent Strategies to Deal with Aggression
Keys to avoiding violence from strangers
How do we protect ourselves from violent encounters with strangers? Many of us, or someone we know, may have had such experiences.
Two sources of these encounters are social aggression and asocial violence.
Social aggression arises when people compete for social dominance. It can occur in many situations, from political confrontations to encounters with bullies. Communication and state-management skills can help prevent social aggression from becoming violent.
Asocial violence arises from sociopaths. An unseen, unprovoked, physical attack is an example. Communication skills will not work for asocial violence. Situational awareness is a nonviolent approach that may counter asocial violence.
Tim Larkin summarizes the differences between the two behaviors:
Social aggression is about competition; asocial violence is about destruction. Competition has rules; destruction has none.
We cannot always avoid conflict. Here, I cover four strategies that may avoid it turning to violence. But first, a story from my youth:
