Ferguson, r-Types, and Threat Response

This post is heavily informed by the work of Michael Trust, and his book The Evolutionary Psychology Behind Politics in particular; I strongly recommend them both.

We start with a hypothetical question:

Suppose you were attending a pro-LEO rally in Ferguson, going up against the savages of various hues who want to burn black businesses and murder white cops.  You know that these protests tend to get heated, and if you try and prevent them from trampling the American flag, violence is a real possibility.  What is the best implement you can equip yourself with to ensure your safety?

A knife?  A pistol?  An AR-15 slung across your back?

This patriot carries nothing but an air horn.

To a healthy K-Type this might feel like walking into a lion’s den armoured with nothing but your faith; after all, a civilized man prizes the right to self-defence above all else, and is well-aware of the potential lethality of even fisticuffs in the above situation.  Furthermore, he has an intrinsic respect for a show of force.  Soldiers on parade will bring a tear to his eye, and an armed and disciplined citizenry was the Founding Fathers dream.  There’s romance in the notion of sidearm-carrying citizens standing alongside the just and noble Peace Officers of this country.¹

To do so would be a strategic error, however.  A group with AR-15s wouldn’t intimidate the rioters into silence; against all reason, it would provoke them to violence.

A quick perusal of the videos on Tactical Streamer will immediately identify the current crop or rioters as r-Type rabbits – or jackals, if you prefer, since this group has higher testosterone than your average Democrat.  Their laughter has a raucous, hooting nature, utterly devoid of joy; their treatment of the flag is a celebration of scatology, rather than a principled protest against the US Government; and their flippancy and irresponsibility are self-evident.

Much as with Occupy Wallstreet, those seeking redress for specific complaints were chased out of the movement long ago.  All that’s left is an r-Type orgy of destruction.

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It is important to consider the foundation of r-Type dysfunction; that of short-circuiting the amygdala, that part of the brain responsible for flagging incoming stimuli as significant – particularly those involving danger.

Some r-Types are produced through trauma; the horrors they experience are so overwhelming and outside of their control that they’re forced to rationalize a way out of them.  Others are produced indirectly, by environmental abundance; when resources are plentiful, worrying and hording is less competitive than being a spendthrift.  Some even turn out that way because of brain damage or genetics.  Regardless of the cause, the result is the same: their avoidance of amygdallic flags makes them blind to danger, while at the same time making them more prone to fear on the rare occasion a threat makes it through: since they never allow themselves to experience stress, they never learned any coping mechanisms to deal with it.

So with that in mind, ask yourself: what happens if you threaten a mind that doesn’t acknowledge danger?

These don’t have to be major threats, either; even minor threats can trigger the amygdala-avoidance pathway. “Hey, Joe – if you’re not out here in five minutes, I’m driving to the bar without you!” This is the sort of situation that most of us have been in a thousand times before.  It’s so common place that we’re unlikely to even recall it, and we certainly don’t take offence.  And yet, on a primordial level, this friendly ultimatum trips something inside of us: just a sliver of fear over having to catch a cab, and a hint of guilt for keeping our friend waiting.  Our amygdala flags the threat as significant, and it becomes the irritant that gets us up off the couch.

Not so with the r-Type psychology.

Any time you threaten a rabbit – even something as simple as saying “Hurry up, or else!” – their brain will start over-clocking to avoid thinking about the threat.  Rather than devoting mental resources to getting off the couch, they’ll instead attempt to assuage the stress you caused them.  If anything, they’ll take longer to get ready than they otherwise would have.  It might seem like they’re deliberately thumbing their nose at you, but internally they’re not even thinking about you: to do so would bring up that sliver of fear and hint of guilt, which to them are utterly unbearable.

Returning to the Ferguson thugs, we can start to see why the presence of a pistol would only serve to agitate them.  An armed citizen registers as a threat in their minds, and their response to threats is to become more violent.  This isn’t an attempt to intimidate the person wielding the gun; rather, this is their way of denying that the gun even exists.  To prove to themselves that they were never in any real danger in the first place.  Backing down would force them to confront the fact that they were in danger, ergo, they will up the ante to prove how invincible they are!

This is the insanity of the r-Type mind.  It’s hard to believe, but extensive study and Occam’s razor will eventually demonstrate its veracity.

So what is a man supposed to do?  Standards and threats are the very basis of civilized behaviour: “Get off my lawn, or…” Law, order, and consequences go hand-in-hand; they are fundamental to reason itself, and without reason, what else remains?

There are two solutions which can be employed, should you have to deal with such a person.  The first in a standard interpersonal strategy that we all use already: appeal to their emotional self-interest.  Instead of giving them a threat or an order, encourage them to do something beneficial.  Like Tom Sawyer whitewashing the fence, you can make them think that its their own idea.  Due to their fear, r-Types lack the ability to self-inspect – the idea that you tricked them into whitewashing the fence is just too terrifying! – so if you can phrase things in a non-threatening manner, they can occasionally be non-destructive, and maybe even useful.

This has limited applications, however.  Eventually you’ll run into a situation where they’re more interested in sitting on the couch, rioting, pouring bleach on your lawn, or some other folly, than anything else you could possibly suggest.  In these cases the only effective strategy is shock and awe: utterly overwhelm the avoidance-pathway and hit their amygdala hard.

In the case of the Ferguson rioters, a pistol isn’t enough; these particular individuals likely live in neighbourhoods where shots are regularly heard.  An air horn, however – that is something unique and terrifying.  Fire a pistol, and they’ll swarm you with more bodies than you have bullets; blare a horn, and they’ll scatter like the jackals that they are.

If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles.
~Sun Tzu

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1. I am perfectly well aware that not all LEOs are the ideal exemplars of Noble Peace Officers that I would like; this is, after all, an imperfect world full of imperfect people.  Nonetheless, the majority of them joined up out of a desire to do good in the world; calling out corruption without also praising virtue is a destructive path to be on.