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Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Social Conditioning

Caveat: This article is mine and mine alone. I the author of this article assure you, the reader, that any of the opinions expressed here are my own and are a result of the way in which my meandering mind interprets a particular situation and/or concept. The views expressed here are solely those of the author in his private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of other martial arts and/or conflict/violence professionals or authors of source materials. It should be quite obvious that the sources I used herein have not approved, endorsed, embraced, friended, liked, tweeted or authorized this article. (Everything I think and write is true, within the limits of my knowledge and understanding. Oh, and just because I wrote it and just because it sounds reasonable and just because it makes sense, does not mean it is true.) 

Please make note that this article/post is my personal analysis of the subject and the information used was chosen or picked by me. It is not an analysis piece because it lacks complete and comprehensive research, it was not adequately and completely investigated and it is not balanced, i.e., it is my personal view without the views of others including subject experts, etc. Look at this as “Infotainment rather then expert research.” This is an opinion/editorial article/post meant to persuade the reader to think, decide and accept or reject my premise. It is an attempt to cause change or reinforce attitudes, beliefs and values as they apply to martial arts and/or self-defense. It is merely a commentary on the subject in the particular article presented.

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Social conditioning can be hazardous to your health. We all have natural survival instincts. At one time those instincts were accepted and embraced so that the tribe would develop and train to them so the tribe will survive. Modern times has changed our natural survival instincts into something to be considered as “Wrong, Horrible and Terrible,” thereby leaving our instincts to hit the wall, the obstacle modern social conditioning has built in the name of removing such horrible violent human things.

Humans also have as natural instincts when danger presents itself, i.e., the natural inclination toward freezing then taking flight and finally resisting conflict and violence. When those social conditions are triggered such as when we get this “feeling of something wrong” we tend to react by freezing. To freeze in some instances is a good thing but in a lot of cases tends to leave that person susceptible to violent ends be they great bodily harm to death. 

In the human effort, misguided tho it might be, to rid ourselves of violence we try to remove it entirely from the human psyche against natures only true survival requirement, the acceptance that conflict and violence are a part of the human condition. They fail to understand that our technology has far surpassed our humanity and by that I stress our ability to evolve toward a less conflict and violent nature. In that way we have tried to suppress those natural instincts that actually expose us to the damage and death when violence strikes for violence will strike.

When we can accept and embrace our true nature and when we can accept and embrace the knowledge necessary to understand and combat that nature then we are truly headed toward enlightenment. Then when our “Spidey senses tingle” we don’t just freeze we can become aware of the danger and decide in taking appropriate actions toward survival of self and tribe. 

Freezing without this understanding places each and every one of us in the glaring light of the predator much like the deer that is in our headlights, they freeze until either the car swerves away or the car hits and kills the deer. This happens because the deer does not know, understand or have the instincts to move out of the way. The deer does not have the ability or capacity to learn this like humans (although they do learn over time) at least they are not conditioned by the deers pack to ignore such dangers exist. We humans have the capacity to learn and adjust as long as we don’t condition ourselves to ignore those dangers through social conditioning caused by emotional feeling driven assumptions and speculations creating ignorant responses that surely lead to great bodily harm or death or worse, making all of us victims. 


Accept your nature, embrace it, deal with it then control it for social and human survival at all levels and all stages. 

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