I have come to accept my role as a predatory good-guy. When I teach martial arts classes, I often reverse roles such that the person throwing the first punch or making the first grab is the one who wins. This is partly because it helps us remember how true this is most of the time … AND more importantly, it reminds us that sometimes good guys act rather than react.
If I want to stop a fight-in-progress, I simply can’t wait for the assailant to turn his attention on me. That would neither help the current victim, nor put me at better odds for success. Heck, if the assailant is doing a good job, he’ll have lots of adrenaline AND confidence – he has just clearly confirmed that he’s good at dealing out violence. I know that if I see him obliterate somebody, my mind realizes he’s obviously willing to do lots and lots of damage to another human being. He is unlikely to suddenly change that winning strategy if things don’t go well for me.
So, for strategy and tactics, it makes more sense to ambush him. Is that immoral? I don’t think so – I’m not ambushing anybody for the sake of taking his wallet or demoralizing him, or pumping up my own awkward ego. However, I am indeed likely to ambush him to stop his current violent outburst on some other person. I have to accept that since I probably didn’t see the very beginning of their encounter, I have no idea who society would think is the “good guy” either. Maybe he’s beating the snot out of somebody he caught molesting kids in the back alley a minute earlier – and society would almost turn a blind eye. But that’s not how our idealized society works. We can’t accept vigilante justice as our best.
And that’s what makes it so awkward when I step in to help. I have to remember to keep my own ego in check, work only toward the cessation of immediate violence, and realize that everyone involved probably thinks they are “right” in their own mind. Most folks will at least attempt to articulate why they were justified for their actions – including me, and anybody working with me.
But remember that the “bad guy” for us is also going to state his case if the police arrive. He’ll describe how I ambushed him, and that he was defending himself against me. It gets worse if he really was earnestly just going a little overboard to stop a truly bad person; maybe I did attack the “good guy” just to make him stop his excessive violence. And let’s also remember that whether good guy or not, he’s just as likely to make up lots of the story, too.
So, put yourself in the position of all sides of the story, during training, and in life. There are at least two sides to every story, but we usually get completely wrapped up in our own side. That’s another reason we train so much – to understand the various viewpoints available in the middle of all that craziness. Best part: It’ll make day to day “troubles” seem like nothing, and you’ll be able to empathize and communicate better with everyone else, too.
