I finished listening to “When violence is the answer”, in which the author teaches you how to prepare for the unexpected violence any of us can get exposed to. His argument about the randomness of violence and the necessity to prepare for it is compelling to me. He distinguishes social aggression from violence, explains how to spot each, and how to react to each. I personally started making changes to some aspects of my life and I think everyone, especially females should read this book.
On the other side I expected more details. The ideas in the book were repeated over and over without adding more dimensions or details to them. I also felt there could be more structure and steps instead of continuous anecdotes. The anecdotes were good to explain the ideas, but they didn’t cover the full picture.
Summary
- Anyone can get exposed to violence. And it is totally random.
- Aggression is different than violence. Aggression has room for backing and deescalation, violence once happening is unavoidable.
- In case of violence, one has to inflict an incapacitating injury on their perpetrator. Running is not a good strategy as it has higher chance of failure.
- Inflicting injuries is possible on certain parts of the body. That’s why drug cartels make their members read anatomy books to understand where to hit.
- Training highly increases chances of survival.