...how many people actually know how to deescalate?
It's definitely not something we value.
It's just something we insist that other people do.
(A close cousin to being held accountable).
At least, for my generation and a bit younger (I'm an Oregon Trail).
Think about it, we revered Ferris Bueller, an unrepentant sociopath, as he went on to torment and exploit an entire city for his own amusement.
Our heroic icon is Deadpool. We laugh at his antics, and we scoff at poor, naive Colossus as he tries to get Wade to be more of a hero and less of a dickhole.
Face it, if you had to be around either in real life for any extended length of time, you'd hate Ferris and probably want to shoot Wade.
It also doesn't help that we've won no-win scenarios in our stories so often that the notion of accepting or allowing defeat is a foreign concept. If you actually lose the Kobayashi Maru, you're just not clever enough to beat it.
Which is a mindset that works so long as you never hit a situation that a third option isn't possible.
I saw this all the time when bouncing. My highly educated, tech sector clientele had a complete physical blue screen of death when I kicked them out. I not only was kicking them out, I had my hands on them, they couldn't stop me, and had no way to punish me for what they thought was my transgressions.
We want to think we have all the options. Not only that, we want to think that everyone has all the options.
But we don't deescalate, we either submit (let them be an asshole, not worth the trouble), or we appeal to authority (report to HR, call the cops)
The closest thing we have to deescalation is submission, and we chafe like fuck at having to do that. We insist we shouldn't have to. Like we've missed something in the cost/benefit analysis.
But when we appeal to authority, we de facto escalate.
Then we criticize authority for not deescalating?
I think that's a chunk of the reaction to police shootings (besides a bloodthirsty media and ignorance of violence outside of our entertainment narratives).
We want to think all the options are there, and they haven't run out.
And that ain't the case at all.
It's definitely not something we value.
It's just something we insist that other people do.
(A close cousin to being held accountable).
At least, for my generation and a bit younger (I'm an Oregon Trail).
Think about it, we revered Ferris Bueller, an unrepentant sociopath, as he went on to torment and exploit an entire city for his own amusement.
Our heroic icon is Deadpool. We laugh at his antics, and we scoff at poor, naive Colossus as he tries to get Wade to be more of a hero and less of a dickhole.
Face it, if you had to be around either in real life for any extended length of time, you'd hate Ferris and probably want to shoot Wade.
It also doesn't help that we've won no-win scenarios in our stories so often that the notion of accepting or allowing defeat is a foreign concept. If you actually lose the Kobayashi Maru, you're just not clever enough to beat it.
Which is a mindset that works so long as you never hit a situation that a third option isn't possible.
I saw this all the time when bouncing. My highly educated, tech sector clientele had a complete physical blue screen of death when I kicked them out. I not only was kicking them out, I had my hands on them, they couldn't stop me, and had no way to punish me for what they thought was my transgressions.
We want to think we have all the options. Not only that, we want to think that everyone has all the options.
But we don't deescalate, we either submit (let them be an asshole, not worth the trouble), or we appeal to authority (report to HR, call the cops)
The closest thing we have to deescalation is submission, and we chafe like fuck at having to do that. We insist we shouldn't have to. Like we've missed something in the cost/benefit analysis.
But when we appeal to authority, we de facto escalate.
Then we criticize authority for not deescalating?
I think that's a chunk of the reaction to police shootings (besides a bloodthirsty media and ignorance of violence outside of our entertainment narratives).
We want to think all the options are there, and they haven't run out.
And that ain't the case at all.
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