Yesterday I had an excellent evening of argument. I spent it contending that, since our emergence, we human beings have been, for plausible biological reasons, fundamentally aggressive and suspicious of visibly different members of our own species. In reply it was argued that our behaviour towards others has been characterised by altruistic tendencies and trade. I contended that our mutual altruism varies in proportion to our genetic relatedness and that you only trade once you have a surplus—and humans spent large chunks of their prehistory on the edge of starvation (which is, incidentally, why so many of us are now fat). As often, I spent a lot of the evening being accused of taking a dim view of humanity. This is true, but it doesn’t mean I’m pessimistic about the future of Homo sapiens or, indeed, wrong. One interesting attack on my position came from someone who had spent a long time observing animal (especially baboon) behaviour: it doesn’t make biological sense for animals, however aggressive, to bother with actual fighting; males competing for territory, mates, or status just wave their antlers/claws/penises at each other and the one with the smaller weaponry backs off, thereby sparing a lot of bloody expense. So, even if we were aggressive in our distant past, it probably didn’t lead to as much bloodshed as I or 2001: A Space Odyssey imagined.
As if to make our points for us, as I was walking from the station to my home at about one in the morning quietly minding my own business, one of two pissed chancers took a lunge at me. I made a reflexive lunge back and turned to face him, not noticing the third member of the gang, trailing behind them. “Wanna make something of it?!” Aggressor Number One shouted from a safe distance. “Yeah.” Naturally he retreated. At that point, Knuckle-Scraper Number Three readied himself to have a go too. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, squared up to him, and greeted him with a cheerily dismissive “Fuck you.” He also backed down and scuttled off to join his mates. Once they were out of range my original wannabe attacker jeered, rather more quietly, “Suck my big white dick, you Argentinian bastard”—thereby illustrating for students of English the differences between “moron” and “oxymoron”, and between “precision” and “accuracy”, and showing that, for bullies, three-against-one isn’t safe enough.
Shave your head, join a gym, stand your ground. It’s worth it just to see the chav runts scatter.
(I think this outcome means I now have foraging rights over another two blocks of Brighton & Hove.)
Maybe you should add a banner across the top of your site: “PooterGeek: the Hardest Blogger On The Block”
Oh, if they’d ganged up together and fought me they’d have kicked seven shades out of me. And if any of them had pulled a knife I’d have emptied my wallet before you could say “pointless show of bravado”. But you only had to glance at that bunch to see they were all mouth and no trousers.
For my own personal reasons I get very angry when scum try to intimidate me. Twice in the past people have tried to mug me in the street (both times in London: two guys in “theatreland”*, three at Putney Bridge station) and my looking and sounding like I wouldn’t take any crap have been enough to make them give up. The experience probably sends them back to snatching little girls’ handbags.
If it came to a fight I’d squeal like a baby and slap at them pathetically, flipper-style.
*[This happened in the presence of my then girlfriend and I wondered if she thought I’d set the whole thing up to make me look good, like one of those Japanese rent-a-staged-attack services.]
I think you’re right that your grim view of human aggression doesn’t make you wrong – but I would have thought that view of human nature would make one pessimistic about the future as well as the present. Why aren’t you?
Cause they’re all scared of me.
Haha – in that case why the pessimism about the present?
I just think that, on the whole, things get better.
The material causes of human conflict are slowly diminishing—we could, in theory, feed everyone alive right now; it’s a distribution problem, not a production problem—and the ideological causes of human conflict are all vulnerable—we are slowly and painfully giving up various forms of totalitarian utopianism.
Above all else, humans consume. Any system of “thought” that denies people access to Hollywood movies, fast food, and on-demand porn is doomed. They didn’t pile over the rubble of the Berlin Wall to taste our freedom; they came to taste our oranges.
(And if Stephen Milligan were alive today, he’d agree with me.)
For what it’s worth (and slightly off-topic) I was whacked on the back of the head on my very first evening out in Hove, at the bottom of my road, by a bare-chested loony in practically broad daylight. Preferring not to discuss the matter further, he scarpered down Church Rd.
I’m really really sorry about that, Andrew. I thought you were someone else, but it was partly your own fault for taking one of my bananas.
It was worth it 🙂
This sort of crap from troglodites is why I used to carry a knife while out and about at night on London Underground. I stopped carrying one when I settled in Cape Town, and just as well. One dark, rainy winter morning I was jumped by FIVE muggers, using a surround and restrain technique. I indicated the whereabouts of my wallet. If they’d found a knife, I woul probably have been skewered with it; my arms were being held by two of them while a third had a knife at my jugular and another actually stuck me in the back with his, as I discovered afterwards.
I’m telling you Dave, if I’d been there to give ’em a good talking-to then they’d have put you down pretty damned sharpish.
Hi, I find your way of writing very amusing. I have started a blog about anti-social behaviour in my own area, I would really appreciate your take on it……Thanks :o)