Excellent article by Bruce Schneier on his security blog: Living in a Code Yellow World references something Jeff Cooper wrote back in the 1980s about self-defense and how your mind works. Quoting Schneier’s summary:
In White you are unprepared and unready to take lethal action. If you are attacked in White you will probably die unless your adversary is totally inept.
In Yellow you bring yourself to the understanding that your life may be in danger and that you may have to do something about it.
In Orange you have determined upon a specific adversary and are prepared to take action which may result in his death, but you are not in a lethal mode.
In Red you are in a lethal mode and will shoot if circumstances warrant.
We aren’t wired to handle constant stress, so if we spend much time anywhere above white, we are at risk of sacrificing something of ourselves to fear, stress, etc. Civilization is the customs, rules and laws that allow us to exist peacefully in confined space. This is what makes cities possible. We need that space where trust isn’t folly, and that there are places where we can let our guard down. When threats are real, we at least need some awareness, but humanity is wired to seek safety because we cannot live on a hair trigger for long.
But when we live in a society that artificially claims to be at risk, the result is broad stupidity. Not only are precious few trained and experienced at recognizing genuine threats, but folks insist that they do know and refuse to be told any different. Instead, we have a vast ocean of false positives that make us act totally uncivilized. We have a serious problem when we abuse this knowledge by refusing to put it in proper context. The plutocrats don’t live this way; they want us to live this way because they don’t care about us.
But even then, Cooper didn’t know God’s Word. He wrote from a Western cultural bias that rejects our Lord. Our modern lore of living in a combat environment is based on heathen mythology, not God’s revelation. The insane notion that humanity can adapt to combat stress as a norm is utterly false. God didn’t design us that way, so we have a desperate need to discern how to seize upon the blessings He offers to those who live in a fallen world. Yes, there will be war and a right way to face it, but the movies and mythology in our culture portray something contrary to God’s revelation.
You know where this is going: Your heart knows far better than your intellect when you really should employ an elevated sense of threat. Your heart knows best how to stay sane when things really are going crazy.
