In some ways, I think the CrucialSkills folks do a disservice when they couch bad communications in terms of ‘silence or violence’ and how to restore ‘safety’. We are a civilized society that only rarely encounters real genuine dangerous violence. When we finally are face to face with genuine violence putting our safety in grave danger, no really, it’s not the time to be thinking about starting with heart. When some random anonymous person is shooting real lead at you, you really should set aside the charitable thoughts about their intentions until you are physically safe.

If you study events involving active shooters and multiple victims, you are likely to encounter accounts of people just standing there, unable to process what’s happening to them, trying to make it fit into their concepts of how disagreements should go. And if you study the ensuing media accounts and public commentary, you will find plenty of folks like Jay arguing that the danger wasn’t as bad as reported, and didn’t justify violent response. It’s a shame.

This isn’t exactly the time to sit there and figure out if they’re using silence or violence…