On Neutral Reinforcement
I’ve been slipping. Last night I pulled out of Krystal onto 436 with no traffic for at least half a mile. An SUV was traveling so fast it quickly advanced on me, swerved around and cut off my car with an inch to spare, only to turn immediately left. He could have slowed sooner but out of spite he wanted to exaggerate my interference in his drunken path.
My remorse was that I didn’t get angry at the absurdity of his action. No rage, no adrenaline. Just utter indifference.
I remember — five years ago — the first time I didn’t chase someone who advanced on me. I was proud of my restraint and control of causality above my anger. I was suddenly mature enough to recognize personal power through cessation as much as creation. The chain of effect stopped with me and it felt good, yet there was still dissonance burning inside.
Last night at 2:45am there was no such dissonance, and I don’t think the world is better for it.
My friend Lynda had just moved back from New York City and was with me. She told me that she had forgotten what it was like outside of New York; that people in New York “don’t fuck with you unless they’re going to take something.”
Her reflection reminded me of the importance of operant conditioning. People in New York know that their behavior will have consquences, so they don’t front unless the reward of their behavior outweighs the risk of retaliation from the victim. Less people will cause trouble solely for the enhancement of their ego.
The psychology books will list negative and positive reinforcement and negative and positive punishment as behavior modification. But what I did last night should be called “neutral reinforcement.” By doing nothing, I did everything. I fed into the driver’s behavior because I didn’t offer an aversive or favorable stimulus. The conventional belief is that through doing nothing his actions will continue unmodified, but in this case neutral reinforcement will increase the frequency at which he drives drunk and acts like a prick on the road.
Last year I attacked a man who was attempting to break into my car. I did it without fear or anger. He apologized and I’m sure it was weeks or months before he tried to break into another car.
We need to respond decisively and aggressively and without emotion. Always. It is vital we simulate God when the godless act upon us without regard. I’m not endorsing vigilantism and I am not talking about humanism.
Vigilantism has come to imply the protection of community, but this is the vigilance that parochially protects our own reality. To vigilantly simulate God is to serve as a temporary father figure to those who are not subordinate to any other. The role must be assumed unequivocally for profound external change to follow.
Only then, and in time, will we be completely free of nuisance.
