<!-- bryant-content-generator:start --> # That may be the most corrosive fact in the entire... > That may be the most corrosive fact in the entire discussion, because we desperately want brutality to mean that somebody **lost control**. {{We want the murderer crazed, the aggressor irrational, the violent person overcome by feeling, because madness preserves the reputation of reason.}} Chimpanzees expose the other possibility. {{Coalitionary violence occurs precisely when attackers hold an overwhelming advantage and therefore face almost no danger themselves.}} {{A lone neighbor encountered by a patrol of males is not merely another animal but an opportunity manufactured by arithmetic.}} Write the behavioral logic as a person and it reads like a police interview transcript: he{The strategic aggressor{ does not attack because he cannot calculate the consequences, he attacks because he has calculated them; he does not become brave when the enemy appears, he becomes violent when the enemy becomes safe to hurt; he does not lose his mind, he counts the bodies standing behind him.}} {{The most frightening savage is not the one who loses control. It is the one who waits patiently until cruelty is free.}} **Source:** [[books/Chimping Out|Chimping Out (a new book under development)]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “That may be the most corrosive fact in the entire discussion, because we desperately want brutality to mean that somebody lost control. We want the murderer crazed, the aggressor irrational, the violent person overcome by feeling, because madness preserves the reputation of reason. Chimpanzees expose the other possibility. Coalitionary violence occurs precisely when attackers hold an overwhelming advantage and therefore face almost no danger themselves. A lone neighbor encountered by a patrol of males is not merely another animal but an opportunity manufactured by arithmetic. Write the behavioral logic as a person and it reads like a police interview transcript: he does not attack because he cannot calculate the consequences, he attacks because he has calculated them; he does not become brave when the enemy appears, he becomes violent when the enemy becomes safe to hurt; he does not lose his mind, he counts the bodies standing behind him. The most frightening savage is not the one who loses control. It is the one who waits patiently until cruelty is free.” — Bryant McGill https://bryantmcgill.com/passages/passages-most-corrosive-fact-until-cruelty-free ``` <!-- bryant-content-generator:end -->