Is it paranoid to be vigilant about potential threats?

Is it paranoid to be vigilant about potential threats?

Some may not know that most policemen are unusually active at threat assessment both on and off duty.

The classic example is, at a restaurant, policemen will choose a chair which faces the entrance, so they can keep an eye on who exits, and who enters.

Military members, particularly former combat vets, exhibit similar caution (the cliché example, a combat vet proning out on the sidewalk when a car backfires).

paranoia (pàr´e-noi´e) noun
A psychotic disorder characterized by delusions of persecution ... *

Click to expand...

Is it a "psychotic disorder" to be alert to ones surroundings? To routinely choose the restaurant chair that faces the room entrance?

* Excerpted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.

"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet." Trump administration Secretary of Defense and former U.S. military Gen. James 'Mad Dog' Mattis

Click to expand...

Vigilance isn't paranoia.

But where is the line drawn?

sear said:

But where is the line drawn?

Click to expand...

With realistic expectations. A cop sitting with their back to a wall is fine. Mattis having a plan to kill every man, woman and child he can see is paranoia.

sear said:

Is it paranoid to be vigilant about potential threats?

Some may not know that most policemen are unusually active at threat assessment both on and off duty.

The classic example is, at a restaurant, policemen will choose a chair which faces the entrance, so they can keep an eye on who exits, and who enters.

Military members, particularly former combat vets, exhibit similar caution (the cliché example, a combat vet proning out on the sidewalk when a car backfires).

Is it a "psychotic disorder" to be alert to ones surroundings? To routinely choose the restaurant chair that faces the room entrance?

* Excerpted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.

Click to expand...

Served long enough I can admit to both the examples, and yes I am armed most of the time I'm out of the house. Though that preparation has actually come in handy more than it has been a hindrance.

Unless I start going down the street in full battle dress, then I should not really start to worry.

spud_meister said:

With realistic expectations.

Click to expand...

Quite so.

A cop sitting with their back to a wall is fine. Mattis having a plan to kill every man, woman and child he can see is paranoia.

Click to expand...

Mattis was referring to a combat zone in which insurgents dressed as civilians (and might attack without notice), and was addressing marines therein. He was not referring to everyday life.

ecofarm said:

Quite so.



Mattis was referring to a combat zone in which insurgents dressed as civilians (and might attack without notice), and was addressing marines therein. He was not referring to everyday life.

Click to expand...

Fair enough, I wasn't aware of the context of the quote.

sear said:

Is it paranoid to be vigilant about potential threats?

Some may not know that most policemen are unusually active at threat assessment both on and off duty.

The classic example is, at a restaurant, policemen will choose a chair which faces the entrance, so they can keep an eye on who exits, and who enters.

Military members, particularly former combat vets, exhibit similar caution (the cliché example, a combat vet proning out on the sidewalk when a car backfires).

Is it a "psychotic disorder" to be alert to ones surroundings? To routinely choose the restaurant chair that faces the room entrance?

* Excerpted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.

Click to expand...

As the man is said ti have said, "even paranoiacs have real enemies".

"Mattis having a plan to kill every man, woman and child he can see is paranoia." sm #4

Click to expand...

First of all I appreciate your insight.
But I'd like to suggest to you an upgraded perspective.

An INTENTION "to kill every man, woman and child he can see" might be paranoia.
But a personal policy of:

"Be polite, be professional, but ..." Mattis

Click to expand...

seems to me to be preparation for contingency.

Would you misinterpret me buckling my seatbelt as a delusion that I ASSUME there's going to be a flesh-mangling accident EVERY TIME I GET BEHIND THE WHEEL?
Or would you acknowledge that it's a low burden precaution that makes sense given the downside potential of not doing so?

Mattis' assertion was about having a plan, NOT an intention to execute.

That in my opinion is the distinction between preparedness, and paranoia.

If your interpretation was correct, wouldn't every martial artist be considered paranoid?
Simply for having an exercise routine that could double as a means of self-defense?
So Tai Chi Chuan practitioners are paranoid, but yogist are not?

"Mattis was referring to a combat zone in which insurgents dressed as civilians (and might attack without notice), and was addressing marines therein. He was not referring to everyday life." ef #6

Click to expand...

I did not know that.
I suspect he meant both. None the less
thanks.

sear said:

Is it paranoid to be vigilant about potential threats?

Some may not know that most policemen are unusually active at threat assessment both on and off duty.

The classic example is, at a restaurant, policemen will choose a chair which faces the entrance, so they can keep an eye on who exits, and who enters.

Military members, particularly former combat vets, exhibit similar caution (the cliché example, a combat vet proning out on the sidewalk when a car backfires).

Is it a "psychotic disorder" to be alert to ones surroundings? To routinely choose the restaurant chair that faces the room entrance?

* Excerpted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.

Click to expand...

It all depends on the situation. If you're a police officer, being alert & "jumpy" to loud noises during a night patrol in Detroit is ok.

Mentally imagining how you would kill your wife with a frying pan in the eventuality she might try to slit your throat with the knife she's holding to chop garlic for the Thanksgiving Turkey... that's paranoïa.

It's all a matter of likelihood.

sear said:

But where is the line drawn?

Click to expand...

I am somewhat of a germaphobe...I wash my hands frequently, I don't touch my face with my hands and I sterilize the counters daily...I am vigilant with regard to germs

if I began to wash my hands 50 times a day and sterilized the counter 5 times a day...that is paranoia

paranoia is an over reaction to a danger that is clearly not present

sear said:

I did not know that.
I suspect he meant both. None the less
thanks.

Click to expand...

Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.

One of the rules Maj. Gen. James Mattis gave his Marines to live by in Iraq, as quoted in Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (2006) by Thomas E. Ricks; as excerpted in Armed Forces Journal (August 2006)

Click to expand...

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Mattis

1 Peter 5:8
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:”

Paranoia is based on an irrational belief that you are under threat when all the evidence points to a different conclusion. Vigilance is being wary and perceptive enough to pick up clues of a potential but real threat (barring errors of course). As long as a vigilant person acts sensibly and if necessary reacts to a threat with constraint and reasonable force then they are not paranoid but just very scared when threatened. So long as the person can master their fear and act carefully (for the sake of by-standees) and proportionately to the level of threat they perceive then they are acting rationally and likely lawfully.

Of course it doesn't help when there are so many firearms in circulation among a population where the median real income keeps dropping and commercialism fills everyone's minds with material greed, but that's the path America has chosen to follow.

Cheers and learn to duck!
Evilroddy.

Evilroddy said:

Paranoia is based on an irrational belief that you are under threat when all the evidence points to a different conclusion. Vigilance is being wary and perceptive enough to pick up clues of a potential but real threat (barring errors of course). As long as a vigilant person acts sensibly and if necessary reacts to a threat with constraint and reasonable force then they are not paranoid but just very scared when threatened. So long as the person can master their fear and act carefully (for the sake of by-standees) and proportionately to the level of threat they perceive then they are acting rationally and likely lawfully.

Of course it doesn't help when there are so many firearms in circulation among a population where the median real income keeps dropping and commercialism fills everyone's minds with material greed, but that's the path America has chosen to follow.

Cheers and learn to duck!
Evilroddy.

Click to expand...

too echo that theme, we live in a society in which there are over 300 million firearms in the hands of about 80 million owners & that is just the so called 'legal' firearms. Just imagine the firearms out there that have been acquired illegally.

we live in a society of mindless materialism which is based on a subconscious competition of us versus them.

Our country supplies arms & weapons to the world at large, and at a greater rate than any other nation.

we live in a nation that has made the 'choice' to be belligerent to many other nations, and to utilize our military might in attempts to enforce our collective will upon others that are weaker.

all of these things, and more, are coming home to roost. I said this many years ago, actually decades ago; the undoing of the US will be it's propensity for greed & for violence, and it has come true.

Look around our nation; it is happening. Be vigilant and be paranoid, because at this time I see no great defining line.

YMMV

"It's all a matter of likelihood." C #10

Click to expand...

I've been buckling my seatbelt for over half a century.
I've been in countless fender-benders, and even a total or two.
NONE of them was serious enough to have meant the seatbelt was my mode of survival.

My opinion has no more authority than yours.
But I believe you're wrong on this.
While likelihood could SURELY play a role, I believe it is not the only determinant.

The U.S. has the most lavish military in the world. Is that because we believe all the other nations want to attack us?
Or might it be the more obvious: parabellum can cepic .... : to insure peace, prepare for war

"I wash my hands frequently" _S #11

Click to expand...

So do I, but for possibly different reasons.
I'm not sure I qualify as a germophobe, though I would deliberately avoid needless infectious exposures:
- wrestling in a bio-waste dump filled with hypodermic syringes
- banging a hooker wearing an I HAVE AIDS T-shirt
- licking public toilets clean,
- etc.

BUT !!

If you stagger about your house with muddy (or barnyard caked) boots, with filthy greasy hands, every step you take,
everything you touch will be contaminated.
And it will take orders of magnitude longer to clean up, than it would have to avoid making the mess in the first place.

My standard, run a finger down a mirror or pain of glass.
If it leaves a streak, it's time to wash hands. Simple Ivory soap and water is fine. I don't need turbocharged ultra germ killing anti-bacterial whatever.
An unscented bar of soap is perfect.

If I've just changed motor oil, or greased a bearing, I'll use a better grease-cutter; Goop waterless hand-cleaner, or an abrasive like Lava soap.
I'm not sure personal hygiene (or an aversion to needless extra hours of house-cleaning toil) is a symptom of paranoia.
As a wise man once said:

"paranoia is an over reaction to a danger that is clearly not present" _S

Click to expand...

With a handful of grease, contamination by handling a door handle or a light switch isn't merely a risk. It's a certitude.

ef #12
I'm impressed ef, and puzzled about how you knew. Are you a Mattis fan? If not, how?

WH #13

Well chosen.
But it leaves me wondering about the standards for interpreting scripture. That's not merely enough for a separate topic, but enough for volumes to be written about.

sear said:

Is it paranoid to be vigilant about potential threats?

Some may not know that most policemen are unusually active at threat assessment both on and off duty.

The classic example is, at a restaurant, policemen will choose a chair which faces the entrance, so they can keep an eye on who exits, and who enters.

Military members, particularly former combat vets, exhibit similar caution (the cliché example, a combat vet proning out on the sidewalk when a car backfires).

Is it a "psychotic disorder" to be alert to ones surroundings? To routinely choose the restaurant chair that faces the room entrance?

* Excerpted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.

Click to expand...

Nope. In jobs were typical civilian obliviousness to detail will easily get you killed, being vigilant is a natural-- and good--- thing.

sear said:

ef #12
I'm impressed ef, and puzzled about how you knew. Are you a Mattis fan? If not, how?

Click to expand...

Perhaps because I was in the military (and I know Mattis was a general during war), it was apparent to me. I googled it (mattis plan to kill everyone) to make sure and provide citation.

"it was apparent to me." ef

Click to expand...

I'd have included that among possible explanations. But I'd never have considered it the only possible explanation.

Even in everyday life, some martial artists think that way, even if they don't say so.
It may vary. They may be less likely to think that at a great great grandmother's convention, but more so at a biker bar in Boston a half hour before last call.

No worries. Knowing the new detail does not lower my opinion of Mattis significantly.

sear said:

Is it paranoid to be vigilant about potential threats?

Some may not know that most policemen are unusually active at threat assessment both on and off duty.

The classic example is, at a restaurant, policemen will choose a chair which faces the entrance, so they can keep an eye on who exits, and who enters.

Military members, particularly former combat vets, exhibit similar caution (the cliché example, a combat vet proning out on the sidewalk when a car backfires).

Is it a "psychotic disorder" to be alert to ones surroundings? To routinely choose the restaurant chair that faces the room entrance?

* Excerpted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.

Click to expand...

When I work in a bad part of town, I don't set up a work station outside of the building because I know my chop saw and table saw will be gone in 5 minutes.

Is this a form a paranoia?

RU #20

No.
It's called "situational awareness".

Fools would call it paranoia.
The more discerning would recognize it as vulnerability.

If you lock your wallet in the vault, it'll be safe as long as no one breaches the vault.

If you leave your wallet on a park bench for a week, would you really expect it to be there when you returned?

"Never place at risk more than you can afford to lose."

Lock your car doors.
Keep valuable items;
- large stacks of $cash
- expensive cameras
- diamond tiaras
- etc

out of view; whether in the trunk, under the seat, in the glove department, or best of all, back in the vault where your wallet belongs.

I am going to answer this, because it is interesting.

I am one of those that many would count as paranoid. Because of my background (military & security), I tend to be hyper-aware of my surroundings. I quite often pick up on things that most others completely miss.

This served me well when I was doing Loss Prevention the last few years. I would often just glance at somebody, and my "bump of trouble" would go off. This frequently weirded out my partners, because more often than not, they would indeed steal something.

And to show how oblivious most people are, on more than one occasion I caught somebody who was stealing something with me in plain sight, even standing right next to them. Yet they were completely oblivious to my being there. And even though I am no longer in LP, this does not leave me. More than once I have approached somebody in a store and telling them to not do it.

To put it simply, most people are sheep. They go through life, thinking everything is fine in the world. They do not know how to look for trouble, or how to avoid it before it happens. Myself, I tend to be the opposite. That is why walking through places like Inglewood and Compton never bothered me. I both look at everybody and everything, making a threat assessment as I go as well as making any threat aware that I know they are there.

That is actually the easiest way to avoid problems. If somebody looking for a target knows you are aware, they will 9 times out of 10 move on.

The last time this actually failed for me was about 10 years ago. I was delivering pizza, and had a delivery late at night in "the hood". Pulled up, 2 teens hanging out across the street in a vacant lot, lights off on the house I was to deliver to. I brought my phone with me that time (I normally leave it in the car), as well as a 4 D cell MagLight (which I had never taken out of the car prior to that time). And when the kids did indeed jump me, I had an exit route planned (away down the middle of a 4 lane street), as well as a weapon to keep them at a distance.

Later it turns out they did this kind of ambush multiple times in the months prior, at least 6. But I was the only one to walk away with nothing more than minor bruising (at least 2 were hospitalized). And I kept enough awareness to give good descriptions to the police, one of them did 5 years, the other will be getting out of jail in another 5 years.

Do I consider myself paranoid? Nope. I also sit with my back to walls, and find my eyes constantly scanning my surroundings. But in my civilian life, it is much more subtle. When I am in the field, my head and eyes are constantly doing the "Terminator Scan", turning back and forth scanning 270 degrees at all times. But in civilian life, it is more subtle. But I am still constantly scanning for threats.

And I have met more than my share, even as a civilian. Although in the last 10 years it is mostly people who might find the old man an easy mark. Most back off when my posture changes once I recognize them as a potential threat.

And to give an idea on what "pegs my senses", it is anything out of the ordinary.

More than once, I have picked out transvestites. Not saying that in itself is wrong, but I always pick it out as not being "right". The walk, the neck, the ratio between body areas is just not right, and always gets my attention. Also furtive glances, like they are looking to see if they are under observation. Just looking at such people is enough most of the time.

One partner I constantly shocked with this was amazed that I could glance at somebody in a dress, and identify them as male. She would look at them and see "female in dress", I saw "male in dress". And in all of my arrests, only once have I ever arrested a TV.

I also rarely drive the same routes, always look for escape routes when shopping, and if I see a potential danger I can not avoid make mental zones for where the "flee" and "attack" areas are. If they turn aggressive, I will flee unless they are inside a roughly 10 yard area, where running is not safe.

However, I can also generally recognize the difference between an actual threat, and a posture. Most threats I have actually encountered are actually nothing more than somebody posturing. Of no threat in reality, unless threatened or influenced by outside forces (friends or bystanders for example egging them on).