"The visceral instinct to physically attack a person who has just attacked you is strong; the surge of adrenal hormones makes it feel possible and necessary."

"That circuitry is increasingly vestigial, but overriding it and playing the longer game requires an active decision," writes James Hamblin — in "How a Man Takes a Body Slam/In an assault in Montana, two very different ideas of masculinity" (The Atlantic) — praising the Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs for his "judicious, prescient reaction" to the body-slamming he seems to have received from Greg Gianforte.

Hamblin likes the idea of "redefining strength" by accepting, in the moment, that one has been "physically overpowered" and not getting caught up in "the idea of masculinity as an amalgam of dominance and violence." Instead, Jacobs, speaking "as if narrating for the audio recorder," said “You just body-slammed me and broke my glasses." He also "started asking for names of witnesses to the assault who will be assets to his case as it plays out in courts of law and public opinion," and reported the incident to the police.

Of course, Jacobs's choices were not merely a matter of overcoming physical impulses and meritoriously eschewing violence. I don't know how much of an impulse to retaliate on the spot he may have felt. I don't really know how violently he was hit. I don't even know if he did something first toward Gianforte and Gianforte was doing the old tit for tat retaliation. But narrating the audio, dropping it on line, going to the police, and taking names for litigation purposes is also a form of dominance. Some people would even call it violence. Why, here's an article in The Atlantic from just last June: "Enforcing the Law Is Inherently Violent/A Yale law professor suggests that oft-ignored truth should inform debates about what statutes and regulations to codify."

You know, if somehow I were given the choice between getting body slammed and getting charged with a crime and the question were How hard would the body slam need to be before you'd prefer to get charged with a crime?, I'd say pretty damned hard. And I'm just a little old lady. I'd rather be body-slammed than get sued in tort. If you body-slammed me, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't hit you back.* But I'll tell you one thing: If you sue me, I will defend to the hilt, and —  where ethically appropriate — there will be counterclaims.

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* And I have been body-slammed, at rock concerts, when I was trying to stand out of the range of a mosh pit and some young man came flying out obliviously. And sometimes it was intentional, an effort to provoke non-moshers to listen to the music the properly physical way. But I didn't call the cops or take names or file lawsuits.

IN THE COMMENTS: EDH says:

A "body-slam" is lifting someone completely of the ground and then driving their body to the ground.

It's not the same as "slam-dancing" on the periphery of a mosh pit, where one person slams his body into someone else's.

Wait. Let's get some shared understanding here. Does anybody think Jacobs intended to refer to the professional wrestling move? Here's a careful, precise demonstration of what that is: