242 I Can Read You Like a Book
even if it falls apart and we fail, we still get the rush and the convic-
tion, “Maybe I will win next time.” The children’s soccer coach
gets in the face of the referee, similar to incidents occurring at the
Super Bowl. Most of the time, she knows she will not win. She
confronts to confront. If this were her day job, would she get in the
face of her boss with her paycheck at stake? Unlike a professional
athlete being ejected from the field for insolence, her rude behavior
will likely not affect her income.
Who has not participated in an argument for its own sake?
Why are we willing to risk losing? Because in the process we gain
as well. Whether we gain status, such as the small-town lawyer
who successfully confronts a big-city litigator, or simply add an-
other layer to our personality by honing our debate skills, the allure
of “war as play” is there. The danger is that we may lack assurance
that the other person takes it as play as well.
In this circumstance, body language is clear. At the outset, you
feel you are right and justified. People do not typically enter conflict
as a game when they feel terrified of losing—unless they have self-
destructive tendencies. They enter chin-up, talking aggressively,
energetic, and focused.War as human nature
Do human beings have a killer instinct? Does each of us have
the capacity for killer behavior—or at least confrontational behavior?
I’ll let the anthropologists slug it out over this one. What I know
from experience is that human beings operate on a stimulus-response
basis, and if the stimulus triggers an automatic aggressive reaction,