Dr. William Aprill was excellent at helping us regular folks understand the motivations and thought processes of the violent criminal actor.
His work helped us to understand that something worthless or insignificant to us could be incredibly valuable or important to someone else with different priorities from some other walk of life.
Predation is just a social behavior (Dr. Aprill liked to point out that “violence, oddly enough, is a social act” as it requires other people). As such, I took this idea of victim selection and expanded on it a little to apply to other less severe and hopefully far more common aspects of our day-to-day lives.
There are lots of folks who dismiss dressing well as “unimportant” or who consider using someone’s appearance as part of how you view them as “snobby.” Ironically, many of these same folks can rattle off pre-assault indicators and other physical cues they use to profile people.
The point is that just because it doesn’t matter to a certain person in a specific situation doesn’t mean that it’s not important or valuable.
Because They Are Not Like You.
The better you understand who “they” are and what “they” value, the more easily you can navigate a broader range of social environments.
