Mona Charen has a great piece on NRO that details the story of a bank teller who was fired for not following protocol and failing just to acquiesence to a robber’s demands. She asks what kind of society are we creating when we tell people just to submit to those who want to exploit them and not try to defend themselves?
I remember a similar story in my neighborhood in Washington D.C. a couple of years ago. A man in his twenties was out walking his dog one evening around 10 pm and ended up being killed in what policy thought was an attempted mugging. Based on whatever evidence was at the crime scene, police believed that he tried to defend himself–didn’t just turn over his wallet, but instead fought back. People posting on our neighborhood website were really tough on the victim–basically saying how foolish it was to not just submit to the robbers’ demands.
And I get it, of course, I would tell any of my loved ones absolutely to just turn over whatever property they had on them and try to avoid getting hurt if they were confonted by a criminal. Yet there is something terribly wrong about belittling attempts to fight back. Whatever happened to the idea of bravery as a virture? We are supposed to recognize that it’s a good thing not to just submit to evil.