Since
Dr. Robert L. Humphrey's book - VALUES FOR A NEW MILLENNIUM
- edited by his personal student - Jack Hoban, was
very hard to find, I had decided to dedicate some
pages for allowing you to read about some of his stories
and cases.
His incredible work and research that he had accomplished
throughout his life will amaze you. His global cross-cultural
detective work to stop cross-cultural conflicts and
violence resolution are important lessons to be remembered.
These are taken from the book itself.
Please
click on image to visit Dr. Humphrey's OFFICIAL
website by Jack Hoban.
DR.
ROBERT L. HUMPHREY'S
www.LifeValues.com
He
is sorely missed.
The
unusual qualities they possess that kill off most would-be
leaders are, 1) the daring to try new methods that are questioned
by other leaders, and 2) even more hazardous, the courage
to change their minds publicly on major policy. I'll cite
one example as an introduction to the next example of the
enemy to social progress: fear.
At a time when my ideological (win the people) approach
was being attacked at the top, the young combat officer, Charles
Krulak, dared to put one of the programs into a Marine unit
to stop cross-cultural difficulties. As polished as Marine
brass, he led a program of hard-punching unarmed self-defense
skills (tied appropriately to the ideology of protecting others)
just as smoothly as if the new training were a part of the
Old Corps.
It is this new American martial art, called STRIKE, that we
must now consider. As another somewhat lucky discovery, it
gave us the means to overcome personal physical fear,
the third major cause of hatred and violence in the world.
The first two major causes, recall, are ideological
(the superiority complex), and cultural (cross-group
misunderstandings).
TEACHING
MEN HOW TO FIGHT IN ORDER TO STOP THEIR FIGHTING
The leader of a small (thirty-man) overseas contingent of
Americans tasked me with building good relations between his
men and a small community of Asians on a Pacific Island. These
local citizens demonstrated neither open friendliness nor
unfriendliness. They were passively polite. They advised me
that the previous American military contingent had shot up
their city a year or so earlier. No one was killed. The incident,
they said, had been settled and officially forgotten.
The new, small American unit represented one of the most respected
organizations of fighting men in the world. I talked to every
man. They seemed to be typically nice, friendly Americans.
Attitude studies among them did not turn up the customary
attitude that, these (foreign) people are subhuman.
So the case seemed to be a mild one. The allegations were
merely that 1) these people are stupid, immoral, and dangerous
to the American cause. And 2) they are also unfriendly;
their women won't talk to us or date us even though they are
adequately Westernized that they date, to a limited degree,
with their own men.
I persuaded the young Americans that we should win the local
people over to a position of mutual respect for two reasons:
so we could place machine guns in their second-story windows
if needed, and (obviously) so we could date their available,
respectable women. I took the men through the ideological
and culture-shock-cure materials, and tasked them with winning
back the town.
To my surprise, it did not work. These men continued to start
fights quickly with the local men over trivial incidents.
For a couple of weeks, I worked the town. I watched
the areas that the Americans frequented at night and on weekends.
These young Americans, self-appraised toughest of the tough,
swaggered excessively, pugnaciously inviting trouble in public.
Some fought well before anyone ever dropped a hat. They knew
they were going into combat soon, and were nervous about it.
I arranged to accompany them on a camping trip, a bivouac.
There, I talked with each man extensively. Campfires at night
tend to loosen the tongue. My findings were surprising at
first; then, on second thought, understandable.
These robust, young fighting men were brave. It was one of
their most conscious and cherished qualities. But brave men
are not fearless. Fearlessness, obviously, is a much more
unusual quality than bravery. Fearless persons are not afraid
even when they should be. (I once saw such a man in combat
on Iwo Jima. His name was Taylor-a corporal who was leading
a platoon. Because of his fearlessness, described in Attachment
A, he could not possibly have lived through that conflagration
uninjured.) Brave men, on the other hand, are willing to do
what they should do despite their fear. And men who pride
themselves on their bravery, especially young ones, seem to
feel compelled to do what they are afraid to do. That, of
course, involves street-fighting over insignificant incidents.
Suddenly, research, again, had clarified the problem for me.
These men were a little afraid of the local nationals. They
were simply too young and confused to deal with the combination
of factors involved: bravery, high pride, their own close-knit
social-group pressures to fight quickly, and finally, a surrounding
foreign population of men who frightened them. They
had to fight or else someone, especially themselves, might
think they were cowards. These specific thoughts, in those
long talks by the campfire, were expressed. The possible answer
was also clear: Teach the young men to fight well enough so
that they did not feel afraid of the local nationals. I did.
The excessive swaggering stopped, so did the fighting. It
worked like the proverbial charm; friendly dating started
with the local women. To teach them to fight, we used the
modified boxing training called STRIKE for decisive reasons:
With well-trained supervision, it can be taught quickly and
safely, yet raises self-confidence significantly. (In subsequent
years, seeking something safer, we tried most of the other
martial arts. Even though they have superior qualities for
other purposes, we found that none of those can be taught
effectively enough to get a lift in self-confidence for large
numbers quickly.)
Above
from pages 115 - 117
Dr.
Robert L. Humphrey's
VALUES FOR A NEW MILLENNIUM
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on image to BUY BOOK
