Social violence is what, in the natural world, would be the types of violence common within a single species. This intra-species violence does not follow the dynamic or use the same tactics as violence against other species. The dominance game of snakes wrestling or bears pushing and mouthing is not like the way the same species hunt prey.

So social violence includes ritualized jockeying for territory or status. It also includes acts to prove or increase group solidarity (a powerful side effect of hunting as a team) and violence to enforce the rules and mores of the group. 

Asocial violence does not see the victim as a person, but as a resource. Asocial violence is the domain of the predator and the humanity of his victim does not enter into the equation. 

Humans are nearly unique in the animal world. We are social creatures and so we have subconscious rules for social violence. We are also hunters and we know very well how to efficiently kill prey. We are primates, and do not rely on fang and claw, but on tools. We can juggle symbols and think of new possibilities. 

We can use the tools and tactics that we developed to kill prey, tools and tactics designed to kill outside our species; and can use them to kill other humans.

A male lion will kill another male’s cubs- but he won’t hunt them. Leopards are quite capable of stalking and murdering competing leopards, but they don’t.If a big horn ram really wanted the herd of females he could just blindside the other males from the side, crushing their ribs and knocking them off cliffs. But they don’t. 

Hunting our own is apparently a primate thing. 

Not all humans can do this, and lots of research and writing has been done on the emotional cost to soldiers and cops when they take a human life. 

The above is from “7”.What follows is an expansion for Conflict Communications:

The goal clearly divides the lines between social and asocial violence and gives one of the most important clues to what you might be facing: if there is no audience, assume a predator.

A predator will use more violence for less cause than a normal person. 

The ability to use asocial violence on another human being is dictated by ‘othering. ’ To hunt and butcher a human being is an entirely different order of violence than to argue, fight or kill in combat. It is a qualitative, not a quantitative difference. The perpetrator has othered the victim to the extent that the constraints, both social and genetic, on in-group violence are gone. 

This also means that the killing will have less emotional trauma for the perpetrator than a social violence killing. 

In most cases, othering is a skill. The anti-social personality disorder already others people top a large degree. The depth of the disorder could be seen as equivalent to how completely the rest of humanity is othered. A true sociopath has othered people to the extent that he or she does not see other people as real, much less human.

As a person with the tendency to be violent matures and grows in self esteem, other people seem even more different, lesser, and easier to harm. An officer or soldier, a “force professional” learns, as a skill, to other by behavior: this behavior or uniform allows this level of force.

Even professionals are primates, however. They can develop psychological trauma because the othering is almost never complete. Recruits, especially in war, are given propaganda and told stories to make the enemy seem different and inhuman, and thus easier to kill.

Predators, even sociopaths are also primates as well. In their case it doesn’t lead to psychological trauma but many will take an instance of asocial violence and milk it for social gains. It is not enough to callously kill a fifteen-year-old for her purse, the predator might also get bragging rights by telling his criminal friends. This is why ‘hooks’ are so often a part of the interview pre-assault phase. 

War is an interesting case. It is extremely social violence in that it is fought by groups and for the good of the group. Yet it requires overcoming internal resistances to killing another human.

It is an attempt to engage in social violence asocially. Training soldiers requires intense bonding. Performance in combat relies on the limbic system overpowering logical thought and, to a certain extent, survival instinct. The soldier must be more afraid of letting his buddies down and/or being labeled a coward than of dying. Those are social motivations.

Extreme social violence within a group is rare. The scripts for social conflict are for the good of the group. Only in very extreme cases are the group’s needs fulfilled by lowering membership through killing.

Establishing a hierarchy is endangered by fear of death. It destabilizes the structure. Enforcing the identity or rules of the group are rarely served by killing: dead people don’t learn nothin’. 

Almost universally, extreme social violence within a group comes from one of three sources. Either a leader (or leader wannabe) is so insecure in his role that he feels a need to establish dominance through extreme fear. It is a reflection of the leader’s fear. It is the same dynamic as a young punk trying to establish a reputation for being ‘hard’ or crazy. 

The second source is the desire for group solidarity. There is nothing quite like breaking a major social rule (like killing) with a feeling of extreme risk in a small group to promote a group identity. It may seem cold or blasphemous, but gangbangers and wilding groups are using the same bonding dynamic in their crimes that tactical teams and combat units. 

The third source of extreme social violence is betrayal. Adultery leading to murder is almost a cliché. In workplace shootings… almost always, if the perpetrator survives, he will speak of being betrayed, of promises not kept, things earned but not received. Many of the most brutal Group Monkey Dances are not committed on an outsider, but on a member of the group who has been labeled a traitor.

That sense of betrayal comes up in other places—it is often a critical element in who will develop Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).