Admit it, at some point in your life, you've secretly daydreamed about being a sniper. Though most of us are protected against going Columbine on the world in two ways (we lack the driving rage and impotent frustration; we possess that little voice of sanity), the idea of being calm, detached and above the fray, while picking off oppressors and enemies with cold, surgical precision, resonates deeply with some part of the human psyche. Though as adults we laugh at the over-the-top theatrical ritualism of the B-movie sniper, putting his weapon together on a cold, dark rooftop with deliberate sensuality, some part of us secretly wants to be that guy. If the scene is done in a refreshing new way, the powerful feeling of atavistic identification can still be evoked.



The sniper/archer is one of a dual pair of warrior archetypes that is at the heart of how we understand conflict. The other is characterized by the weapon of barbarian: the rough-hewn club or primitive battle axe. Where the archer has tamed his barbarian passions with ritual, for the fierce club-wielding barbarian, passionate rage is an emotion to be unleashed, not conquered. In reality, both archery and clubs/battle axes were as often used by settled people as by nomadic barbarians, but for whatever reason, the bow has become the symbol of detachment and the triumph of reason over passion in the art of war and life. The club is the symbol of impatient passion; of diving into the fray; of deliberately abandoning big-picture perspective; of accepting the imperative to act without being able to see beyond the nearest bloody, crushed skull. The bow replaces an old order with a new, presumed-better order. The club creates chaos. The bow is the product of civilization, a technologically advanced artifact. The club can be as simple as the nearest convenient rock.



When I was younger, I was drawn to the archer archetype. Today, I am far more drawn to the barbarian archetype. I prefer metaphorical clubs to bows. This is, I suspect, a typical pattern. Some day, I'll ponder why.



In reality of course, life requires a mix of both archery and club-wielding, against both human adversaries and non-human work and life challenges. There are things you can accomplish through big-picture foresight, deliberate aim, and a delicate, high-leverage touch -- archer stuff. And then there are things you just have to dive in and grapple with. Where rewards are proportionate to your ability to sustain damage. Where your energy must be applied with little leverage. Where, even if you win in the chaos, you may never fully understand how or why.



Both archetypes represent the deepest desires and ambitions of the little guy. Both also acknowledge the seed of destructive violence in human nature. Stephen Covey's win-win-or-no-deal is a bad doctrine for two reasons. The minor reason is that you can't always walk away from win-lose conflicts in life. The major reason is that there is some part of us that is designed for, and craves, violence. It is smarter to recognize, acknowledge and manage this atavistic instinct than to deny it. Denial merely leads to toxic and ultimately ineffective behaviors like passive aggression, holier-than-thou moralizing, or depressed resignation.



But back to archers and club-wielders.



The Biblical legend of David and Goliath is particularly revealing and elemental. David's weapon, the sling, is the ancestor of the bow and sniper rifle. Goliath, thought to allegorically represent the head of a large Philistine host, rather than a giant, is the incumbent Alpha Male, his individual power magnified by legions of minions. Goliath is "The Man" of Western antiquity (I just saw Michelangelo's David in Florence last week, and it truly deserves its place in the artistic canon, for capturing the archetype behind David, rather than the historical figure). It is significant that David went on to become King David, a defender of the people, a king of the people, much like the yeoman Robin Hood two millennia later, and Vito Corleone clambering over rooftops with a pistol, stalking Fanucci, in our time. Nevertheless, he is also a new Goliath. The sling, bow and sniper rifle represent both the takedown of an existing alpha male, and the ambition that creates a new alpha male. A new order replacing an old one. Scott Ridley's Robin Hood, by linking the yeoman outlaw legend explicitly to a new order (represented by the Magna Carta), in some ways creates a more artistically coherent narrative than older versions, where he resists an old order without championing a new one.



The battle axe or club though, represents the passions of the barbarian. The archetypal wielder does not want to be king; he wants to preserve his fierce independence in the bloody, egalitarian milieu of barbarian culture, which lacks permanent kings, where vendetta economics, rather than social contracts, rule. The barbarian distrusts settled civilization and The Man, and wants to resist the very idea of civilization. His is a nihilist philosophy: to replace order with chaos, rather than with a new order.



From ancient times to modern, the two archetypes are to be found everywhere. Today we have The Incredible Hulk vs. Superman, Vito Corleone vs. Luca Brasi, Gimli the Dwarf vs. Legolas the elf, the Sumo Wrestler vs. the Aikido master, Rocky Balboa vs. Bruce Lee. One of my favorites is an old pair from the Mahabharata, the archer Arjuna and his brother, the club-wielding Bhima, who fought on the same side, but in dramatically different ways, and driven by very different philosophies (someday, I plan to write an essay on this). Without going into the epic in detail, Arjuna is the glory hog who achieves headline-making feats. Bhima is the one who does the heavy-lift fighting that actually wins the war.



Pick your archetypes, understand why you resonate with them without denying the violence within yourself, and sublimate those instincts into pragmatic behaviors. This is one part of human nature that isn't going to be bred out of our genes in our lifetimes.

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