The “Don’t React” Paradigm: When Compliance Can Kill

Abstract

At some point in recent history, a well-intentioned safety guideline silently evolved into a social dogma. The advice "do not react" — originally meant for specific high-risk situations — was repeated so frequently by institutions, media, family environments, and even religious voices that it became an unquestioned moral rule, applied indiscriminately across all contexts and profiles.

This paper does not seek to assign blame. It seeks understanding. Through an examination of real-life cases, neuroscientific evidence, psychopedagogical studies, and cultural analysis, we explore how this repetition has produced unintended consequences: automated passivity, suppressed defense instincts, post-traumatic guilt, and the rise of a social doctrine of submission.

Using the concept of collective lamb conditioning, this study introduces a new framework: Conscious Self-Defense — a technical, ethical, and situational response philosophy that restores the individual’s right to act when life is at risk. This is not a call for aggression, but a reaffirmation of the right to choose consciously — even under threat.