Your self defense is another man's aggression, and chasing long chains of incrementally escalating agression to find out who was the true aggressor and who was acting defensivly is a fool's errand. The world is full of places where such a question is beyond untangling.
In any event, I'm unlikly to change your mind, and that's fine, but this seems to me to fly directly in the face of everything we know about human nature.
I would only caution you against assuming that a person not seeing things your way means they lack an open, clear, or clever mind.
Actually it has a very clear definition. You've made another assertion, but until you substantiate it, or ask how I define self-defense, this conversation will not be fruitful, I'm afraid.
Many things with very clear definitions on paper aren't nearly so clear in the real world, even assuming that men are angels and pride/anger/tribalism won't skew or twist their opinion on matters.....which of course it will.
We are talking fairly well-defined concepts. You keep moving the goalposts here. Thanks for the exchange.