worksinprogress.co
Submission statement: Anthropologist William Buckner discusses the social purposes and methods of duelling in various societies.
- 15
- 6
Submission statement: Anthropologist William Buckner discusses the social purposes and methods of duelling in various societies.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Provides some support for my thesis that our reduction in low-level violence (fistfights, martial arts, scrapping at school etc.) has lead not so much to an increase in violence, but a shift to less frequent but more damaging outbursts (drive-bys, school shootings, gang fights).
Perhaps what is needed is a socially acceptable, ritualized form of single combat for people (mostly boys and young men) to hammer out their differences in relative safety.
The best means I ever saw of reducing interpersonal conflict among T-jacked hyper-violent men was a regular post boxing match. Two joes have a problem with each other? Sign 'em up to fight. It was how a man got respect, policed boundaries.
In terms rationalist nerds might understand, it forces skin in the game to complain about the behavior of others. It routes around the rank structure and the military legal system, and so is "fair" in a way that rules and heirarchy prevent in other contexts. The shared stress and pain of mutual public combat usually created a mutual respect between the combatants. You might not like Specialist Asshole, but you knew that if you talked too much shit, he'd fight you, and no matter who won, you'd both get hurt.
I lost three matches to the same guy. I can't remember why I was mad at him, but I signed up to fight him three matches in a row. By the third one, I think he just wanted rid of me. We're still friends.
Maybe the school shootings are because guys can’t have mostly-harmless fistfights, but there is a LOT less murder than before. Maybe that’s because what would have been murder in 1980 is now aggravated assault in 2023.
I still think that the murder rate (or maybe murder + aggravated assault) is a pretty good proxy here.
More options
Context Copy link
As an experiment, I want to have a season of the reality TV show The Bachelorette with the rule modification that any contestant can publicly challenge any other contestant to a boxing match at any time. Currently the basic rule features one woman and thirty men competing for her affections, each week she chooses some men to stay and lets some go, until she gets down to the last guy, and then they get engaged and hopefully (though not typically) later get married. Typically they already do one boxing/wrestling or other forced violence date a season. Much of the show is about competition and dislike and hatred and other reality tv show drama created between the male contestants.
The new rule implemented would be that any contestant can challenge any contestant at any time to an amateur boxing match in front of other contestants and the cameras. If you do so, everyone (other contestants and the woman) knows that the challenge has been issued, but the challenged is under no obligation to take it up, and victory or defeat means nothing. Winning doesn't mean you automatically move on, or that you're right about the argument, losing doesn't mean you lost the argument or you have to go home. The lead woman is free to send the winner home and keep the loser, or send a challenger home and keep the man who refused to fight him. Win or lose you are free to go right on talking shit about what x said about y or whatever. The only impact of the challenge would be that everyone knew the challenge was made and whether the challenge was accepted, and then the men would fight publicly.
I'd love to see how this would play out. Would the lead favor winners? Favor smaller weaker men who accept challenges even if they lose them? Would she send big strong men home if they challenge a smaller weaker man over nothing worth the effort? Would she send a man home who challenges repeatedly, win or lose, because he is too violent? Would the men themselves behave differently, avoiding drama or giving bigger dudes a wide berth, to avoid challenges? Would there be a standard established, a Bach-verse "Code Duello" where x is a sufficient insult to require a fight but if you challenge over Y you're the weirdo and he is under no obligation to accept the challenge? I'm sure a lot of people think they know the answers, but I'm curious to see what they actually are. How is the willingness/skill to use violence valued in a romantic partner in 2023?
There have been real life examples of big violent dudes who try to start shit with smaller, weaker dudes and use their physicality to intimidate or injure others. Often a particular smaller, weaker dude will latch onto this for screentime and start playing "bait the gorilla" hoping to provoke a violent response. The violent dudes nearly always get sent home quickly, but the smaller weaker bullied dude also ends up getting sent home not long afterward. It's tough not to read that as the women saying: I don't want a violent moron, but I also don't want a pussy-boy who can't stand up for himself and runs to mommy to tattle. How would this dynamic change if there were a formal "let's fight it out" process?
I've always asked women watching the show if they understand what's going on here at a more-than-subconscious level. Watching the show in a multi-gender group is illuminating (even if the women are self-censoring quite a bit).
I absolutely love the idea of a formalized process, but I can't imagine the mental toughness it would take to juggle:
Being isolated from friends and family for multiple weeks
Trying to act and build a personal brand for your financial future
Avoid committing crimes against leftist orthodoxy during a sexual pitfight
Deal with the perpetual threat of real physical violence from your housemates
As much as these reality show pricks deserve a punch in the face, it's not something I'd personally sign up for.
This has been exactly my read in previous watches of the show. However I'm refusing to reward them with a viewer for metrics after the sold Chris Harrison down the river for the race-baiting BS kerfuffle. The ratings tank seems to show they've miscalculated on how valuable the woke kowtowing was.
I've always thought the skillset required to win The Bachelor/ette is actually very similar to the skillset needed to survive interrogation in a prisoner of war camp, or hold up under tough questioning in a police station, or run for Senate. What it's tough to think about is all the producers off camera who are asking them questions, leading them on that so and so is talking shit, pumping them up that they have a chance when they don't, or flat out lying to them about things that happen. And over and over the contestant has to look into the camera and repeat how he's there for the right reasons, how he loves love, never say anything negative or go against the weird mix of progressive feminism and brainless-protestantism that form the core values of the show. It must take a tremendous amount of mental fortitude to ad-lib playing the character in real time, never slipping up, never making a gaffe that becomes a controversy for an episode. A technically perfect contestant, like Katie Thurston when she was a contestant or Tyler C, is impressive in its own right, its own kind of performance.
I haven't watched the bachelor ir bachelorette, but my girlfriend watches love island. And the behaviour of the men and women there is so bizarre.
For no reason, they all profess that they're there to find "the one" and only thing they care about is love. And yet they're all the most handsome men you can find with bodycounts into the hundreds. All suddenly acting like complete simps. And I don't understand what motivates the behavior.
Usually once you break up with the one you paired up with originally you're pretty much out the game. Nobody wants to pair up with you anymore and new people aren't accepted into the OG group.
The optimal strategy seems to be to pretend to love the one you're with, and yet the women all act like huge bitches always finding fault with their man and constantly being annoying and creating drama.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
In Germany the social dynamic is that at the Bachelor the women contestants are forming cliques, gossiping and intriguing against women outside but giving support inside their group, but that the Bachelorette is way more boring. Every bit of drama has to be inflated 10x by production as the men contestants are just partying as bros.
Just depends on the year. You get some legendary male villains, like Chad and Luke P, who were all-timers. Or Nick Viall, the GOAT, sleeping with the lead midway through the season. I've never watched the German version!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The addition of females has potential to disrupt the peace-making abilities of low-grade violence. In that scenario, I think it produces more violence rather than less.
Unless the woman, who has all the power (quite literally in this scenario) to reward or punish violence by keeping/removing contestants, chooses to prevent or punish violence. Which is the thing I am most interested in seeing play out! Keeping in mind that my theory is the Lead basically wants to end up engaged to a man she could marry at the end of the process; while I do think the contestants/leads are in it for fame, the best way to set yourself up for life fame-wise is to form a couple that stays together, have kids, etc.
The lead could send a man home after a fight even if he won, if she felt it was inappropriate to do so. She could probably send a man home early, before the fight even occurred. I suspect, logically, the group would quickly converge on moral rules for when fights are appropriate or inappropriate. Things like "If you challenge the same guy over the same thing twice, you're going home" or "if you're always getting into fights, you're going home" or "If a big former college football lineman challenges a scrawny programmer, he gets sent home (and maybe the programmer does too)." Or regulate reasons to start fights: "X claiming that Y said that he's only here to promote his Tequila Company" is good and Y has to fight for or apologize; but if X is trying to start a fight because "Y took my lunchmeat and ate it when he knew I was planning on eating it" then Y is under no obligation to accept.
Also keep in mind that the men themselves can pressure the Lead. Either hard power by Unionization plays, more common in recent seasons, where we've seen a group of men go to the Lead together and say "X is dangerous/abusive/mean, if you keep him we're all going to walk." Or by simply speaking to her about what's going on.
I guess we have different reads on women then. I would expect them to encourage as much violence as possible. "Let's you and him fight" is the oldest female dating strategy in the world.
I would think that at least in some cases there’d be a check on that. You could get a big, strong asshole that challenges the shit out of guys for slights real and imagined and proceeds to kick their asses because he was an amateur boxer or something. Is this the winning strategy? The Bachelorette devolving into a de facto amateur boxing championship?
More options
Context Copy link
Oh not at all, I think that is a very possible outcome. That's exactly why I find the possibilities fascinating. What level of violence would be attractive? At some point choosing for violence becomes maladaptive, but some degree of choosing violence is adaptive, where will it land?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link