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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31951 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023

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The vast majority of Americans have never been in a fight, ergo have no recourse to violence, ergo rely on the state to do their violence for them. Everyone's had a reason to fight, sometime or another.

Everyone's had a reason to fight, sometime or another.

But for most people it almost never makes sense to do so. If you lose you go to the hospital, if you win you go to jail. If you go to jail and you're one of the "rough men" you might not suffer much as a result. If you're not you may not just lose your freedom but your job, your future, your friends, even your spouse, because now you're a barbaric criminal.

Solzhenitsyn quote you probably already know, but will come in handy if you don't:

“Your punishment for having a knife when they searched you would be very different from the thief’s. For him to have a knife was mere misbehavior, tradition, he didn’t know any better. But for you to have one was ‘terrorism.’”

For a simple assault charge plead down to disturbing the peace or some shit? The fact that you think so shows my point more clearly than I could have. I've been in many fights, in jail a dozen times, caught charges twice, and my record is underage drinking and "recieving stolen goods" for having an old sign for a months-old hockey game in my dorm room. And that's only because it was campus police, rather than real cops.

You don't generally get done for fighting. The other guy has to press charges, they have to find him, you'd have to tell them etc. Your paranoia of being a "barbaric criminal" and your whole life collapsing for scrapping is simply perfect. That, that is the mentality I'm talking about.

We're likely not similarly situated. My sister got busted for minor in possession of alcohol, lost a college internship (teaching) as a result, and was unable to get another until she managed to get the record sealed. And that's as pissant a charge as you can get beyond traffic tickets. Of my co-workers in my past few jobs, judging from the reactions if I tell the story I'm probably the only one who has been arrested for anything serious as an adult (I was not convicted, or I'd likely be long dead by my own hand). I know of people who weren't hired because it turned out they had a criminal record, though for what I don't know.

The other guy doesn't have to press charges. If you get in a barfight, you can get busted for drunk-and-disorderly if not assault, for instance. Or if the cops break up the fight they can and sometimes do charge all concerned.

One can always find a reason why a course of action is too risky.

True, but that does not mean the reason is never correct.

Far from it. But "never" is a long way from "always".

We've all had a reason to fight. But not everyone is willing to put everything on the line and seek a decision. Too risky. They might lose an internship, or an eye.

It's a matter ultimately of values. If you value money, career, house, a clean criminal record and the good opinion of other people who value those things, physical risk is crazy.

I find all that utterly worthless. The good opinion of people incapable of risking anything real is meaningless. Money is paper. Careers are bullshit.

I think sacrifice produces value. Things are worth what we gave up to get them. By those lights, I made out like a bandit.

We've all had a reason to fight. But not everyone is willing to put everything on the line and seek a decision. Too risky. They might lose an internship, or an eye.

And I suspect in a lot of cases whatever the point of dispute is would be worth losing an internship, but not an eye.

It's a matter ultimately of values. If you value money, career, house, a clean criminal record and the good opinion of other people who value those things, physical risk is crazy.

Again, it's not just the physical risk. It's the fact that even if you win you lose; if you lose you go to the hospital if you win you go to jail, if you go to jail and are charged and convicted you lose your future and your life from then on is a series of low-wage jobs to make ends meet until you die. The least-losing move is not to play.

There's a scene in the move Crash where a cop feels up a man's wife during a traffic stop. The man does nothing and sucks up to the cop. I don't recall but he might have lost his wife over it. This is awful, of course, and you probably figure any real man would take a swing at the cop. But if the man does that, he gets beaten, arrested, convicted, and goes to prison for assault on a police officer, and loses his wife anyway. That's the situation a lot of white collar people are in with any fight. The things the all-powerful state can take away are valuable.

I find all that utterly worthless. The good opinion of people incapable of risking anything real is meaningless. Money is paper. Careers are bullshit.

As Homer Simpson's brain once pointed out, "money can be exchanged for goods and services". Careers can be used to get money which can be exchanged for goods and services.

Money is a symbol for work, work is operationalized as time, you are buying things with the only thing you can't get more of.

And yes, we all need to work to make the symbols that let us pay for the necessities of life.

But how much is needed and what is actually necessary can vary widely. With less work, you get more time.

you probably figure any real man would take a swing at the cop.

Because everyone not a coward is stupid. A real man would have options, and he'd probably want to exercise them intelligently.

I wonder, as you lovingly recount a just-so movie scene of abject humiliation, what you really feel when you see yourself in that moment. Injustice? Vengeance?

Gratitude that it's a cop, otherwise you'd be expected to do something?

Something more prurient?

Two can read minds, mon frere.

More comments

Exactly. Unless it's an immediate mortal peril, it's generally best to be physical conflict avoidant in modern society due to the consequences of civilization being potentially levied on you.

Just because a man decides to rely on state violence instead of doing violence himself does not mean that the man thinks that violence is unacceptable unless the state is doing it. More often, it means that the man thinks that it makes more sense from a benefit/risk perspective to rely on the state than to do it himself. It's not about personal violence being acceptable or unacceptable to him.

No, it doesn't. But it is a revealed preference that others do violence in one's stead.

It's the difference between eating meat and hunting. Between cheering for your team and being on the team. Between supporting a war and fighting it.

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