It started with an article in Ask Men, called The Joy of Punching by Robbie Dillon, wherein Dilllon attests to the inherent masculinity of fighting, and the badge of honor that comes from having been beaten up.
Huffington Post called on The Warrior Poet, our own Social Justice Editor, Cameron Conaway, as well as GQ and Vice writer Gavin McInnes, Ivan “Doc” Holiday, and a Sherry Blackstone, a nurse from Texas.
Gavin says, “You’re not a real man, until you’ve had your heart broken, you’ve broken a heart, you’ve beaten someone up and you’ve had the crap beaten out of you.”
What do you think? Is Cameron right that there’s a big difference between fighting to protect oneself (as even the Dalai Lama said he would do, if necessary) and allowing adrenaline to shorten one’s wick?
About the Editors
Fighting is a part of ‘humanhood’. Its in the animal kingdom. Its a natural instinct. Women fight, men fight, bisons fight, kids fight, snakes fight. Its triggered by emotion. Some less, some more. Few over trivial matters. Few over things that really matter.
Fighting is necessary because it is a method of acquiring something (either tangible or intangible).
Bring it on?
I was in my late sixities when I told my youngest son that I missed something in life: I’d never been in a fight. His response, “Dad, that’s just like Ghandi.” I felt a little better. Then in my early seventies, my wife and I were coming out of a Paris Metro station. We were walking side by side up the stairs when I looked over a saw a fellow rifling through her backpack. Reflexively, I shot my left fist into his right jaw. He disappeared into the Metrol, and for the first time in my life I heard the words, “My hero.”
Dear Prabhakar and Bill,
Thank you both for your response here. I continue to meditate on this topic and your words and stories have certainly filtered through.
Best to you both,
~Cameron
There are few social conventions more natural than fighting. Nearly every form of life on this planet does it. The only thing we have done to it is codify the rules for it. We arrange fights. We allow them in special instances and places. We place rules upon combatants and award the winners and console the losers.
We use fighting to inflict ourselves and our will upon others, but justify with the rules that we create as a society and expect our fighters to play by the same rules, even we our opponents don’t fight by the same rules.
Our fighting; the subjects of our conflicts and the progression from polite to savage fighting is what help define our society, our role in our society and ultimately our species.
This does not mean we need to embrace violence. It does mean that we need to understand our relationship with fighting, conflict and our humanity.
The male body is way, way, way better built for fighting than a female body and testosterone is the fuel that makes you good fighter, it gives you the will to fight, the courage to fight, the ability to endure the pain, the strength to punch and kick hard etc. etc. Of course it is masculine. Try to have some MMA fighters take estrogen shots over some period of time and their fighting abilities and their love for their sport will go waaaay down. Or try it out for yourself. A few months with testosterone shots and MMA then a few months of estrogen shots and MMA.
Except that there are many different kinds of fighting. Sure, if it’s a fighting style dependent on testosterone, then a reduction in testosterone would hurt the fighter. But, are all fighting techniques dependent on testosterone? A petite, unassuming woman hiding a nasty blade under her veil is a wickedly effective fighting tactic.
(Try giving birth to a warrior who then goes on to kick somebody’s ass. That’s the ultimate fighting technique….)
And then there’s the whole overlap issue. Even if men are somehow better designed for fighting than women, the best women fighters in the world are better than the majority of men. My Y chromosome will not help me one bit if you pit me against Gina Carano.
I would be curious to know if Dylan Kleibold & Eric Harris, James Holmes and Adam Lanza ever had their noses broken or busted someone else’s in a fight.
I have suspected for some time that in a world of zero tolerance there is an increasing disconnect concerning exactly what violence is; that these shooters were surprised at the blood and shit leaking from their victims.
Me, I believe that fighting is as integral part of masculinity in the US as are killing bugs, playing sports, learning to drive and shaving.
I know that men are hard wired for fighting- this is why it is even up for discussion….
Women don’t discuss whether or not they have ever been in a fist fight.
Cameron, I wanted to thank you for reading my article and commenting on it and keeping the conversation going here on your site. I think it’s an important one to have, and the response to the article seems to bear me out. I wish we could have gotten a little more in-depth on the issue but that’s the way TV is I suppose.
I think it’s very important to have many open discussions about violence of all types rather than the current strategy which seems to consist of pretending it’s just something that we don’t have to deal with any more.
Best,
Robbie Dillon
If there’s manhood in fighting, then it would have to be certain kinds of fighting or certain approaches to fighting that are “manly.” Maybe something about WHY one fights or HOW one fights or the rules under which you fight.
Because, let’s face it, children fight. Little boys may punch and kick each other. That doesn’t make them men. You don’t have to be an adult to fight someone, so how does fighting make you into an adult? This leads to me to ask what the difference is between a 5-year old fighting and man fighting. It has to be more than just the hitting by itself.
Is it just better technique? I know some 7 year old black belts with excellent technique, but that doesn’t make them “men.”
Seriously, where would a father draw the line? It’s not okay for your three year old to hit other kids, but at some point he needs to hit someone to be a man? WTF?
Fighting with your fists and getting beaten up make you a man.
(It’s depressing that boys and young men still fall for this. I thought “alphas” were gullible, but “wannabe alphas” are the most gullible. Alright, let’s run with it:)
Yes, absolutely, you he-men go out there and get your manhood through physical confrontation. Beat some guy to a pulp with your bare hands, and do this as often as you can. Escalate as soon as you can to more dangerous confrontations.
Meanwhile, I will keep your girlfriend company while you’re in prison. I’ll keep your widow’s bed warm. It’ll be easier for me to remember her name, because I won’t have pugilistic dementia. I’ll go to college, go through OCS, and work my way through the military bureaucracy, sending he-men like you off to fight in the most godforsaken places on earth until I reach retirement age. Fortunately, you will have paid into Social Security but probably won’t be alive to get any of it. I’ll be the big shareholders in the companies that sell the guns you shoot each other with. The whole time, I’ll let you think that I secretly envy you. Poor, unmanly me, crying all the way to the bank.
Oh, well. Cannon fodder has to come from somewhere. The ideal cannon fodder consists of people who are proud to be cannon fodder.