John, you are not one for mincing words! I suppose the fact that I would have had to act to remove myself from the conflict in the seats was part of why I intervened. But if I had to do it over I would have removed myself.
Yes, there is physical violence and psychological, emotional violence. Perhaps the class difference in physical violence is a shift of educated males toward psychological violence. As the old saying goes: "Revenge is best served cold..."
Thanks for your comment, Autumn. I'm left thinking that a propensity to being involved in physical violence is really hard to pin down to any one criterion. And nastiness is, unfortunately, everywhere in all its forms, especially among children and teens. I can remember being both prey and predator as a teen in terms of nastiness. Perhaps everyone can.
I had to fight a few times because there was nowhere to run and then I caused a couple of fights because of drinking and jealousy. Another time I picked a fight urged on by teenage friends and got whooped.
When I was seven or eight an older boy whipped me with a six piece of hose. I went and got my older brother who took the hose away from him and hit hi a few times before he ran away.
If you can avoid a fight I think you should. If you are drunk it is stupid, for one thing you are at a disadvantage and you are not in your right mind. Second you could hurt yourself or someone else very badly. A stadium with concrete, steel, corners and asphalt to hit your head on is not a safe place to fight.
Every situation is different of course. Flight or fight?
Sober now and fight free too. I will appeal or try to appease now first.
Great points. But then there are all those stories of someone in trouble and NYers (or any big city) walking by, ignoring the scene or videotaping it for social media.
I watched "The Accountant" on an international flight recently, and I think it captures a masculine fantasy about being both intellectually and physically dominant. Ben Affleck's character (Christian Wolff) is autistic, so his weakness is social skills, but in nearly every other respect he is no different from the Wild West gunslinger who never backs down from a fight: so formidable that even a fleet of elite mercenaries can't stop him. He can also process 15 years worth of financial transactions in a single evening.
It's an action film, so perhaps I'm asking more of it than I ought to, but you might say that the film fails to interrogate a key moment: when Christian and his father visit his mother's wake at the home of her second husband. A fight breaks out, Christian's father and a police officer are killed, and Christian goes to prison. While he is a bad-ass, and his criminal bad-assery is the anchor of the film, one might say that his life of crime stems from that one bad decision.
My father was a very educated and intellectual man, quiet and gentle and purehearted. He usually tried to avoid conflict. Sometimes if my mom said something that hurt me, I would ask him, why are you not standing up for me? But he knew that we shouldn’t cause lasting damage for feelings that come and go. Fighting is easy. Taking a step back to prioritize your safety and that of others is more manly and noble to me.
"The average football game lasts about three hours. The ball is in play for only about 18 minutes."
Surfing is a lot like that. I think you made the right choice. Even if you know how to fight, or if you've been in fights got lucky haven't yet lost ... still the best, safest move is to avoid fighting, retreat. Contact can get you killed.
Thank G-d you’re okay. What an awful experience. I’m so sorry you were caught in the middle. Fans can become dangerous. There have been too many news stories over the years of a fan being beaten into a coma or lost his life. You reacted on instinct. It’s tough to be rational when emotions are riled.
Hello David, as a trained martial artist (judo, boxing, wrestling, ju-jitsu) I have never been in a fight either. I have broken some up, but luckily I have never had to use what I have learned in a real-time situation. But say, I was confronted with the same situation as you, I would follow the advice of my Buddhist Teacher, who was a black belt in Karate, and the advice of Navy Seal Jocko Willink. When Jocko was asked about being confronted in a street fight, he said, "I'm going to run away. I don't want to get involved...you want to fight me, I don't care if I can beat or or not, what if you stab me, what if you sue me after I smash you on the concrete? There is almost a million bad things can happen and nothing good... My first self-defense is my feet to get away from you." So, this is from a battle hardened Navy Seal. My Buddhist teacher said when asked about fighting, "Unless it was your goal to get into a fight that day, avoid all confrontations, even when you know you can win. Calm your anger, keep your big ego at bay, and walk away...fast." So you are in good company. Of course the funniest story of me stopping a fight was in college when my found my drunk and stupid ass fraternity brothers yelling at a behemoth of a man. That man was fellow North Jersey Boy and future All-Pro Jet's Tackle, Dave Szott. (Great to meet another Jets fan!!) I knew Dave as not only was he football star, but a state champion heavyweight wrestler, but my Uncle Jack Jones coached him in football. He was visiting his girl friend at my College and somehow my brothers got into it with him. As he approached to crush them all, I got in his way and look up as he was almost a foot bigger than me and I said, "Dave, I'm Chris Jones, Coach Jones' nephew, come on, let's get out of here." The giant of a man glared down at me and gave me a look like, "Okay, you I won't kill..." He then picked me up off the ground like a child and put me aside. I once again jumped in front of him and convinced him to walk away, as his girlfriend and I like too little children at his massive arms pulling him away. It is a whole lot funnier now than it was at the moment. :)
As Jet fans I think we suffer enough without having to get into a brawl at a game. BTW I’m a season ticket holder and I was at the “Butt Bowl” game. When you mentioned Sanchez, all I could think about was that catastrophe! 🤦🏻♂️
I grew up in what pass for “elite” environments in New Orleans and have been in plenty of fights. I think I’ve lost most of them, and the older I got the more of them I lost: time winnows the number of men stupid enough to fight without knowing how to fight, such that by college most of the scraps I had were with dudes who easily whooped me. I’m little and angry, the classic moron type known to all who drink: I mistake the intensity of my prideful anger for physical capability. In my mind, at 43, my anger is still a “force,” when it is in fact the opposite, a weakness. I learned to box to try and get some discipline, but I was never going to be much of a problem for people.
I do think you learn things from fights, such as “the limits of the mental world” or “the irrelevance of concepts or claims” in some quarters. Knowing violent people changes your model of “the root causes of violence” for sure; plenty of them aren’t victims of any sort, plenty of them straight up love violence. I had that in me, and if I weren’t a weak little guy I’d have been a monster and possibly substantially criminal.
I don’t know that you missed any lesson you couldn’t more easily read though, honestly. I’m still reactive and would’ve intervened with the woman and the sign for sure. I’m foolish, but honor cultures pride themselves on foolishness, and I have to admit to doing the same. The strongest defense of this I’ll make is: a lot of people benefit from some people being willing to take on risk to enforce norms. I’m inclined to be that norm enforcer sometimes, and I’m okay with the possibilities, even in New Orleans, where lots of people are armed.
I’m an alcoholic. I got beat up by a drug dealer on Bourbon Street and had my arm broken. That was two years ago and I haven’t had a drink since.
I also experienced shame; perhaps for different reasons than the author. Nevertheless, I’ve started Jui Jitsu and I can honestly state that I fight five nights a week now.
Luxury beliefs, like drug use, are beliefs that are costsless for the holder but impose larger costs on the rest of society.
One good example of a luxury belief is drug use.
If I use drugs, who else does it hurt?
A society that condones, encourages and even promotes drug and alcohol use disproportionally disadvantage poor people. And, people with mental illness.
Whenever I hear someone ask who else is hurt if someone uses drugs I am reminded of visiting the Coca growing regions of Peru when I lived there. The workers in the refining process, who are all poor when they start the job, have a life expectancy of two years as a result of the harsh chemicals used to turn the leaf into a white powder.
You are a superb story-teller and terrific with words that are surprisingly descriptive. I could see this drama as if it were a movie on my mental screen, complete with sound and fury. As for being a fighter, I am not. I am a pacifist, have been since 6th grade when Kenny Shurret said he wanted to fight me and would beat me up. I said, no, I was not interested. I prefer peaceful, non-violent behaviors whether with a few people or a large crowd. "Wars (little and big) "are dangerous for children and other living things." Poster from 1967, quote by Lorraine Schneider.
David...has anyone ever suggested that just maybe you tend to overthink things? Let's deal with Rob Henderson first. The quote is idiotic. That means educated people never play football, box, rehab a torn ACL, or recover from surgery. They all hurt...a lot. I have a PhD, played football and NYC street basketball for years, and box five days a week. I am told I still have knockout power in my right in my 70s. I have almost never been in a fight and would likely not have engaged baldy either. I might have faced him down a bit differently, but would have done anything necessary to avoid a fight. To be honest, after avoiding the fight, there would have been a side of me that regretted it and just a teeny voice telling me I had been afraid. But I've played violent sports enough to know that you are SUPPOSED to be afraid. Yeah, yeah, there's that part of primal manhood that tells you never back down, never run away, never give into fear. People who have been in combat will tell you that those are the ones who usually get killed or wounded first.
Uh, no. Writer should = clear thinker. And your overthinking seems always in the direction of your own perceived flaws--not good looking, not brave, not sufficiently humble about your good fortune, not sufficiently sensitive to the plight of others. Here's a homework assignment--you next piece should...after overthinking...conclude, "Hey, I'm a pretty damn good guy." 😎
Hm. I think the difference is sports have rules and referees to try to keep it fair. A real world fight has no rules and can leave you bleeding out like the poor young guy David mentioned.
That's true, of course, but it goes both ways, which is why people who are trained in martial arts will do anything to avoid a fight with some jerk, drunk or sober. Bottom line here is conflict between prudence and feeling the need to prove something. The former almost never gets you in trouble and latter almost always does.
The most accurate predictor of whether someone gets involved in physical altercations is, of course, their sex. With rare exceptions, women just don’t! Which leads me to believe it’s not so much a class thing or an education thing or a nurture thing as a hormonal thing.
You are right. about gender and violence. And in this story it is certainly the man who is the aggressor in tearing up the sign. I didn't mention or think about it because I take it for granted, but I'm glad you pointed it out.
You were completely right not to fight. Thirty years in the criminal defense arena and people have percolated (not always my clients) and I have avoided being physically assaulted several times. The hell with reacting. You would probably more embarassed if you fought and got hurt. Such matters are to be avoided at all costs. However, in my personal world, I've been confrontational with men in public wearing white supremacist apparel but only if there was a uniformed police officer in sight, and the perp was small in size. My children were mortified. Now they tell others about that. You did great by your son. Be well.
Late 90s, as I was leaving a bar with my then- girlfriend/ now wife, Dani, after she played a gig at a lower east side dive, a very drunk guy, who was with equally drunk friends, stepped between us and the exit and said something leering to Dani. We tried to keep moving but the guy wouldn't be ignored, he kept partially blocking our exit. I used my hand to try to get him to move - same gesture and force one would use to clear a face level branch on a hike - at which point he said "f-ing nigg-s" (Dani is Black and the friend we were with was dark skinned Hispanic). I then shoved him. He then hit me pretty lightly in the face. I grabbed him by the throat and threw him up against the bar. I remember having what felt like his Adams apple in the hard 'C' of my thumb amd forefinger and thinking with weird clarity that it wouldn't be that hard to crush his windpipe. I felt... exhilaration. Then one of his friends hit me in the back of the head with something, I released, and our group of three got out of there, lots more yelling, racial slurs, no one hurt. I look back on those seconds when my hand gripped a stranger's throat - I don't recognize myself in that moment, but I cannot deny the weird admixtures of both thrill and curiosity.
[2] In late 2017, after a work party, I had words with a severely intoxicated now-ex parole judge. We were introduced to each other at the party and instantly disliked each other. The dislike abated somewhat over the next couple of hours but resurfaced at the party's end, when we were milling outside the venue.
I said something taunting to him, he said something very weird and threatening to me, and the next thing I remember, I awoke in an ambulance. The incident was captured on video and was witnessed by friends. The drunken judge suckerpunched me with a vicious right hook. I fell backwards, hit my head on the sidewalk, and lost consciousness. The judge - who weighed about 325 lbs - lost his balance on his follow through and fell on me. The collarbone connevting tendons in my right shoulder were permanently torn as a result. Otherwise, I was fine. There remains my deformed shoulder and a picture of me in the Daily News with a nasty black eye.
[3] In both these instances, I got really really lucky. Incident #1 - had I squeezed harder and longer, had the guy's friend not hit me with something, I could have seriously injured or even killed the stranger. Over pretty much nothing. Manslaughter plea, years of prison, no career as a public defender, no beloved daughter. (But maybe a substack about what life in and after prison is like?? Sparks from Sing Sing!). Incident #2 - I could have had my skull fractured and been vegetable-ized. In both incidents, I had consumed a fair amount of alcohol, and my adversaries considerably more. Had we all been sober, I'm convinced neither would have happened. It's interesting and appropriate that under NY law, in a claim of self defense, to introduce evidence of a victim's past violence or aggressive nature, the defendant must have known about such violence or aggression.for a jury to hear about it. Otherwise, even if the victim had killed five people in the past, if the defendant didnt know about it, it is not admissible. But if the victim was intoxicated, that fact is admissible regardless of a defnedant's knowledge - because courts recognize thar people just act differently (i.e. worse!) when under the influence of alcohol and certain drugs. All of the cass of stranger assault I've handled as a defense attorneys that I can recall involved intoxication, usually on the part of both defendant and conplainant/victim.
[4] There is a great, great book by Bill Buford, Among the Thugs, that ties together themes of violence, class, and sports - specifically the orgiastically violent escapades of soccer hooligans in late 70s/early 80s Great Britain. Buford himself, though educated and obviously super smart and thoughtful, was seduced into this culture, and much of this incredibly entertaining and scary book is occupied by his attempts to understand the nature of that seduction. The characters in this memoir make Baldy look like Rachel Maddow.
Interesting distinction about being the self-defender not needing to know the victim is drunk. So by drinking you allow an assailant to react more violently to your provocation in a legal sense.
Samuel, Thank you for sharing your stories. When I was reading that first one, and the exhilaration you felt when you had the man’s throat, I could not help but think about The Iliad and the rage of Achilles, an anger that is so fierce it is practically a character in the story itself. The Iliad and The Odyssey are ancient stories that speak to the idea of masculinity and what it means to be a man (among many other themes that are worth discussing). This rage, the power of holding another persons life in your hands, is one that in the end of the Iliad comes under control of the hero. However, there is much horrific killing during the whole poem. I am still figuring out what to make of Homer’s epic, even after so many readings.
And David, to speak to your story a bit, I think you see from the comments that you did the right thing. It is always better to escape from a fight. In violent altercations you never have winners, you only have losers. It is just that one side wants the other to lose much, much worse. The gains of ego or material or whatever are temporal. The thing is that what your post speaks to is more of a philosophical one and not a practical one. Namely it asks of you (and only you seeing as I think Andrew and many other people are not agonizing over this): “Am I the man I say I am?” Quite simply, one of the ways we judge our moral and ethical selves is by comparing our actions to our stated beliefs of ourselves.
In a sense I think the subtext of your post is: “I believe I am good man, a good father, a defender of women. A good man is brave and yet I ran from a fight. I left my son defenseless. I failed to confront a threat to public safety. I ran away and hid, and therefore, am I a coward?” If you stood your ground and defended yourself you would have been a good man but could have been potentially hurt so badly that you were disabled or killed. I will say for the record that I think that an equally good man is one who escapes a no-win situation (again I believe that violence is a losing game as I stated above). A good man knows when to exercise prudence and escape with his son unharmed. What you did was fine, but it did not *feel* honorable because we, as a society, have some antiquated thoughts about what it means to be manly. In my book, and you know me to be a Christian, my model of manliness is Christ and his giving up his life for the sake of others. I think about the idea of sacrifice a lot as it pertains to men and women, and I think, as I have a husband and two sons (21, 19) that the first thing that one needs to sacrifice is one’s ego. That is the first true step to being a man. And Samuel and David, you both seem to me to be good men.
Zina, Thanks for such a thoughtful comment. (Although I may now have to dissuade my brother from forcing me to call him "Achilles!")
As I read the comments, especially yours, it becomes clear that I was brought up with certain ideas of what it is to be a "man," and that some of them are antiquated and dangerous.
it's interesting to think of the role of a warrior-protector as an ideal that has rare purchase or purpose today. The role of a provider, however, is still very much with us even as the educational attainments of women increasingly outpace men.
I have witnessed the utterly brutal consequences of a fight - the rapidly swelling bruises rendering a face unrecognizable, the split eyelids and lips needing stitching, the strangle marks needing close monitoring in case the bruised airway swells shut, the stab wounds needing prolonged treatment. Most common trigger of such ugly results? Alcohol. You were wise to run.
John, you are not one for mincing words! I suppose the fact that I would have had to act to remove myself from the conflict in the seats was part of why I intervened. But if I had to do it over I would have removed myself.
Yes, there is physical violence and psychological, emotional violence. Perhaps the class difference in physical violence is a shift of educated males toward psychological violence. As the old saying goes: "Revenge is best served cold..."
Thanks for your comment, Autumn. I'm left thinking that a propensity to being involved in physical violence is really hard to pin down to any one criterion. And nastiness is, unfortunately, everywhere in all its forms, especially among children and teens. I can remember being both prey and predator as a teen in terms of nastiness. Perhaps everyone can.
I had to fight a few times because there was nowhere to run and then I caused a couple of fights because of drinking and jealousy. Another time I picked a fight urged on by teenage friends and got whooped.
When I was seven or eight an older boy whipped me with a six piece of hose. I went and got my older brother who took the hose away from him and hit hi a few times before he ran away.
If you can avoid a fight I think you should. If you are drunk it is stupid, for one thing you are at a disadvantage and you are not in your right mind. Second you could hurt yourself or someone else very badly. A stadium with concrete, steel, corners and asphalt to hit your head on is not a safe place to fight.
Every situation is different of course. Flight or fight?
Sober now and fight free too. I will appeal or try to appease now first.
Hope your ribs are better.
Curious if you fall into Rob Henderson’s stats. Glad you’re ok. 🙏
Thanks McDude.
Great points. But then there are all those stories of someone in trouble and NYers (or any big city) walking by, ignoring the scene or videotaping it for social media.
Thanks Isabel. Yes, there is definitely absurdity and we're lucky to laugh about it.
I watched "The Accountant" on an international flight recently, and I think it captures a masculine fantasy about being both intellectually and physically dominant. Ben Affleck's character (Christian Wolff) is autistic, so his weakness is social skills, but in nearly every other respect he is no different from the Wild West gunslinger who never backs down from a fight: so formidable that even a fleet of elite mercenaries can't stop him. He can also process 15 years worth of financial transactions in a single evening.
It's an action film, so perhaps I'm asking more of it than I ought to, but you might say that the film fails to interrogate a key moment: when Christian and his father visit his mother's wake at the home of her second husband. A fight breaks out, Christian's father and a police officer are killed, and Christian goes to prison. While he is a bad-ass, and his criminal bad-assery is the anchor of the film, one might say that his life of crime stems from that one bad decision.
I remember that movie and remember not making it through to the end. In real life, a talented but corrupt accountant can cause a whole lot of damage.
I guess that fantasy is what propelled the James Bond franchise and its imitators: sophisticated wit combined with physical and driving prowess.
My father was a very educated and intellectual man, quiet and gentle and purehearted. He usually tried to avoid conflict. Sometimes if my mom said something that hurt me, I would ask him, why are you not standing up for me? But he knew that we shouldn’t cause lasting damage for feelings that come and go. Fighting is easy. Taking a step back to prioritize your safety and that of others is more manly and noble to me.
Thanks Ramya. Your father had a lot of wisdom.
"The average football game lasts about three hours. The ball is in play for only about 18 minutes."
Surfing is a lot like that. I think you made the right choice. Even if you know how to fight, or if you've been in fights got lucky haven't yet lost ... still the best, safest move is to avoid fighting, retreat. Contact can get you killed.
Thank G-d you’re okay. What an awful experience. I’m so sorry you were caught in the middle. Fans can become dangerous. There have been too many news stories over the years of a fan being beaten into a coma or lost his life. You reacted on instinct. It’s tough to be rational when emotions are riled.
Hello David, as a trained martial artist (judo, boxing, wrestling, ju-jitsu) I have never been in a fight either. I have broken some up, but luckily I have never had to use what I have learned in a real-time situation. But say, I was confronted with the same situation as you, I would follow the advice of my Buddhist Teacher, who was a black belt in Karate, and the advice of Navy Seal Jocko Willink. When Jocko was asked about being confronted in a street fight, he said, "I'm going to run away. I don't want to get involved...you want to fight me, I don't care if I can beat or or not, what if you stab me, what if you sue me after I smash you on the concrete? There is almost a million bad things can happen and nothing good... My first self-defense is my feet to get away from you." So, this is from a battle hardened Navy Seal. My Buddhist teacher said when asked about fighting, "Unless it was your goal to get into a fight that day, avoid all confrontations, even when you know you can win. Calm your anger, keep your big ego at bay, and walk away...fast." So you are in good company. Of course the funniest story of me stopping a fight was in college when my found my drunk and stupid ass fraternity brothers yelling at a behemoth of a man. That man was fellow North Jersey Boy and future All-Pro Jet's Tackle, Dave Szott. (Great to meet another Jets fan!!) I knew Dave as not only was he football star, but a state champion heavyweight wrestler, but my Uncle Jack Jones coached him in football. He was visiting his girl friend at my College and somehow my brothers got into it with him. As he approached to crush them all, I got in his way and look up as he was almost a foot bigger than me and I said, "Dave, I'm Chris Jones, Coach Jones' nephew, come on, let's get out of here." The giant of a man glared down at me and gave me a look like, "Okay, you I won't kill..." He then picked me up off the ground like a child and put me aside. I once again jumped in front of him and convinced him to walk away, as his girlfriend and I like too little children at his massive arms pulling him away. It is a whole lot funnier now than it was at the moment. :)
Here is the link to the Jocko video https://www.tiktok.com/@artatesvideoeditor/video/7152007396984884481
Thanks Chris . Get story. And I just watched the video. Made me feel better!
As Jet fans I think we suffer enough without having to get into a brawl at a game. BTW I’m a season ticket holder and I was at the “Butt Bowl” game. When you mentioned Sanchez, all I could think about was that catastrophe! 🤦🏻♂️
So many catastrophes to choose from, but that one retains a certain piquancy.
I remember that Seal advice. It made real sense to me. To bad it reached me after I had done my fighting.
I grew up in what pass for “elite” environments in New Orleans and have been in plenty of fights. I think I’ve lost most of them, and the older I got the more of them I lost: time winnows the number of men stupid enough to fight without knowing how to fight, such that by college most of the scraps I had were with dudes who easily whooped me. I’m little and angry, the classic moron type known to all who drink: I mistake the intensity of my prideful anger for physical capability. In my mind, at 43, my anger is still a “force,” when it is in fact the opposite, a weakness. I learned to box to try and get some discipline, but I was never going to be much of a problem for people.
I do think you learn things from fights, such as “the limits of the mental world” or “the irrelevance of concepts or claims” in some quarters. Knowing violent people changes your model of “the root causes of violence” for sure; plenty of them aren’t victims of any sort, plenty of them straight up love violence. I had that in me, and if I weren’t a weak little guy I’d have been a monster and possibly substantially criminal.
I don’t know that you missed any lesson you couldn’t more easily read though, honestly. I’m still reactive and would’ve intervened with the woman and the sign for sure. I’m foolish, but honor cultures pride themselves on foolishness, and I have to admit to doing the same. The strongest defense of this I’ll make is: a lot of people benefit from some people being willing to take on risk to enforce norms. I’m inclined to be that norm enforcer sometimes, and I’m okay with the possibilities, even in New Orleans, where lots of people are armed.
Mills, thanks for the comment and your perspective. It would have been hard not to intervene since I was right in the path of the fracas.
I’m an alcoholic. I got beat up by a drug dealer on Bourbon Street and had my arm broken. That was two years ago and I haven’t had a drink since.
I also experienced shame; perhaps for different reasons than the author. Nevertheless, I’ve started Jui Jitsu and I can honestly state that I fight five nights a week now.
Luxury beliefs, like drug use, are beliefs that are costsless for the holder but impose larger costs on the rest of society.
One good example of a luxury belief is drug use.
If I use drugs, who else does it hurt?
A society that condones, encourages and even promotes drug and alcohol use disproportionally disadvantage poor people. And, people with mental illness.
Tim:
Whenever I hear someone ask who else is hurt if someone uses drugs I am reminded of visiting the Coca growing regions of Peru when I lived there. The workers in the refining process, who are all poor when they start the job, have a life expectancy of two years as a result of the harsh chemicals used to turn the leaf into a white powder.
You are a superb story-teller and terrific with words that are surprisingly descriptive. I could see this drama as if it were a movie on my mental screen, complete with sound and fury. As for being a fighter, I am not. I am a pacifist, have been since 6th grade when Kenny Shurret said he wanted to fight me and would beat me up. I said, no, I was not interested. I prefer peaceful, non-violent behaviors whether with a few people or a large crowd. "Wars (little and big) "are dangerous for children and other living things." Poster from 1967, quote by Lorraine Schneider.
David...has anyone ever suggested that just maybe you tend to overthink things? Let's deal with Rob Henderson first. The quote is idiotic. That means educated people never play football, box, rehab a torn ACL, or recover from surgery. They all hurt...a lot. I have a PhD, played football and NYC street basketball for years, and box five days a week. I am told I still have knockout power in my right in my 70s. I have almost never been in a fight and would likely not have engaged baldy either. I might have faced him down a bit differently, but would have done anything necessary to avoid a fight. To be honest, after avoiding the fight, there would have been a side of me that regretted it and just a teeny voice telling me I had been afraid. But I've played violent sports enough to know that you are SUPPOSED to be afraid. Yeah, yeah, there's that part of primal manhood that tells you never back down, never run away, never give into fear. People who have been in combat will tell you that those are the ones who usually get killed or wounded first.
Writer=over thinker, does it not?
I guess fear is a survival trait in more cases than not.
Uh, no. Writer should = clear thinker. And your overthinking seems always in the direction of your own perceived flaws--not good looking, not brave, not sufficiently humble about your good fortune, not sufficiently sensitive to the plight of others. Here's a homework assignment--you next piece should...after overthinking...conclude, "Hey, I'm a pretty damn good guy." 😎
His over-thinking is why I follow him.
His over-thinking is why I follow him.
Hm. I think the difference is sports have rules and referees to try to keep it fair. A real world fight has no rules and can leave you bleeding out like the poor young guy David mentioned.
That's true, of course, but it goes both ways, which is why people who are trained in martial arts will do anything to avoid a fight with some jerk, drunk or sober. Bottom line here is conflict between prudence and feeling the need to prove something. The former almost never gets you in trouble and latter almost always does.
The most accurate predictor of whether someone gets involved in physical altercations is, of course, their sex. With rare exceptions, women just don’t! Which leads me to believe it’s not so much a class thing or an education thing or a nurture thing as a hormonal thing.
Anne,
You are right. about gender and violence. And in this story it is certainly the man who is the aggressor in tearing up the sign. I didn't mention or think about it because I take it for granted, but I'm glad you pointed it out.
You were completely right not to fight. Thirty years in the criminal defense arena and people have percolated (not always my clients) and I have avoided being physically assaulted several times. The hell with reacting. You would probably more embarassed if you fought and got hurt. Such matters are to be avoided at all costs. However, in my personal world, I've been confrontational with men in public wearing white supremacist apparel but only if there was a uniformed police officer in sight, and the perp was small in size. My children were mortified. Now they tell others about that. You did great by your son. Be well.
Thanks Sharon for the comment.
I've been involved two fights as an adult.
Late 90s, as I was leaving a bar with my then- girlfriend/ now wife, Dani, after she played a gig at a lower east side dive, a very drunk guy, who was with equally drunk friends, stepped between us and the exit and said something leering to Dani. We tried to keep moving but the guy wouldn't be ignored, he kept partially blocking our exit. I used my hand to try to get him to move - same gesture and force one would use to clear a face level branch on a hike - at which point he said "f-ing nigg-s" (Dani is Black and the friend we were with was dark skinned Hispanic). I then shoved him. He then hit me pretty lightly in the face. I grabbed him by the throat and threw him up against the bar. I remember having what felt like his Adams apple in the hard 'C' of my thumb amd forefinger and thinking with weird clarity that it wouldn't be that hard to crush his windpipe. I felt... exhilaration. Then one of his friends hit me in the back of the head with something, I released, and our group of three got out of there, lots more yelling, racial slurs, no one hurt. I look back on those seconds when my hand gripped a stranger's throat - I don't recognize myself in that moment, but I cannot deny the weird admixtures of both thrill and curiosity.
[2] In late 2017, after a work party, I had words with a severely intoxicated now-ex parole judge. We were introduced to each other at the party and instantly disliked each other. The dislike abated somewhat over the next couple of hours but resurfaced at the party's end, when we were milling outside the venue.
I said something taunting to him, he said something very weird and threatening to me, and the next thing I remember, I awoke in an ambulance. The incident was captured on video and was witnessed by friends. The drunken judge suckerpunched me with a vicious right hook. I fell backwards, hit my head on the sidewalk, and lost consciousness. The judge - who weighed about 325 lbs - lost his balance on his follow through and fell on me. The collarbone connevting tendons in my right shoulder were permanently torn as a result. Otherwise, I was fine. There remains my deformed shoulder and a picture of me in the Daily News with a nasty black eye.
[3] In both these instances, I got really really lucky. Incident #1 - had I squeezed harder and longer, had the guy's friend not hit me with something, I could have seriously injured or even killed the stranger. Over pretty much nothing. Manslaughter plea, years of prison, no career as a public defender, no beloved daughter. (But maybe a substack about what life in and after prison is like?? Sparks from Sing Sing!). Incident #2 - I could have had my skull fractured and been vegetable-ized. In both incidents, I had consumed a fair amount of alcohol, and my adversaries considerably more. Had we all been sober, I'm convinced neither would have happened. It's interesting and appropriate that under NY law, in a claim of self defense, to introduce evidence of a victim's past violence or aggressive nature, the defendant must have known about such violence or aggression.for a jury to hear about it. Otherwise, even if the victim had killed five people in the past, if the defendant didnt know about it, it is not admissible. But if the victim was intoxicated, that fact is admissible regardless of a defnedant's knowledge - because courts recognize thar people just act differently (i.e. worse!) when under the influence of alcohol and certain drugs. All of the cass of stranger assault I've handled as a defense attorneys that I can recall involved intoxication, usually on the part of both defendant and conplainant/victim.
[4] There is a great, great book by Bill Buford, Among the Thugs, that ties together themes of violence, class, and sports - specifically the orgiastically violent escapades of soccer hooligans in late 70s/early 80s Great Britain. Buford himself, though educated and obviously super smart and thoughtful, was seduced into this culture, and much of this incredibly entertaining and scary book is occupied by his attempts to understand the nature of that seduction. The characters in this memoir make Baldy look like Rachel Maddow.
Interesting distinction about being the self-defender not needing to know the victim is drunk. So by drinking you allow an assailant to react more violently to your provocation in a legal sense.
I never knew the windpipe story!
Samuel, Thank you for sharing your stories. When I was reading that first one, and the exhilaration you felt when you had the man’s throat, I could not help but think about The Iliad and the rage of Achilles, an anger that is so fierce it is practically a character in the story itself. The Iliad and The Odyssey are ancient stories that speak to the idea of masculinity and what it means to be a man (among many other themes that are worth discussing). This rage, the power of holding another persons life in your hands, is one that in the end of the Iliad comes under control of the hero. However, there is much horrific killing during the whole poem. I am still figuring out what to make of Homer’s epic, even after so many readings.
And David, to speak to your story a bit, I think you see from the comments that you did the right thing. It is always better to escape from a fight. In violent altercations you never have winners, you only have losers. It is just that one side wants the other to lose much, much worse. The gains of ego or material or whatever are temporal. The thing is that what your post speaks to is more of a philosophical one and not a practical one. Namely it asks of you (and only you seeing as I think Andrew and many other people are not agonizing over this): “Am I the man I say I am?” Quite simply, one of the ways we judge our moral and ethical selves is by comparing our actions to our stated beliefs of ourselves.
In a sense I think the subtext of your post is: “I believe I am good man, a good father, a defender of women. A good man is brave and yet I ran from a fight. I left my son defenseless. I failed to confront a threat to public safety. I ran away and hid, and therefore, am I a coward?” If you stood your ground and defended yourself you would have been a good man but could have been potentially hurt so badly that you were disabled or killed. I will say for the record that I think that an equally good man is one who escapes a no-win situation (again I believe that violence is a losing game as I stated above). A good man knows when to exercise prudence and escape with his son unharmed. What you did was fine, but it did not *feel* honorable because we, as a society, have some antiquated thoughts about what it means to be manly. In my book, and you know me to be a Christian, my model of manliness is Christ and his giving up his life for the sake of others. I think about the idea of sacrifice a lot as it pertains to men and women, and I think, as I have a husband and two sons (21, 19) that the first thing that one needs to sacrifice is one’s ego. That is the first true step to being a man. And Samuel and David, you both seem to me to be good men.
Zina, Thanks for such a thoughtful comment. (Although I may now have to dissuade my brother from forcing me to call him "Achilles!")
As I read the comments, especially yours, it becomes clear that I was brought up with certain ideas of what it is to be a "man," and that some of them are antiquated and dangerous.
it's interesting to think of the role of a warrior-protector as an ideal that has rare purchase or purpose today. The role of a provider, however, is still very much with us even as the educational attainments of women increasingly outpace men.
I have witnessed the utterly brutal consequences of a fight - the rapidly swelling bruises rendering a face unrecognizable, the split eyelids and lips needing stitching, the strangle marks needing close monitoring in case the bruised airway swells shut, the stab wounds needing prolonged treatment. Most common trigger of such ugly results? Alcohol. You were wise to run.
Holly, it does seem like alcohol is the thing that binds all these incidents together. Thanks for the comment.