A friend of mine, who is not any kind of martial artist, recently expressed during the course of one of our many conversations a point of view that is all too common.\u00a0 It is treated as axiomatic by most people and even among the vast majority of martial artists and sports contestants.<\/p>\n
The viewpoint is this:<\/p>\n
Warriors, i.e. those who engage in potentially mortal combat, must be athletic<\/em>, i.e. muscular, agile, quick, big, and strong.\u00a0 Presumably, then, warriors must be relatively young, and they must be men, for the young, generally speaking, are more athletic than the old and men, generally speaking, have all of these physical advantages over women.<\/p>\n It is unquestionably the case that, in a confrontation, power, size, and speed militate in favor of those who possess them over and against those who do not.\u00a0 My friend, it became clear to me, wrongly assumed, as the vast majority of contemporary inhabitants of the Western world (and beyond) assume, that these traits are decisive<\/em> advantages.\u00a0 They are not.<\/p>\n There were still other presuppositions that were being made by my friend during the course of our exchange.\u00a0 While referring to a childhood acquaintance of his who, at 40-ish, is now a Navy SEAL and in prime physical condition, my friend remarked that he would bet anything that on any day this guy who he has known for decades would \u201ctake\u201d anyone in a \u201cfight.\u201d<\/p>\n It became clear to me immediately that, understandably, my friend\u2019s thought is the product of a conventional paradigm that in turn has been shaped by a number of influences of which neither he nor most others who have imbibed it are aware.<\/p>\n Those who fail to see beyond this paradigm fail to grasp the insight around which the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes developed his whole philosophy way back in the 17th<\/sup> century:<\/p>\n \u201cNature hath made men so equal, in the faculties of the body, and mind; as that though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind than another; yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man, and man, is no so considerable, as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit, to which another may not pretend, as well as he.\u201d<\/p>\n Intellectually speaking, this means that there is actually considerable parity between men, \u201cfor prudence, is but experience; which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto.\u201d<\/p>\n When it comes to physical strength, Hobbes is blunt when declaring that \u201cthe weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest<\/em>\u201d (emphases added).<\/p>\n Those whose minds are locked within the conventional paradigm can\u2019t see what Hobbes knew because the very logic of the conventional paradigm precludes it.\u00a0 This paradigm derives from many sources:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n (1)STATISM<\/strong><\/p>\n Doubtless, the mystique that has been constructed around the State has brainwashed no generation as much as the present one into thinking that only commissioned State (government) actors\u2014\u201cExperts\u201d\u2014can capably, legitimately use violence, and only ever in ways and against those targets that these same \u201cExperts\u201d deem proper.<\/p>\n Statism would be recognized as the cult of sorts that it is had the guardians of its orthodoxy not been as stupendously successful as they\u2019ve in fact been at hypnotizing untold numbers of people into accepting its myths and dogmas (like its Wolf-Sheep-Sheepdog doctrine).<\/p>\n In short, Statism has conditioned people into thinking that it is impermissible and maybe even impossible for anyone who doesn\u2019t wear uniforms and symbols of State power to competently exercise violence against those who threaten them.<\/p>\n Statism has habituated people into believing that only State actors can be warriors<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n (2)Fighting as SPORT<\/strong><\/p>\n Statism has led to this second development.<\/p>\n In the modern world, the \u201cmartial\u201d (meaning of, or pertaining to, war<\/em>) has been excised from the martial<\/em> arts as training for war<\/em> has given way to training for competition <\/em>(whether in class, the gym, tournaments, matches, etc.).<\/p>\n In other words, the training modality of martial artists (along with that of boxers, wrestlers, etc.) is predicated upon a number of assumptions concerning their opponents and a host of other circumstances regarding their fights that they can count upon in advance:<\/p>\n (a)Those who train in a martial or pugilistic sport know that they will square off against a single opponent;<\/p>\n (b)They know their opponent\u2019s track record, his weight, height, reach, his strengths and his weaknesses;<\/p>\n (c)They know exactly the date, the time, and the place of their confrontation, and they know as well the kind of terrain on which it will transpire;<\/p>\n (d)Regarding (c), they know specifically that they will fight in a well-lit ring and on a smooth, flat mat free of rocks, pot holes, curbs, broken glass, and all manner of other debris;<\/p>\n (e)In knowing (d), they know that their match will occur under room temperature and that they will not have to worry about rain, sleet, snow, hale, and so forth;<\/p>\n (f)They know that their opponent will not be under the influence of mind-altering drugs;<\/p>\n (g) They know that absolutely no (artificial) weapons will be permitted;<\/p>\n (h)They know that they are forbidden from executing dozens <\/em>of kinds of strikes and kicks that are simply too dangerous;<\/p>\n (i)Concerning (h), they know that they are forbidden from maiming and killing<\/em> their opponents.<\/p>\n All of these suppositions are conspicuously absent from the training modality of warriors, those who train for combat on the battlefield, yes, but as well those who train for the purpose of self-protection and the protection of innocents within their proximity who are preyed upon by violent criminals.<\/p>\n Yet Statist dogma permits citizens who it doesn\u2019t commission to use violence on its behalf opportunities to engage in violence as long as they do so within the constellation of safety regulations peculiar to sports or games.<\/p>\n (3)Misuse of the term \u201cWARRIOR\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n This should be sufficiently self-explanatory.\u00a0 The conjunction of (1) and (2) has led to an indiscriminate use of the term \u201cwarrior\u201d with respect to anyone who has been masterful in virtually any endeavor, whether physical in nature or not.\u00a0 Practitioners of combat sports, <\/em>certainly, but as well weightlifters, those who partake of aerobic exercise, and even those who pray faithfully, survive cancer, and simply prevail over travails in their lives have all been referred to as \u201cwarriors<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n There is no small number of good things that can be said about such folks.\u00a0 And while a warrior should embody virtues that transcend those that make him a master of crushing into oblivion human predators, no one is a literal warrior who doesn\u2019t train to accomplish the latter.<\/p>\n Real warriors, in other words, train to kill the enemy.\u00a0 Inasmuch as the kinds of people listed above partake of no such training, they are not, strictly and literally speaking, warriors.<\/p>\n This means that they are not<\/em> warriors.<\/p>\n (4)Media ENTERTAINMENT<\/strong><\/p>\n Tens and tens of thousands of hours of imbibing film, television, and video game depictions of violence have led most people into thinking that real world violence is as choreographed as any of these fictional fights.\u00a0 They\u2019ve also led people into thinking that there is nothing in the least impractical about the telegraphed<\/em> nature of the strikes involved in these confrontations.<\/p>\n The flashiness, the pizazz, the coolness of the male (and, with ever-increasing frequency, female<\/em>) characters who thrill audiences with their theatrical moves have no counterparts in the real world.\u00a0 The sights of Hutus hacking to pieces with their machetes Tutsi men, women, and children; Islamic terrorists beheading on live television hostages who they have declared \u201cinfidels\u201d; Imperial Japan burying Chinese captives up to their necks and then unleashing vicious dogs to eat their faces; gang rapists penetrating their victims with crude instruments in every bodily orifice before shooting them in their heads and setting their bodies on fire\u2014there are many adjectives that we can think of to describe these acts of violence, but \u201cflashy\u201d and \u201ccool\u201d aren\u2019t among them.<\/p>\n Warriors train for real world violence, to defeat, to demolish these types of agents of wickedness, these human predators.\u00a0\u00a0 And \u201ccool\u201d has got nothing to do with it.<\/p>\n