“There is nothing metaphysical about getting punched in the face.”

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Great, strange Chuck Klosterman essay in this month’s Esquire about Norman Mailer, the demise of boxing, fight or flight and, to my great delight, my pet theory that people are rude (and have been getting ruder for decades) because they’re sure you won’t punch them.

From the piece:

“It is impossible to deny that the culture is coarsening. Everyone concedes this — even the people who are happy about it. It is now acceptable to say almost anything, about almost anyone, in a public space, and for no reason whatsoever. There is no line to step over, because such lines no longer exist. And I think those boundaries disappeared the moment people really, truly lost the fear of getting punched in the face. Americans have understood this intellectually for decades, but I don’t think we accepted it in totality until now. Adults are now so insulated by technology (and so protected by modernity) that the possibility of a physical consequence for any action is a psychological nonfactor. We have removed interpersonal fear from day-to-day behavior. Today, boxers are the only people who get hit for fucking up.”

People always think I’m crazy when I say this, but it has always seemed wrong to me that all sorts of behaviors that once would have been thought to be incalculably rude have become almost commonplace in the society but it has become almost unthinkable that you would hit someone for any reason. As someone once said, civilized men are coarser than barbarians because they know they can be rude without having their heads split open, as a general thing.

Even recreational boxing — when I used to box, it was like telling people I enjoyed rape and murder as hobbies. Boxing (and maybe wrestling) are the human sport urge to physically excel and dominate stripped of its dressings - no balls, no goals, no pretty uniforms. Just two people deciding which is physically superior. And for some reason the very idea of that scares the hell out of a lot of people these days.

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Filed under Boxing, Journalism