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I can certainly see why someone would find the entire story disgusting, and the point isn't to imply fights are fun tests of machoness. The point is not to esca

by qrendel 11y ago

I can certainly see why someone would find the entire story disgusting, and the point isn't to imply fights are fun tests of machoness. The point is not to escalate a fight if you're going to lose it anyway. To continue your example, if someone had chosen to threaten lethal force, they would have been escalating it yet again, and may have just as well ended up getting killed themselves. (For example, if the other person had an armed group of friends nearby.) The entire hypothetical thing is an example of how things can get out of hand really fast. The main reason I brought it up was that a lot of people think of eye gouges and groin shots as a "get out of jail free" card in a fight, and doing so has a good chance of getting them seriously hurt against someone who will not be stopped by it. That aside, I certainly agree with this part: >This is why you avoid fights in civilized society, and disengage as quickly as possible if you cannot.

logfromblammo 11y ago
You can't de-escalate a fight unilaterally. You can try to surrender. But if you tap out and the guy keeps hurting you, what do you do? Let him? Way to go, Gandhi, but you're still bound for the hospital. In certain fights, surrender may be equivalent to suicide. You would need to know something about the character of your opponent, when you are probably only acquainted with his fists. If you are in actual fear for your life, you should be trying to incapacitate your opponent by any means at your disposal, whether it is likely to piss him off [more] or not. What would he do? Beat you to death twice? Since escalation can be unilateral, and de-escalation is usually not, that produces a ratcheting effect that few people can afford to crank up. You never know if the other guy is going to be a grand-master fighter. Or a psycho. Or both. I stand by my opinion that beating on a guy who is already defenseless represents an escalation, and the loser is not able to meaningfully de-escalate from there.

by qrendel 11y ago

logfromblammo 11y ago

You can't de-escalate a fight unilaterally. You can try to surrender. But if you tap out and the guy keeps hurting you, what do you do? Let him? Way to go, Gandhi, but you're still bound for the hospital. In certain fights, surrender may be equivalent to suicide. You would need to know something about the character of your opponent, when you are probably only acquainted with his fists. If you are in actual fear for your life, you should be trying to incapacitate your opponent by any means at your disposal, whether it is likely to piss him off [more] or not. What would he do? Beat you to death twice? Since escalation can be unilateral, and de-escalation is usually not, that produces a ratcheting effect that few people can afford to crank up. You never know if the other guy is going to be a grand-master fighter. Or a psycho. Or both. I stand by my opinion that beating on a guy who is already defenseless represents an escalation, and the loser is not able to meaningfully de-escalate from there.