5 ms·

It's interesting to see the comments here on HN. It's like a compression of all the various things I've seen people talk about with martial arts. The same argum

by hosh 10y ago

It's interesting to see the comments here on HN. It's like a compression of all the various things I've seen people talk about with martial arts. The same arguments, the same assumptions. There isn't really anything insightful. It tells me that as a society, we still have not figured out the role of martial arts.

ghiotion 10y ago
eye roll Ok, please enlighten us. What's the role of martial arts in a society?
- hosh 10y ago
  Why are you asking that in a sarcastic, contemptuous tone?
  - ghiotion 10y ago
    Because your original comment offered a contemptuous, know-it-all tone devoid of any meaningful content. It's kind of a shitty feeling, isn't it?
    - hosh 10y ago
      Uh, no. You took it upon yourself to be some kind of a hero with this and projected meanings that are not there. I don't feel shitty about your sarcasm and contempt, though I understand that you would like it if I somehow feel some suffering here over it. However, argumentation by contempt is not a persuasive rhetorical technique. I asked you why, to see whether you understand your own motivations. Setting aside the posturing and seriously answering what you asked: I don't have an answer to "what is the role of martial art in modern society". Lots of people have asked that. I see people who have answered "what is the role of martial art in my life" to their satisfaction, but nothing is clear about the role of martial art in the modern society. I notice when discussion goes around in circles -- the same pattern of arguments that happen across the years over different forums. For example, TMA vs MMA; what is reality-based or evidence-based fighting; whether you really need to be able to fight on the streets. There are also whole swathes of modernist anachronistic views that don't jive with traditional teachings (even if traditional teachings appears out-moded in modern societies).
      - dang 10y ago
        ghiotion's comments were abusive, but your root comment wasn't great either, since it merely put others down without providing any information. If you have greater knowledge and want to comment here, it's better to teach us something (e.g. about martial arts) instead of just saying how much we don't know.
        hosh 10y ago
        @dang it isn't as if I have the answers. I wasn't just referring to how people on the internet don't have this answer. This has been a discussion going on for several centuries (literally; for example, Japanese budo in the 19th century), and no one has really come up with great answers, and I include people that are smarter than me. See my discussion with @jtolmar at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12354286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12354286 if you want to see something more productive. As I said: you guys think I am putting people down. I'm not. I'm asking people to step back and really look at how the discourse has been going in circles. I'd also like to say: while @ghiotion's remarks seems to have violated the customs of of Hacker News, it's on par with the customs on forums specifically for martial arts. It gets crazy, up to and including people deciding to back their arguments by issuing physical challenges (how many of those actually materialize, I don't know). I've also looked through some of @ghiotion's comment history, and the tone of that comment seems like an outlier. Something about discussing martial arts brings out the aggression in people, worse than flamewars about tech or video games. It's as is to have rhetorical credibility, people feel they have to back it up with their capability for violence. My root comment was as much an observation of my own fatigue of this as anything. And no, I don't have an insight about this either. (Though I kinda wonder if I studied the philosophy of mimetic violence, it would help clarify why this happens).
        dang 10y ago
        Ok, points taken.
jtolmar 10y ago
It's interesting seeing everyone immediately sort themselves by their assumptions and then argue in those clusters. Are martial arts supposed to be a way to defend yourself? A competitive sport? A way to stay in shape? Some sort of artistry? These are all valid questions, and different martial arts answer different ones. Capoeira is worse than useless as a fighting technique, but entirely viable as a way to stay in shape and express yourself. Olympic-rules Tae Kwon Do is an excellent competitive sport that doesn't have much in common with versions of Tae Kwon Do taught for self-defense. But because we're not agreeing on goals here we get the usual debates about whether MMA is the most effective way to hurt someone. Which has always sounded silly to me: we're talking about a sport. Using just your feet isn't the most effective way to get a ball into a net, but soccer is still a better sport than it would be if players picked up the ball and ran.
- hosh 10y ago
  I kinda wonder if internet discussions around martial arts are the way they are because practitioners (whatever their motivations) tends to posture / step up to challenges more. Japanese budo went through a similar decline and soul-searching when the samurai went on the decline, and modernization went on the rise. Sure, there was that guy (forgot his name) who wrote this beautiful fiction to try to sell Westerners on the ideas of Japanese culture, only to have it adopted by the emerging nation-state of Japan to drum up nationalist fervor. And then there are works like, _The Demon's Sermon on the Martial Arts_, an awesome book even if it was not written by a practitioner. A older martial brother put it this way: the idea of the Second Amendment where you can take up arms against a modern, tyrannical government is a dream. Modern technology will overwhelmingly flatten any attempts at that. This is a guy who served in the armed forces, practiced the same Chinese martial arts I do, in addition to Aikido. At one point, he was pitching Aikido to a local Montessori school as a "means for resolving conflict", and he does not mean it in the militaristic fantasizing-being-a-badass way where "resolving conflict" is a euphemism for beating the shit out of someone. It echoes what Scott Meredith mentions -- martial arts, even MMA, does not work well against modern and near-future weapon technologies. So what's the point of practicing if one is motivated by some fantasy of being able "defend oneself?" I've been able to answer "what is the role of martial arts in my life." Among the key lessons are things like _grit_, and identifying how violence can be used through words and emotions. One of the martial teachers I respect (he is dead now) wrote about the connection between rhetorics and the deeper teachings of martial arts. Being able to keep cool and skillfully navigate through intense emotions that arises while people are shouting at each other seems more useful in the modern world than fantasizing, or even knowing a practitioner can break someone's bones. I had been poking around at different philosopher's writings about this. Ken Wilber points to a different philosopher (I forgot the name) about modernity. That view on modernity is a fairly good description of what happens with anything traditional. The modernist (and post-modernist) view tends to deny some of the things learned in the traditions. Some folks have been finding that this is not working out very well for us. We're not a happy society, despite having access to medications, economic prosperity (for some of us), and technological conveniences. Our ancestral traditions are lost, trying to find a new place in our modern world. We need them as much as they need us.

by hosh 10y ago

ghiotion 10y ago

eye roll Ok, please enlighten us. What's the role of martial arts in a society?

hosh 10y ago
Why are you asking that in a sarcastic, contemptuous tone?
- ghiotion 10y ago
  Because your original comment offered a contemptuous, know-it-all tone devoid of any meaningful content. It's kind of a shitty feeling, isn't it?
  - hosh 10y ago
    Uh, no. You took it upon yourself to be some kind of a hero with this and projected meanings that are not there. I don't feel shitty about your sarcasm and contempt, though I understand that you would like it if I somehow feel some suffering here over it. However, argumentation by contempt is not a persuasive rhetorical technique. I asked you why, to see whether you understand your own motivations. Setting aside the posturing and seriously answering what you asked: I don't have an answer to "what is the role of martial art in modern society". Lots of people have asked that. I see people who have answered "what is the role of martial art in my life" to their satisfaction, but nothing is clear about the role of martial art in the modern society. I notice when discussion goes around in circles -- the same pattern of arguments that happen across the years over different forums. For example, TMA vs MMA; what is reality-based or evidence-based fighting; whether you really need to be able to fight on the streets. There are also whole swathes of modernist anachronistic views that don't jive with traditional teachings (even if traditional teachings appears out-moded in modern societies).
    - dang 10y ago
      ghiotion's comments were abusive, but your root comment wasn't great either, since it merely put others down without providing any information. If you have greater knowledge and want to comment here, it's better to teach us something (e.g. about martial arts) instead of just saying how much we don't know.
      - hosh 10y ago
        @dang it isn't as if I have the answers. I wasn't just referring to how people on the internet don't have this answer. This has been a discussion going on for several centuries (literally; for example, Japanese budo in the 19th century), and no one has really come up with great answers, and I include people that are smarter than me. See my discussion with @jtolmar at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12354286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12354286 if you want to see something more productive. As I said: you guys think I am putting people down. I'm not. I'm asking people to step back and really look at how the discourse has been going in circles. I'd also like to say: while @ghiotion's remarks seems to have violated the customs of of Hacker News, it's on par with the customs on forums specifically for martial arts. It gets crazy, up to and including people deciding to back their arguments by issuing physical challenges (how many of those actually materialize, I don't know). I've also looked through some of @ghiotion's comment history, and the tone of that comment seems like an outlier. Something about discussing martial arts brings out the aggression in people, worse than flamewars about tech or video games. It's as is to have rhetorical credibility, people feel they have to back it up with their capability for violence. My root comment was as much an observation of my own fatigue of this as anything. And no, I don't have an insight about this either. (Though I kinda wonder if I studied the philosophy of mimetic violence, it would help clarify why this happens).
        dang 10y ago
        Ok, points taken.

jtolmar 10y ago

It's interesting seeing everyone immediately sort themselves by their assumptions and then argue in those clusters. Are martial arts supposed to be a way to defend yourself? A competitive sport? A way to stay in shape? Some sort of artistry? These are all valid questions, and different martial arts answer different ones. Capoeira is worse than useless as a fighting technique, but entirely viable as a way to stay in shape and express yourself. Olympic-rules Tae Kwon Do is an excellent competitive sport that doesn't have much in common with versions of Tae Kwon Do taught for self-defense. But because we're not agreeing on goals here we get the usual debates about whether MMA is the most effective way to hurt someone. Which has always sounded silly to me: we're talking about a sport. Using just your feet isn't the most effective way to get a ball into a net, but soccer is still a better sport than it would be if players picked up the ball and ran.

hosh 10y ago
I kinda wonder if internet discussions around martial arts are the way they are because practitioners (whatever their motivations) tends to posture / step up to challenges more. Japanese budo went through a similar decline and soul-searching when the samurai went on the decline, and modernization went on the rise. Sure, there was that guy (forgot his name) who wrote this beautiful fiction to try to sell Westerners on the ideas of Japanese culture, only to have it adopted by the emerging nation-state of Japan to drum up nationalist fervor. And then there are works like, _The Demon's Sermon on the Martial Arts_, an awesome book even if it was not written by a practitioner. A older martial brother put it this way: the idea of the Second Amendment where you can take up arms against a modern, tyrannical government is a dream. Modern technology will overwhelmingly flatten any attempts at that. This is a guy who served in the armed forces, practiced the same Chinese martial arts I do, in addition to Aikido. At one point, he was pitching Aikido to a local Montessori school as a "means for resolving conflict", and he does not mean it in the militaristic fantasizing-being-a-badass way where "resolving conflict" is a euphemism for beating the shit out of someone. It echoes what Scott Meredith mentions -- martial arts, even MMA, does not work well against modern and near-future weapon technologies. So what's the point of practicing if one is motivated by some fantasy of being able "defend oneself?" I've been able to answer "what is the role of martial arts in my life." Among the key lessons are things like _grit_, and identifying how violence can be used through words and emotions. One of the martial teachers I respect (he is dead now) wrote about the connection between rhetorics and the deeper teachings of martial arts. Being able to keep cool and skillfully navigate through intense emotions that arises while people are shouting at each other seems more useful in the modern world than fantasizing, or even knowing a practitioner can break someone's bones. I had been poking around at different philosopher's writings about this. Ken Wilber points to a different philosopher (I forgot the name) about modernity. That view on modernity is a fairly good description of what happens with anything traditional. The modernist (and post-modernist) view tends to deny some of the things learned in the traditions. Some folks have been finding that this is not working out very well for us. We're not a happy society, despite having access to medications, economic prosperity (for some of us), and technological conveniences. Our ancestral traditions are lost, trying to find a new place in our modern world. We need them as much as they need us.