Here’s a letter that I sent several days ago to the Boston Globe:
Like Peter Funt, I’m disturbed by the appeal of mixed martial arts (“The disturbing appeal of ‘human dogfighting’,” July 29). But unlike Mr. Funt, I object to outlawing this sport, the brutality of which is inflicted only upon – and witnessed only by – consenting adults.
Far more disturbing to me than this sport is the inexplicable appeal of busybodiness – the eagerness of Jones to threaten coercion against Smith whenever Smith chooses, although violating no one’s rights, to act in ways that Jones disapproves of. That species of brutality – coercive violence against non-coercive other persons – is truly disgusting and unacceptable and should have no place in a civilized society.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
As my GMU colleague Dan Klein points out, it’s not violence that’s objectionable; what’s objectionable is coercion.
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I wouldn’t outlaw the sport either, because a minimally coercive state leaves individuals free within very broad constraints, particularly regarding the uses of their own bodies. On the other hand, would we ban this sport among eight year olds? How about twelve or sixteen year olds? Where is the line? Eighteen? Is this line arbitrary and coercive? How about dogs? Do we ban pit bull fighting on humane grounds? Dogs but not men?
Forbidding coercion cannot be the core principle of a liberal order based on private property rights. Drawing a line around a parcel of land and threatening to shoot anyone crossing the line without your consent is coercive. How you obtained title to the parcel is irrelevant. You could choose not to threaten others so, and you then would not act coercively, but if you choose to govern the parcel this way, you do act coercively.
Your neighbor may respect your line in exchange for your agreement to respect his, but then you both forcibly impose your will over two parcels on others. Denying this reality doesn’t change it.
I reiterate this point a lot, not because I oppose private property, but because I will not deny the coercion involved in what I support. If we can’t defend property in the light of day, then we are less enlightened than we pretend. To avoid hypocrisy, we may defend the coercion we advocate on utilitarian grounds, but we cannot pretend to advocate no coercion.
Property in oneself is obviously different, but Funt may advocate banning some blood sport without crossing a coercive line that I never cross myself. I may disagree, but I can’t consistently disagree simply on the grounds that Funt is coercive and I’m not.
If you like boxing, but are disturbed by the appeal of MMA, then you have grossly uninformed about the sport.
Agree.
Football is as violent as MMA, and many players are left debilitated after a career in the NFL. Getting hit by a guy with armor on hurts.
MMA is not human cock fighting. I have been training mainly Jiu Jitsu and a little MMA for several years, so I can say that first hand. Getting choked out, like BJ Penn did to Kenny Florian this past weekend, is actually a gentle way to end a fight – I know as I have been choked out 50+ times over the years in training.
What usually creates an image problem, is the presence of blood in MMA, becuase the techniques make participants easily susceptible to cuts. If you watch frequently enough, most fights are no crazier than any boxing match.
I distinctly remember the day the Michael Vick scandal broke. It was a Saturday on the day of a big MMA fight, and ESPN and other channels kept showing dogs in a ring attacking each other at the same time two humans were doing the identical thing. To me, this was surreal. The way the humans used leverage to take down their opponent was exactly how the dogs were doing it, and when a human got on top of their opponent, they swung at the head and faces as wildly as the dogs were biting the faces and necks of their opponents.
Did it ever occur to anyone that the dogs were also fighting voluntarily? No, they would say, they were conditioned animals. But, aren’t humans too?
I think you’re walking into a knockout punch with this argument- free will.
Mandeville,
I hope your post was sarcasm, but just in case…
Did it ever occur to anyone that the dogs were also fighting voluntarily?
Fighting dogs that do not fight, or do not fight well, are killed. Dogs can not sign a contract. Dogs can not volunteer to step into (or out of) the ring. If you’ve ever owned a pit bull, you’ll know that they are among the most affectionate and loyal breeds of dogs. That loyalty is what makes them such determined fighters. Anyone who has ever owned a pit bull and could enjoy watching these magnificent animals try to kill each other is less than human.
I have no problem with people wanting to watch or participate in MMA or boxing, but until dogs can organize their own fighting clubs and enforce their own rules, they will always be in the ring under duress.
Nice letter – I never understood concerns about that.
There is a lot of blood, but fewer concussions, in MMA fighting relative to boxing. Cuts heal, concussions not as much. More concussions than your average football or hockey player? Hard to say, but I doubt it on a per player basis.
A good economists focuses on the unseen, as well as the seen.
Humans are conditioned animals to a large degree. Man’s Will is not as free as he thinks. Our egoism and self love cause us to select actions (choice) that satisfies those needs as best as we calculate (reason) they can. The needs of the ego, further, are educated to us (conditioning), and fundamentally based upon the satisfaction of the passion of pride, or of pleasing others’ view of ourselves. This is not new. The lineage is Hobbes, Bayle, Erasmus, Mandeville, Hume, Smith, Nietzsche, etc, etc. To think otherwise is to walk into a knockout punch.
Ancient cultures worshipped warrior types far more than we do today, so most young men aspired to be warriors. But one must understand that they weren’t as interested in being a warrior as much as they were seeking adulation. If a culture worshipped altruism instead, one would see few warriors in it. Man’s reason and free will are primarily at the service of his passions, especially that of pride.
Bullcrap.
You miss a link in logic. The culture’s adulation of warriors didn’t happen in a vaccuum. That was a natural outgrowth of the issues of a culture’s very SURVIVAL.
oo-rah
I don’t miss a link in logic. I understand how culture, society and civilization evolve. My point was that people engage in activities from which they experience social recognition. They tend to gravitate to things they are good at, not for the sake of the activity they do, but for the recognition they gain from it. Man seeks ego gratification even with his charity. The conditioning aspect is a cultural phenomenon. Our egos are educated by the prevailing ideologies. Our emotions respond to values taught to us, thus what would cause pride in one culture causes shame in another. You delude yourself in assuming you are superior, by your perceived notion of having free will, to your true nature. However, self deception is necessary for the survival of the species too.
As an aside, infants taken from the most aggressive of indian tribes were exchanged at birth with infants from the most passive of tribes, and both were raised to be like eveyone else in their respective tribes. Where was your “free will” or “reason” there? Once our emotions are conditioned to values, or ethics, it is nearly impossible to untrain it. However, just living a long life enables us to slowly uncondition ourselves as time and experience take their tolls on us.
Guilt, pride and shame change slowly as we live. Conditioning, however, first established them, or better said, connected them to what we consider as either good or bad behavior, and values in general.
Excellent points, but they miss the thrust of this discussion.
If those dogs don’t want to be trained to fight, they can go and get a job.
Oh, wait. They can’t.
But human fighters do know the risks, and voluntarily sign their own names on the waivers and contracts.
To extend the second part of your argument further, if the warrior-worship was such a conditioning mechanism, then we’d have more money offered for video-game championships than for MMA purses.
Warrior worship has declined as civilization has advanced, but we see it in sports. If I didn’t make it clear, I am not in favor of regulating fighting.
Man’s Will is Free by definition. What I will do, unconstrained by others, is what I will freely do. I might also be an automaton with completely predictable behavior in given circumstances. That’s beside the point. The point is that my programming (systematic ethics, values, impulses, whatever) determines my behavior, not yours.
Annoying neighbors, full of unwanted advice, miffed at their advice being ignored, go into politics so they can FORCE people to take that unwanted advice.
Hi Don,
I am a huge fan!
I just wanted to say MMA is getting a bad rap. First off, I am a college educated, upper middle class, normal, well-adjusted American guy (economics-Grove City College, fyi). Just so no one would think I am a crazed gang banger or something.
I have experience boxing and in Jiu Jitsu, and never sustained anything more than a few minor bruises. It is alot of fun, and a great way to get out some competitiveness.
As to MMA’s effect on society, it could favorably be compared to violent video games. It is a great positive way to release some angry energy for some people, and we’d all be better off with a more hands-off approach to it.
Really, Don, although it is violent, it is not a deadly sport. I appreciate watching MMA as a high-speed, athletic chess game. The technique and strategy is extremely engaging, as are the storylines of individual fighter’s careers. Give it another look, Don.
Don, we disagree about the sport.
Imagine putting on a boxing glove, and punching a bowling ball. How hard do you hit it?
Now strike the ball with a bare fist. Do you punch as hard?
The truth is that MMA has a lower long-term injury rate than boxing or soccer.
I wholeheartedly agree with you that allowing the Nannies and Busybodies to ban it only empowers their other desires to rob freedoms in the name of doing good.
Folks,
I’m prepared agree about MMA. I’ve watched it once; it seemed brutal. But I confess that I’ve not studied it. So, consider me to be on board with your assessment.
My larger point, of course, is that even IF the sport is as brutal as Mr. Funt alleges it to be, it should be allowed — and that coercion to prevent consenting adults from participating in, and from viewing that sport (and any other activities) should be stopped.
I agree that the sport should be allowed, regardless of brutality – perceived or otherwise.
I will add that I also think regulation has made it more dangerous. For example, gloves and wraps that protect the hands make punches more dangerous. Punching someone with a bare fist – you could easily break your hand. If you watch the early UFC fights, many were boring wrestling matches, becuase punching was much more challenging without gloves.
They should do it like the ancient Greeks, in the nude with glass shards on the hands.
Punching is dangerous, period, Mcwop. Bring the gladiators? To the death? Well if they both consented . . .
Oh well, at least no one has defended animal fighting the way other Libertarians have by saying “well the animals are their property to do as they wish”. To hear such guff I hope those Libertarians don’t have children.
The government has killed and hurt far more people than any MMA participant has. Many of the people they killed did not consent, but you would probably give more power to the government, and regulate the MMA participant.
Oh, I don’t know. I find such violence objectionable. I certainly don’t think much of the adults who engage in such activities.
But I agree that the federal government should do nothing about it (though I don’t have a problem with local governments regulating it – at least restricting it with respect to young children).
MMA seems rather homoerotic to me. I’m just sayin’.
I wish I could make the same arguments for bullfighting, but I can’t.
Man’s Will is not as free as he thinks. Our egoism and self love cause us to select actions (choice) that satisfies those needs as best as we calculate (reason) they can.
What does it mean to have free will?
Does it mean detached from self interest?
Or does it mean independence from the will of others?
Or something else. Please explain.
Geez. I guess I won’t be starting a Cafe Hayek Fight Club anytime soon.
First rule about Fight Club is:
You don’t talk about Fight Club.
There I said it. Now we can move on to more serious matters.
Occam’s Razor says:
2 consenting adults beating each other senseless is nobody’s business!
You might be perplexed. A long time ago I was a Green Beret. I’m not. It’s the way real people fight, for real, to kill. Only it’s nicer. Real World? Biting noses off, ripping ears off, punching the styloid process and ripping the carotid, ripping/smashing testicles, smashing the structural cartilage of the trachea. And so forth.
MMA is a nice Sunday morning walk in the park.
As an MMA fighter myself, I encourage you to look into the sport on a deeper level. MMA looks like “guys beating each other senseless” the same way that football looks like “big guys running into each other”, soccer looks like “guys kicking a ball around for 90 minutes”, and chess looks like “guys sitting around playing a board game.” If you understand the incredible nuance of submission grappling or kickboxing, then you can appreciate the strategy, intelligence, and athleticism of elite martial artists.
Bret: Why don’t you think much of the athletes that compete in mixed martial arts? In the UFC, a ton of the athletes have college degrees. In my personal experience, MMA competitors are among the most humble and friendly people you will meet. I suspect you’re confusing MMA, which is a sport in which elite athletes with many years of training compete under rules that ensure safety, with the fake WWF “Steel Cage Matches” of your youth.
Don, there are a number of martial arts gyms in Arlington. If you’re up for the challenge, I recommend getting a membership for brazilian jiu-jitsu. Not only is it a great workout, but I’ve never known a single person who tried the art and didn’t come to love it. I’ve trained at a fantastic gym down there; e-mail me if you’re interested.