The director of the martial-arts film Redbelt explains the death of boxing, the rise of Brazilian jujitsu, and what America can (and must) learn from the world of ultimate fighting
Each culture has its own particular brand of approved or semi-approved combat. Ours in America has long been boxing.
Here is the difference between boxing and wrestling: Boxers stand off. Their aim is to contact the other fellow’s body only briefly, only with the fists, and with the fists covered with a bunch of leather.
Wrestlers spend all their time hugging.
Now, each country has its own particular brand of permitted confusion. The British are confused about the nature of food. The French are confused about morality and literature. We Americans couldn’t care less. We are confused about sex, race, and the topic of this essay: violence.
The desire to imagine a world in which “we all want the same things,” and in which aggression can be obliterated by a more correct statement of the person aggrieved’s position, invites increased aggression. It took the first attack on the World Trade Center, the U.S.S. Cole, the Marine barracks in Beirut, the kidnapping of the Iran hostages, and so on, before the jihadists finally got the idea that, odd as it seemed, the greatest power in the world, the United States, would put up with anything (anything here being the bombing of New York).
Strength deters aggression. Strength must be cultivated. One method of cultivating strength is through the cultural endorsement and display of nonlethal combat.
There is a fairly regular outcry against the bloodiness of boxing, because boxing is licensed aggression, and, so, awakens in some the aforementioned confusion about violence—that, the world being a fine place full of right-meaning individuals, violence is error.
In a perfect world, perhaps, but the world right now is as perfect as it’s ever going to get; and, every viable civilization, knowing that to be so, has wisely endorsed the notion of preparing for the worst.
