Golden Age that never was
Apr. 4th, 2006 11:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
branchandrootYou know, I'm always amused when people talk about the beneficial moral structure inculcated by training in the martial arts.
(For "martial arts" read, invariably, East Asian hand-to-hand and short-range weapon combat styles.)
Because, when you look under all the accumulated mythos of Warrior Virtues from the Golden Age of Honor, what the "morals" of martial arts come down to is: me alive, and them dead.
When you get right down to it, it's all about hitting people with blunt things, or sharp things. That's it. All that bushwah about duty and responsibility and loyalty and courage and whatnot? That's the social control-system invented by the aristocrats to keep a handle on the people with the weapons. And I quite agree that keeping a handle on the weaponed population, and also on the people who control them, is an issue any society does well to face.
But that doesn't seem to be what most people are talking about.
.
(For "martial arts" read, invariably, East Asian hand-to-hand and short-range weapon combat styles.)
Because, when you look under all the accumulated mythos of Warrior Virtues from the Golden Age of Honor, what the "morals" of martial arts come down to is: me alive, and them dead.
When you get right down to it, it's all about hitting people with blunt things, or sharp things. That's it. All that bushwah about duty and responsibility and loyalty and courage and whatnot? That's the social control-system invented by the aristocrats to keep a handle on the people with the weapons. And I quite agree that keeping a handle on the weaponed population, and also on the people who control them, is an issue any society does well to face.
But that doesn't seem to be what most people are talking about.
.
