Self Defense (Not)!

Of course, self-defense is not a traditional Chinese idea, village defense perhaps, crop defense probably, and family defense sure thing-- but the idea that I might need to learn self-defense to dispatch bullies or muggers, not so likely.

After all, when I was ten years old I knew what every Chinese merchant also knew; if you want to deal with bandits you're better off having a large number of armed guards, or even better, getting the government or an army to protect the roads or even hunt the bandits down with overwhelming force of numbers.

I knew that bullies who resist trickery, slight of hand, and psychic intimidation, can be dealt with by enlisting the overwhelming force of a bigger friend, a tougher friend, a group of friends, or just adults who wield punishments more severe and longer lasting than fisticuffs.

I did not begin studying martial arts because I wanted to be able to defend myself, quite to the contrary. I took up the arts because I had a huge amount of natural aggression. I'm talking about explosive aggression that by ten I had already learned I needed to tame. At ten I knew that to be accepted by the adult world I needed to suppress my own spontaneous desire to smash and bash!

No, I started studying martial arts so that I would have a place to explode, a place where it was safe to be aggressive because I would be in the company of people who could defend themselves from ME!

Hat tip: This came up because I was ranting over at formosaneijia

Link: Scientific American:  This kind of research is pure evil because if there is a genetic cause for my aggression and they find it, there will be a push to make sure people like me are not born in the first place!