Weblight Studio Blog

Well, I needed an image, off the internet!

Every day now we hear the conservative elites moaning about the brutality of cage fighting and how it should be banned.

The UFC might even be a good example for some of our teenagers.

Let me try the simplest explanation I can muster here. Australia has a rash of stabbings and shootings, not just among our gangs but among school children as well.  Australians for the last few generations are weaned on American movies. Movies where the gangsters and bad guys are irrational and relentless monsters. Teenage gang members on these movies are fanatical killers, people who have issues with each other treat each other with eye popping brutality and callousness.

When our kids are forced to face each other down the only models they have to base their expectation of outcomes on is the terrifying behavior of the movie characters.

Along comes UFC. Mixed Martial Arts. Gladiatorial battles between two humans who sometimes batter each other to bloody submission. Warriors!

Two men who do not hate each other despite the pain they mete out. Men who SURVIVE fights and are honorable. Fights where people come away with their limbs and lives intact. Not the great false emotion and childish vengeance of television wrestling

When they are being too badly hurt they can slap the floor or call the referee and the fight stops! The fight can end without anybody’s honor being so badly ruined he is a social misfit for the rest of his life. This is the exact opposite of the outcomes in the movies.

The guys in UFC are brave and tough and do not have to stab anybody to keep their honor or face their enemy. Losing a fight is not so deep a dishonor that it is unbearable. Two bloody warriors hug one another after a brutal fight.

Right now in a country where we have stretched our culture into one driven as much by Hollywood fantasy as by any reality we need something to get these ideas through to those who need them.

Yes it is brutal. Nowhere near as brutal as a movie where the police officer kills unlimited bad guys for trying to get away and the bad guys kill anyone who looks at them. The fact is that UFC is not as brutal or as troubling as quite a bit  of the evening news. It is an incredible example of human discipline, of fair play and being able to take a loss without needing to have some more powerful revenge.

Australia used to be the kind of place where a man entering a dispute by waving a knife was considered to be weak. Using a knife was considered monstrous and showed a lack of toughness and that person was looked on as a bit of a pariah. I am talking of fairly normal street life here and school. There are examples where such weapons were used without the stigma but few people shared those life styles.

In the Australia the 1970’s  a man picking up a glass and smashing it to glass another in the face might find themselves crash-tackled by the crowd or facing a barman with a shotgun. Leave the venue and never return. Gutless behavior. Fights looked a lot like UFC matches and even ended with someone calling “Uncle.” or saying they had enough. Fighters often patted each other down and bought each other a drink.

I know. It is still unacceptable behavior but if we want to stop the harm then the denial has to end as does the wishful thinking. Intelligent harm minimization needs to be implemented. In this case one of the best harm minimization measures is to provide an example with better outcome and some good will. Government advertising where drunken teenagers puke on their shoes or get laid in bad places are really an example of how not to influence the wild ones in our populations.