Thursday, December 11, 2014

Mind of a warrior

So...it's been a busy couple of weeks. Here in the US, there have been protests over police shootings of unarmed black men, and then...the torture report. Weirdly, I have also just finished reading The Heart of Everything That Is, a biography of the great Sioux chief Red Cloud. All this stuff is combining in disturbing ways, and at the center of my thinking is: who are we that study how to wield weapons?

To go somewhat chronologically, let's start with the book. In the course of telling the story, the authors lay out, in graphic detail, the brutality of Sioux warriors. In the Sioux worldview, a man (or woman) who was not physically intact in death would be similarly maimed in the next world. Sioux warriors rarely left a dead enemy intact, whether members of rival Native American bands or later, white soldiers and settlers (men, women and children). The authors note, while citing grisly catalogs of atrocities (some committed while their victims were still alive) that the Sioux were no different from other warrior bands. Not surprisingly, US soldiers, towards the end of the war against the Sioux, while not sharing this worldview, inflicted similar atrocities in kind. Torturing and maiming enemies was a commonplace thing among the Sioux and other warrior groups, even the warriors of the US government.

Tellingly, the Sioux looked upon agricultural bands of Native Americans as being weak. They had a point of course, seeing as how the peaceful bands were herded off, and killed off, as America expanded west. At least the Sioux fought back, even though the end result was the same.

Next, the grand jury refused to indict the officer in the killing of Eric Garner, after a similarly convened panel did the same in the case of Michael Brown. The blowback I was seeing on FB by some of my more righty "Friends" was that if a cop felt the need to take you down, it must be because YOU MUST BE DOING SOMETHING WRONG. I know, from some of my actual friends' experiences that you can be stopped, and held, by the police in this town for walking down the street on a Friday night, or sitting on a park bench in the middle of the day. Or for joining a legal (as in permits and everything) protest march. (That last one was me - punched in the chest by a cop who wanted to prevent me from joining an antiwar rally years ago. I give her credit for some restraint - it was enough of a punch to convince me she meant business but not enough to knock me down. On the other hand, if I had been a less-sturdy person, I would have been on the pavement, and she had no way of knowing which sort of person I was.)

The news of the torture report provoked a similar reaction from my righty FB Friends: they were terrorists, right? So they got what they deserved, right? Anything to "keep us safe," right? Except that some of those detainees were no more guilty than some of my friends, or me; i.e., they were in the wrong place while being the wrong shade, or simply going about their business. And, as has been shown time and time again, torture does not result in good intelligence. Torture is just torture. At least the Sioux had a cosmological reason for what they did. As much as I have kept some righty FB Friends because I think it's a good idea to see other points of view, I "unfriended" one (so far) for the perfect ignorance of his reaction ("torture is too good for the enemies of the US" - type thinking), and more could follow.

And, because of my experience in budo, I know a lot of people involved in, or retired from, law enforcement or the military. Not all of them are righties, though some of them are; and that has gotten me thinking: all of us who do traditional budo on some level are buying into some aspect of what it means to be a warrior of some sort. But what does that mean?

For some people, the codes of Chivalry or Bushido figure large. Those ideals (laid out here in a previous post) are not entirely similar, but did share certain ethics, such as caring respect for the weak; but we know that the ideals were just that. There are just as many stories of unchecked power and the harm it caused by marauding knights and samurai as there are stories of dignity and compassion.

And no matter how much philosophical veneer we put on our practice, we are all of us learning techniques that can maim or kill people. Last night, during the Daito practice, the students were practicing what in fencing we would have referred to as a "stop hit." The attacker throws a punch (with or without a knife) and the defender evades it. The defender then responds with a punch to the attacker's upper chest. Towards the end of the practice, the teacher pointed out that the target they were practicing was not the actual target. The real technique was to punch, and crush, the attacker's windpipe and kill him. While the timing was difficult, the technique itself was fairly simple. This technique was defensive (after all, the attacker was attacking), but I suspect that somewhere in that practice there are techniques for taking down someone when there are orders to do so. I know, in my practice, there certainly are.

My teacher used to say that swordsmanship was the study of philosophy. I suppose it is worthwhile to remember that philosophy is not a bunch of proverbs (or worse, Facebook aphorisms), but a series of questions and arguments. And no real answers.

The book:
The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend
by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin

Thursday, December 4, 2014

You didn't write that (by yourself)

In a follow up to my consideration some time ago of Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In" stuff (it seems like such a long time ago; I think of cultural ideas like this as a "mini trend" - not around long enough to become an actual trend, but anyway...), I have some follow up thoughts.

As I recall, I focused on the fact that, at "lean in" type forums, women have a tendency to credit others for their career successes, whereas men, asked to explain *their* business successes, tend to focus entirely on their own efforts. Why why why, the "lean in" people want to know, do women not want to give themselves credit?

I'd like to turn this thought around and ask, "How do men get away with ignoring the contributions others have made to their successes?"

To pick an ancient history example, when I was finishing grad school, my dad, who was career academic, kept hounding me to finish my final requirements. I was making steady progress, mind you, just not fast enough (I guess). Finally, in exasperation, I pointed out that even though I was (thankfully) living alone, I was also working full time and running my household. When he countered that he finished his Ph.D. while carrying a full teaching load, I responded, "Yeah, but you had Mom working full time, and YOUR MOM cooking, cleaning, and washing your socks for you."

I still remember his reaction: utter silence on the other end of the phone line. Oh. Yeah. Then he said, "You know, I never thought about it like that." Kudos to my dad for at least thinking about it once it was pointed out to him.

Several writers I know rely on their wives' steady income in order to be freelancers. I hope these women love their jobs, though I don't actually know. Other male writers I know take the contributions of volunteer editors and helpful spouses, as well as the female colleagues they bounce ideas off of as being something that is just there, you know - like the air they breathe. Other men's contributions are more frequently acknowledged.

I recently commented (I believe helpfully) on a colleague's draft, and he thanked me. He did. But when the post was published and the fanboys started lining up, I admit to having been a little annoyed for perhaps, just perhaps not getting a little public acknowledgment (c'mon, published book writers always, ALWAYS publicly thank their editors and colleagues, and sometimes even their family members, in the Acknowledgments, even the female ones). He then publicly thanked me for proofreading his piece. Okay, but proofreading is checking a finished copy against a markup. I made substantial comments that helped clarify the thought process that went into the successfully finished post. That is not proofreading. That's a Sheryl Sandbergian nightmare.

I am not saying that the male writers I know are not hard-working, talented people, who in all likelihood deserve much of the credit for their brilliantly presented, I-wish-I'd-thought-of-that output. The abovementioned author has received a number of calls that he should turn his blog into a book, and I am happy for him; but the best ideas in the world will never be read unless they are stated clearly enough for readers to understand. And the women who wash, cook, clean and shush the children so the Great Men can concentrate don't get nearly the credit they deserve, either.

So, guys - you didn't get there all by yourself.

However, I might as well be shouting in the wind. Remember, during a recent presidential election, the Democratic trope aimed at Republicans - "You didn't build that"? The slogan was meant to raise the point that all of that entrepreneurial energy that gave rise to innovation that the Republicans were so anxious to protect with tax cuts could not have been done without infrastructure - roads, rails, bridges, the internet, that sort of thing. Their projects relied on public effort which, in turn, allowed so many of those individual ideas to come to fruition. Remember the reaction? The slogan died. Just because it was true didn't mean anyone who counted actually gave a rat's ass.

And the reason why is the answer to my rhetorical question above - How do the guys get away with blowing their own trumpets at the expense of the rest of us? We let them. Why do we let them? I need to give that one a little more thought.

I have been told that my blog is "too controversial" to be published as a book. Fair enough. It is not intended, really, for general publication. This is just stuff I write down to get off my chest. As for the "big ideas" that might be worth seeing in actual print (or, these days, e-print), I keep those ideas to myself, for now. But if that MS or a few others that are kicking around my desk, collecting dust, do ever see the light of day, or at least the light of a computer screen, I vow right here to give credit where it's due. I wrote it, but I didn't do it alone.