Troy, this is stupid stuff

Normally, Slate.com's left-of-center writing caresses my political sensibilities like a security blanket. Habeas petitions for all!

But I have to take issue with their TV critic's recent anti-Ultimate Fighting Championship screed. I won't deconstruct the numerous stereotypes and inaccuracies that Mr. Patterson engages in during the course of the article. No doubt others will do as well, or better, in pointing out that not all UFC fans are brain-dead yokels howling for the blood of their fellow man, to say nothing of the flippant approach towards the nuts and bolts of the sport. As one example, it's an arm bar, not an arm bomb, Mr. Patterson. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, if you have to kill a sport, it costs nothing to learn the correct terminology beforehand.

But even putting these details aside, we should acknowledge the few things Mr. Patterson gets right: the somewhat callous commentary of the UFC hosts, the aggression that the sport embraces, and the bloody nature of conflict between two athletes determined to inflict as much physical damage on the other as possible. How do I justify my desire to watch one man strike or choke another man into submission?

I believe the difference between us lies in our relative experience of the sport. Mr. Patterson, unless I miss my guess, has not trained in any full-contact martial art. Though I cannot claim any great proficiency, I have. Thus, when Mr. Patterson looks at a UFC fight, he sees an explosion of violence as random and unattractive as a car accident.

By contrast, when I watch a UFC fight, I see a complex, deeply ordered event with its own internal logic. Strike follows kick follows armbar; I see, sometimes only in retrospect, the decisions underlying each event and can evaluate their potential consequences. All true sports fans seem to acquire this facility at some point in their career as a fan. I can tell you, with a fair degree of accuracy, that Mirko Crocop will seek to finish his opponent in certain circumstances with a high left kick to the head, and why, just as a baseball fan will opine that their team will bunt in a certain situation, or a football fan will declare that their team must continue to run the ball. Thus far the internal merits of the sport.

But how does the fact that there is order in the violence justify the violence itself? Because I see professionals at work, I learn from them. Watching Mirko throw those high kicks, or Eddie Bravo scrunch up in his guard shows me what the human body is capable of, and inspires me to pursue my training with renewed vigor. It benefits my training; in a small way, these people are my teachers.

This, then, leads to the ultimate question--why train at all? Why do I pay every month to fight strangers? Why not just sit on the couch with Mr. Stevenson and watch stylized, sanitized violence such as Bonnie and Clyde, which Mr. Stevenson cites approvingly? Because I choose not to lose myself in fantasy, but to devote some time to remember the harshness of the world, and attempt in some small way to store up strength against an uncertain future. As A.E. Housman reminds us, taking harmful things in the proper amounts can prepare us to survive greater harm in the future.* I prefer to take my harm in small doses, now; I hope Mr. Stevenson faces a much sunnier future.

* Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure,
I’d face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
’Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the smack is sour,
The better for the embittered hour;
It should do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul’s stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.

There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all the springs to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white’s their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
—I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.