High School Cage Fights

Wow... ok, fine, it lets off steam... isn't that what Boxing and Wrestling are for? Unless, this high school is sponsored by UFC...

Well, it took place in Texas so that should say a lot.

BBC NEWS | Americas | US high school 'held cage fights'

Thought I'd give a link to a real news institution.

Really, I'm not terribly surprised by this. The cage fighting is a bit extreme, but faculty allowing students a few minutes to "duke it out" before stopping a fight is not uncommon.

I was about to criticise the BBC as a "real news institution", then realised the first link was to FOX News...well anything is real news compared to FOX...

Once again nobody wishes to solve the problem, but rather avoid it like what is going on here.

Is it really a problem though? Much like many arguments parents and law makers have regarding Sex, Drinking and Drugs, "isn't supervised (x) better than unsupervised (x)?"

Not to mention, many students that get into fights need a good a$$ kicking anyway. There is a difference between bullying and a fight where both parties willing to fight. I am not saying that it is right, but when supervised, a fight is less likely to get out of hand, and less likely to have more people jump into the fray.

If society, or certain people in society, are intrinsically violent then perhaps it is better that outlets of violence are better unsupervised than repressed, and I have heard similar arguments in defence of such sports as ice-hockey, which correct me if I'm wrong I understand is one of the most violent sports in (North) America?

However I am not sure I entirely buy-into a notion that society, or even certain people within it, are intrinsically violent such to the point that it is an unavoidable phenomenon.

Also I'm going to put the "concerned mother's" quote in of "Might it not teach them that violence is an appropriate means of dealing with certain situations?"

It isn't an appropriate way of dealing with certain situations? If it were entirely inapproriate for certain things it probably wouldn't exist as a social norm and/or a right of passage.

I presume you meant "Isn't it an appropriate way of dealing with certain situations?". Well it may well be, but even if it is, I do not believe it to be an appropriate way of dealing with these situations.

Additionally I do not believe that by virtue of it being a "social norm/rite of passage" that it is appropriate. Then again, I do not believe it should be a "rite of passage" nor do I see cage fights within schools as a social norm.

lol oops, I forgot to note that I was broadening the scope of sanctioned fights to being a ritualized act of violence. Also I would add that normal fights are sanctioned by society as rights of passage and normally only dealt with as contra-law/rules if they cross some fuzzy line of too-violent or too-unwarranted.

Even if society, explicitly or implicitly, sanctions "ritualised acts of violence" or "normal fights" (whatever a normal fight maybe, compared to an abnormal fight), that does not necessarily mean society should sanction it.

The issue I was raising is not necessarily if it is moral to sanction them but whether it was better to sanction them than not sanction them.

Rites of Passage

A link to a common argument in social science about the loss of rights of passage in the United States and (other developed countries). It is somewhat pedestrian since I didn't feel like sifting through JSTOR. But the jist is, what would we replace 'violence' with as a risk factor? Is small scale violence actually damaging to the participants? And other things that are the begginings of complete different threads like media violence, desensitization etc... Also other threads might include realted to this, ripped from pop cultural refs (the Pussification of America).

This would rely on the premise that in the rites of passage are beneficial, despite reading the link, where I found I disagreed with much of what was written, I still see no conclusion that rites of passage are either beneficial or necessary.

Just out of curiousity, I have never engaged in any (directly) violent activity, does this make me a "boy" and not a "man"?

It might, or most likely you have engaged in other things.

My problem with the aforementioned link would be that he is probably pre-defining "boy" and "man" in such away that his ideas already become true by definition.

And I do not mean this in a "HOW DARE YOU!" way, but I'm not sure what gives either you, or the person writing in the link above, the validity to say who is or is not a "boy" or a "man". :shifty:

As a person I can't tell you either way boy or man, however the definitions, although fuzzy are pre-defined for us. Maybe you would rather use child/adult instead of boy/man, either way there are steps within a culture for the transition. You may have taken one step when you got your first job, gone off to college, had your first kiss or other sensual experience, drank your first beer or cup of coffee. A right of passage that people experience often that involved violence is being bullied, the resolution of which may have given you "a considerable step towards adulthood". Fighting is not any different than any of these other "rights of passage" other than violence as individual conflict resolution is in transition from officially acceptable ---> conventionalbly acceptable ----> unacceptable.

But then by that logic, if I have not been bullied (which is perfectly plausible) through no fault of my own, I cannot progress to "adulthood"?

Additionally, on the presumption that it is "society" that decides these rites of passage, well I would refute that in that society, or the majority, may regard X, Y or Z to be "rites of passage"; although this consensually makes it valid, objectively it does not provide a conclusion reason as to why (they should be)/are "rites of passage".

There is no real logic to bullying, and behavior and norms don't follow formal logic, you may have never done any of the things i stated or had any of them happen to you, You may have lived in a bubble with no outside influence whatsoever

The actual right of passage for the most part are arbitrary. There is really no should involved in the picture. Some cultures traditionally had beastiality norms as passage from child to teen, others have very ritualized rights of passage like jumping off platforms with vines around your ankles or High School Graduation. Should is not an issue, the issue is that there must be (and by must I mean that every society has them) some symbolic marker of passage from one state of maturity to another.

Take the high school graduation for example, is there really a need for diplomas and the resultant employment restrictions imposed on those who do not posess them? Why "should" this be the case? There are people that achieve "success" without them, but for the most part people don't.

Ask me why there are such things as rights of passage I would propose that they are symbolic rituals that have a psychological impact on the assumed positive identity of an individual that allows him/her to see themselves, and allows others to see them, as a member of the group capable of productive involvement and or betterment of the group within the groups' internalized definitions of betterment of the group.