On the subject, the last recorded duel in France took place as late as 1967 and between two sitting MPs/Representatives because of an insult uttered in the Chamber.
"le facétieux Defferre ne manquait pas de rappeler qu’il avait visé l’entrejambe de son adversaire pour lui gâcher sa nuit de noces, celui-ci se mariant le lendemain."
Essentially: "I aimed between his legs to spoil his wedding night", as one of the MPs was due to wed the day after the duel.
This was written in 1847, well after dueling had fallen out of fashion, and well after the USA had begun to develop its own distinctly American cultural identity. So it sounds like this was meant to be a "fun lighthearted history" book, rather than a documentation of how people actually behaved in the 1840s. Not unlike my favorite bathroom reader of all time, The Strange Laws Of Old England.
According to Mark Twain in Pudd'nhead Wilson the 1850s was a time when 'The people took more pride in the duel than in all the other events put together, perhaps.'
Actually, the situation isn't as clear as one might think. Duels are allowed under two conditions: 1) no "honor duels" (see [1], bottom of page 7) and 2) all participants must be protected (see [1], first paragraph of section 1, page 2). The latter usually means at least protective suits and in most cases dull swords as well.
There has been a duel two weeks ago in Erlangen that violated both these rules [2] - they fought for the honor of their corporation, with sharp swords and without protection. The clusterfuck ended with one minor and one major injury, now police are investigating and politicians are talking about banning duels entirely.
Either they got a double agent into a Burschenschaft or the screenshots probably made the rounds in the form of screenshots where someone forwarded the screenshots to the antifa group.
Or it got leaked on purpose by someone in the Burschenschaft pissed off about the duelers.
We've had code review dueling for the past few years, and it has really helped with the quality of code and pull requests.
In the past, programmers submitted all sorts of junk code into our version control, what I would today call chatgpt nonsense. At the time it was likely Stack Overflow nonsense. In any case, Code Review Dueling has changed the landscape of our coding. For the past two years, not a single negative comment has appeared on code pull requests. All it took was the deaths of a few unqualified people who lied on their resumes.
This "old is new" methodology has caused programmers and architects to work with other people before ever writing code or designing systems. In our monthly metrics report from the CI (but not CD) pipeline, I also noticed that we no longer import any dependencies from 3rd parties. In fact, IT has shutdown all access to pip, apt-get, and so forth. Everything is custom and has been beautifully designed and coded in-house.
It's absolutely amazing. Even our customers regularly request they be allowed to purchase extra copies of our software, just to give to their children and grandchildren, when they come of age. But before purchasing extra copies, they always call first, since our license lawyers are very prolific, proactive, and protective of our rights.
We're unfortunately probably beyond the point of any new copypastas being created. Most of those were created on the "old Internet", where things were pretty small, chaotic, and decentralized. Nowadays, all engagement is primarily reaction driven, so the only things that typically take off are references to other cultural touchstones
We want programmers with honor, so anytime there is a review the submitter can challenge the reviewer to a duel to erase their incorrect comments. Also the reviewer can challenge the submitter to a duel, when they think the code quality is too low to check into the code base.
Simple: if you call into question another coder's syntax, logic or variable naming conventions, you must be prepared to defend your stance until death. En garde!
I continue to settle most scores in my life with matches of super smash bros: melee. Most phones can handle dolphin gamecube emulation nowadays. As long as it can be plugged into an HDMI display somehow (Samsung Dex or whatever), and you have Bluetooth controllers on hand (weird, I always do), you can set up a modern duel in about ten minutes.
That can definitely work in some companies. It really depends on the work culture and the number of employees [1] , whether duels or fist fights are better for team building. [2]
It is actually not permissible to duel. You can engage in "friendly combat", but duelling to restore your honor is both illegal and dishonorable. (The German fraternities, which are responsible for these fights, gave their word of honor that there would be no more duels to satisfy insults to honor)
It is also an extremely stupid idea that scars are somehow an "authentic mark". As somebody who fought three of those "mensuren": Scars are a sign that you thought you are better than you actually are. It's the embodiment of "Dunning Kruger walks here".
This seems analogous to claiming that an MMA fighter with cauliflower ear just thought they were better than they were. One of the great thing about sports is that they teach humility. You're going to lose a lot on your way up. And it's going to hurt - sometimes quite literally.
Since he wrestled his whole life and will probably continue in some way or another to keep himself fit, he doesn't care.
However you can easily prevent your ears from "cauliflowering" after severe ear trauma if you drain the accumulated blood before it dries completely out after 2-3 days.
At some point if you train a lot some soft/protruding parts of your ears will harden a bit and some edges aren't as smooth as before but it isn't really noticeable to other people.
It's also worth noting that unlike college fraternities in the US, which seem to be pretty ubiquituous, Burschenschaften in Germany are fairly niche and all veer to the right wing of the political spectrum: mostly Christian conservatism although there are widespread völkisch nationalist undertones. I'm not saying these are "nazi" groups but I've yet to encounter a Burschi who isn't at least to the right of the general public. As the StackExchange answer suggests, membership is also often tied to military service (which also is much less common than in the US) and the culture is strongly tied to aristocratic (or at least "old money") lineages and "mentorship" (some would say nepotism).
Basically the correct mental image is probably private societies in expensive English "public schools" (i.e. what most of the rest of the world would consider private schools: the kind you have to pay for), not US style "Greek houses".
It's worth noting that despite the similarities between völkisch nationalism and ethnonationalism, most Burschenschaften are explicitly opposed to the far right, at least in public statements. If you want to tie them to an anti-democratic movement it's probably more likely to be neo-feudalism (e.g. the Reichsbürger monarchists) than actual neo-nazis. There have been some instances of nazi chat groups within Burschenschaften being found out and members have been running for the far-right nationalist Alternative für Deutschland party however.
EDIT: Also, worth noting, schlagende Verbindungen, i.e. the ones engaging in ritualistic duels with sharp blades, are on the fringe of these groups and also veer to the right of those (I think most "moderate" Christian conservative ones are strongly opposed to the practice). So the entire dueling thing nowadays is a fringe of a fringe of a fringe and most Germans would feel very concerned if you tell them you engage in it.
Old Norse dueling, the Holmgang, was outlawed when griefers turned it into a cynical thing, challenging weaker neighbors over trivia so they could kill them and take their land, legally.
The logic of this process in England was amazing. You would swear before God that your claim was true, and so would your opponent. And then God would favour the honest claim.
But then people realized you could have someone fight for you if they'd swear that your claim was true (IE, they'd be a witness). If you lost the duel, it would mean that you lied, making it perjury. So your equivalent of a lawyer would be some renowned fighter, undefeated in combat (since if you were defeated, you wouldn't be able to swear in as a witness).
It turned into situation where you'd use the person you hired as a negotiation tool (oh you hired "Bob the Barbarian" as your champion? Let's settle 60/40), so most challenges wouldn't even come down to a fight.
Reminds me of the Fremen people in Dune by Frank Herbert. In the book, a man is challenged to a duel. When he wins the duel, he gains the wife, property, and children of the one that he killed.
In the book, the legality of this form of dueling seems to be justified by an absolute need for strength, and the survival of (only) the fittest, in order to adapt to the hostile environment that they live in.
When physical superiority stops being a necessity for the survival of the community, this type of dueling law becomes a problem.
not just "a man" but Paul Muad'ib. and he doesn't so much gain a wife as take responsibility for looking after her. and he didn't want to kill the guy at all. this is all because he had to fit in with the culture of the fremen tribe he had just joined.
"This real thing reminds me of this fictional thing that was possibly based on it" is definitely a thing that you can say.
Anyway though wasn't a major theme of the back half of that book that this practice was always wasteful and unbeneficial. That there is no situation where a community becomes stronger by losing a cunning leader to merely a stronger fighter. That this was possibly one of the ways their culture had been manipulated to make them fragmented and susceptible to control.
Yes, towards the end of the book Paul convinces the tribe to let go of the old "way" so that they can be as strong as possible for the (imminent) battle. They allow him to become their leader without killing Stilgar, the previous leader.
However, the book makes it very clear that the totally ruthless environment, culture, and way of life on Arrakis (and on Salusa Secundus) is the cause of the Fremen (and Sardaukar) making such vastly superior soldiers.
But of course that only matters over long stretches of time. Putting your infighting ways on hold temporarily when you are gearing up for a massive offensive would always make sense. "Do you smash your knife before battle?" Paul asks in his speech. So I don't think the point is that it "was always wasteful and unbeneficial", but that even if the ruthless duels were good for the tribe's fitness in the long term, right then it was more important that in the short term they needed all the strength they could get.
> However, the book makes it very clear that the totally ruthless environment, culture, and way of life on Arrakis (and on Salusa Secundus) is the cause of the Fremen (and Sardaukar) making such vastly superior soldiers.
Yes but it's fiction. That's possibly true within the fictional world of the book because the author decided it would be.
In actual history that view is disproved time and time again and historical consensus view is that societies that are more interpersonally brutal and competitive are not stronger for it. See HN-favorite historian bret devereaux's 40,000 word essay on exactly this subject, using exactly the fremen as the focal point.
> In actual history that view is disproved time and time again
Oh I don't dispute whatever it is the historians are saying at all. I was simply arguing about what the themes of the book were, since that was what you were also talking about in your previous comment. Whether the themes of the book are scientific or not I don't know much about at all.
So I guess what you are saying is that Frank Herbert might have a more or less inaccurate take on social/political/historical science, which would not surprise me.
People say politics are out of hand these days but man things were wild in 1904.
Dueling aside…
> Discredited by the duel with Hamilton, Burr sought to regain political power by a filibustering adventure, which led instead to his indictment for treason
I can't help but think dueling would make politics more honest. I would expect not many to be willing to die to defend their positions if these positions were just paid off by corporations.
> I can’t help but think dueling would make politics more honest.
We’ve literally tested this theory and it did not.
> I would expect not many to be willing to die to defend their positions if these positions were just paid off by corporations.
Willingness to risk death for material gain is not, historically, hard to find among humans, and, anyhow, corporations and other interests groups already use the tactic of mass propaganda to build genuine belief in their desired positions and then funding candidates that are true believers, including to the point of being willing to lie about details to advance the broader cause that has been defined that serves the interest group sponsoring the propaganda; the fact that a position is ultimately corporate propaganda doesn’t mean that the politicians see it as just that (even if they recognize it as a lie, they may see it as a lie useful to advance something else they deeply believe in.)
> Willingness to risk death for material gain is not, historically, hard to find among humans
Often, when some company as a whole does something bad, there is a crowd that yells "jail time for the CEO", and this is the reason I think it is not the solution. If CEOs risked jail time for every bad thing the company does, it would select for scapegoat CEOs more willing to risk jail time (or even death) than more honest/competent CEOs.
Note that like with anyone else, if the bad thing is question is a crime and personal responsibility is established, the CEO can go to jail, it has already happened. I am more thinking about company-wide problems, like labor law violations, anticompetitive parctices or misuse of personal data where everyone involved in the company is a little bit responsible: management for giving orders, employees for following them, the board for choosing that management, investors and customers for supporting that with their money.
One problem — nowadays politicians would be absolutely DDOS’d by duel challenges.
We might bring back more explicit ideas of classes… but I mean, at least any congressperson would have to be able to challenge any other, right? So we’d have candidates successfully running on “I’ll duel <lightning rod congressperson of the day>.”
I mean, that, on top of all the other reasons the idea of dueling is ridiculous, hahaha.
> at least any congressperson would have to be able to challenge any other, right?
Duelling was a matter for gentlemen; men of honour. If you have no honour to defend, duelling is inappropriate.
A "gentleman" in England, at least, was a man with land, but no aristocratic title. Aristocrats often duelled, so I guess it's "gentlemen, and men of higher rank" that were thought honourable enough to duel with.
I find it odd that violence, and not words or wit, was seen as the proper way for gentlemen and aristocrats to settle disputes. It's seen as barbaric now, and I think it's better this way.
Is it all that different today? Today, one hires a lawyer to file a suit in civil court against someone; the other part hires his own legal counsel and they argue before a judge; ultimately the court renders judgement and then the winner enforces that judgement with the threat of violence (by police or bailiffs). It’s all ultimately about violence. There’s something admirable about being honest about that violence rather than coy.
Everything you're saying is completely different from a duel.
Generally, a conflict is resolved with words and arguments. Only when that doesn't work, it's taken before a judge, where it's still resolved with words and arguments, but with a neutral and binding arbiter deciding who's right. After that, the conflict is resolved. No violence necessary. Only when one party violates that already legally binding resolution, come a lot more steps before violence may come in, but at no point do the people involved in the conflict themselves have to resort to violence.
There's nothing admirable about having to resort to violence. It's a sign of failure.
The book calls out that "lesser men" could be horsewhipped if they committed an offense that would be considered an insult if spoken by a gentleman (implying that lesser men are not capable of actually insulting a gentleman).
This not-so-subtly hints at the levels of abuse that average people suffered at the hands of privileged classes.
It went further than just implying it; they said (paraphrasing, I haven't re-read it) that a gentleman should never take offence at an insult from a pleb.
I think there's something in that; if an insult causes you offence, you are implicitly granting that your abuser's opinion deserves consideration. A true gentleman would rise above it - a man of rank need not concern himself with the views of plebs. Plebs always insult gentlemen; if you horsewhipped them every time, you'd need a new horsewhip every week.
Well, yeah. In most of historical warfare, noblemen fought noblemen, yeomen fought yeomen, and peasants fought peasants. When English yeoman archers fired on advancing French cavalry (noblemen) at Agincourt, it was considered awfully bad form.
Swords were expensive things, you needed money to own one. And there were many laws restricting who was allowed to carry a sword and who wasn't.
Every rule that is worth breaking will be broken as fast as humanly possible. People will be killed outside of the dueling rules, will be challenged for stupid reasons, or their seconds will be bribed to cover the unfair duel circumstances. I'm doubtful that social deficiencies could be resolved with technical means. Instead of resolving the issue this will change how the issue is manifested.
That is a philosophical idea that exists apart from the realities of dueling. What actually happened is that violent reactionaries used duels as an excuse for murdering some of the best and brightest.
There is a long history of duels, especially in the West and California specifically, souring public opinion with senseless deaths. The really big stand out case that pretty much ended things was this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broderick%E2%80%93Terry_duel
Towards the latter days of the roman republic having gangs of people paid by different politicians battle it out in the street was a common occurrence. Dueling requires all parties involved to remain honorable at all times and today’s crop of politicians are not that, so the street battle looks much more likely than the honorable duel.
Adding on to what you said - I think it also depends on where you start. If you inherit wealth and/or good opportunities then why risk it, but if not then it would make a lot of sense. After all, lots of people voluntarily enlist in the military, and one factor is not having (m)any other options. (This isn't the only reason, nor is it a factor for everyone)
Plus, dueling / fighting is a skill. If you need people who are good at fighting in order to get legislation passed then the rich will hire skilled fighters to go be legislator-duelists for them.
Well how about cyberpunk philosophical gladiatorial debates? I challenge Daniel Dennet (sp?) to a philosophical debate about free will. Wait no. I challenge him to an MMA fight. If he declines, he gets to pick his favorite UFC fighter to fight by proxy (like Game of Thrones, but we'll both survive). But Dennet can't just pay the fighter off. The fighter has to actually think Dennet's a genius. And, I get to have the opportunity to talk the fighter out of the fight before the match. I've actually already issued this challenge via YouTube (3681 seconds into the video; the link jumps to the appropriate spot in the video). https://youtu.be/S7DOb539UeA?t=3681
Maybe if it was more like an interview, but if they don't answer a direct question with a direct answer they get a little stab. ScoMo would have been a pincushion years ago.
The musical Hamilton (spoiler alert) involves several Duels, and the rules are introduced with a quite formal explanation. (It’s a nicely choreographed piece of exposition).
In the musical the first step to having a Duel is to go across the river to Jersey, as it’s legal there (“everything is legal in Jersey”)
Another interesting part is that a doctor attends, and turns his back during the duel itself, in order to provide plausible deniability.
The show is in lots of ways built around those three duels, which makes sense given that the elephant in the room of any story about Hamilton and Burr is their ultimate duel.
The first duel, in December of 1778, is between Laurens and Charles Lee, who was challenged by Laurens for running down General Washington's leadership after being relieved of command for his failure at Monmouth. What makes this an inescapable part of the show, IMO, is that Hamilton was Laurens' second and Burr was Lee's. (Charles Lee took a bullet in the duel, but it wasn't apparently serious -- he lived until 1782, and probably died of tuberculosis.)
The second, famously, was between Hamilton's son and George Eacker, in 1801. (Eacker, too, died of TB, in 1804.)
Obviously, the final one was between Hamilton and Burr, in the summer of 1804.
(But you did not point out that I incorrectly said the first commandment is to go to Jersey, when that’s nowhere near the first. I am a very poor reteller of Ham’)
> Didn’t Chernow say that at the time that Hamilton and Burr dueled, that dueling wasn’t really a thing anyone did?
It was declining in the North (where it occurred), not so much in the South and elsewhere. The last notable political duel in the United States might be the Broderick-Terry duel in San Francisco in 1859.
I suppose it was probably on its way out, but nb. that Hamilton's son had died in a duel only 3 years before.
Andrew Jackson fought in at least two, killing a man in 1806, and was later president.
Apparently, Mark Twain only narrowly escaped dueling with a rival newspaper editor (!) in 1864.
Given the accounts of folks taking bullets to the torso and surviving, it's hard to avoid concluding that dueling perhaps only continued because of the relative inefficacy (lower energy & accuracy) of firearms of the era. Jackson took a bullet to the CHEST and survived, as noted.
One of Ridley Scott's first (but relatively obscure) films was "The Duelists". This is a fairly unique film. Apparently a cinematic response to Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. It has a lot of future famous actors, and all the drama and manners around dueling in Napoleonic France.
The Duelists, 1977
France, 1801. Due to a minor perceived slight, mild-mannered Lieutenant d'Hubert is forced into a duel with hot-headed irrational Lieutenant Feraud. The disagreement ultimately results in scores of duels spanning several years.
> In 2010 in the case of the State of Iowa vs Christopher Spates, the Supreme Court judge Justice Ternus states that Iowa only considers the mutual combat law if two combatants agree to the use of deadly weapons, so you can see how different the law varies from state to state.
There's the story that when Abe Lincoln was challenged to a duel, he responded with his choice of weapons: cow dung at 10 paces. Needless to say, the duel never took place.
>...he responded with his choice of weapons: cow dung at 10 paces.
That is not correct.
>...Since Lincoln was challenged by Shields he had the privilege of choosing the weapon of the duel. He chose cavalry broadswords "of the largest size." "I didn't want the d—-d fellow to kill me, which I think he would have done if we had selected pistols," he later explained. For his own part, he did not want to kill Shields, but "felt sure [he] could disarm him" with a blade. At six feet, four inches tall, Lincoln planned to use his height to his advantage against Shields, who stood at a mere five feet, nine inches tall.
>The day of the duel, September 22, arrived and the combatants met at Bloody Island, Missouri to face death or victory. As the two men faced each other, with a plank between them that neither was allowed to cross, Lincoln swung his sword high above Shields to cut through a nearby tree branch. This act demonstrated the immensity of Lincoln’s reach and strength and was enough to show Shields that he was at a fatal disadvantage. With the encouragement of bystanders, the two men called a truce.
While duels have been outlawed, I don't think we have really replaced the necessary role they play in managing disputes and incentivising a self organizing social correction in a way that rewards virtue and has consequences for dishonesty.
Ironically, the main thing that maintained social order in small groups up until recently was humor. It wasn't mere cutting remarks either, it's a subtle understanding of power dynamics in a group that lets humor equalize and revert to shared values. The unspoken rules of humor were pretty close to those of Code Duello, particularly regarding punching down, and accepting when you had been beaten - then moving on once order was re-established.
Duels provided a similar reversion to a shared understanding of order and values. These rules are still around in an implied way, where boys involved in sports or group activities tend to learn a variation of them, and someone who fights without an understanding or respect for them is considered just a criminal and not trustworthy, tough, or masculine.
In the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey / Maturin books, dueling is a frequent subject. Stephen Maturin is said to have "been out" many times, and a deadly accurate shot.
It would be interesting if they made this legal again. Maybe there'd be less people caught up in gang shootings etc if you had them dual it out in a controlled space... assuming they aren't cowards.
> Maybe there’d be less people caught up in gang shootings etc if you had them dual it out in a controlled space…
Probably not. While a small part of gang violence deals with situations that might otherwise be handled by duels, a lot of it is more like war between factions which don’t happen to be states. Duels aren’t going to replace turf wars, even if they are legal.
Because these are not mostly disputes over money or material goods. They’re over honour. If the broader society showed some sign of caring about honour the way petty thugs who do drive by shootings to receding slights do they’d shift to the societally airbed way quickly. In the bourgeois society we have where dignity not honour is how worth is ascribed there’s no script for them to follow. Insofar as society is becoming victimhood based on how it conceived worth that’s equally unappealing.
As crazy as it sounds, I cant easily disagree with you .
Every boiling pot needs to relieve pressure. People need an outlet for their frustrations. Wars are far rarer, quite impersonal, and harder to shake off (as is the uniform). Even fistfight by consenting adults can get you in trouble. So many turn to crime.
Maybe there is room for a middle layer between anger and crime, between consenting adults with clear rules.
As far as I know there is almost no pre-qualification required for a private sparring session and even the qualification to be a professional is a very low bar (IIRC it is primarily a matter of eyesight, since you can't wear glasses in the ring).
You can endanger yourself (do hiking or parkour or extreme mountain-biking), but there are no legal activities to mutually endanger each other. You can't have a box fighting or chicken race to death legally. But why not?
In my understanding, it wasn't actually a given that someone would die as the result of a duel. While certainly a possibility, the poor accuracy of pistols of the day (if pistols were chosen) and the possibility of the duel being stopped by the physicians after blood was drawn (if swords were chosen) meant that honor was often deemed to be satisfied well short of anyone being killed.
It was also not uncommon for either or both combatants to simply fire their pistols into the air. Again, honor was generally deemed to be satisfied if this happened. This took some courage if you were the first one to fire into the air, as you were still required under the code to stand there and let the other guy take a shot at you if he so chose.
The pistols are not necessarily any less accurate than a modern one, in my experience. But, of course, marksmanship with handguns at further than a few paces is often difficult.
I'd guess the big danger for duelists would have been damage to internal organs or deep wounds becoming infected. Bullets could do this, as could the smallsword, a purely thrusting weapon which would have been the sword used in the 18th century. McBane (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_McBane) wrote of the difference between cutting and thrusting swords "the smallsword kills, yet you might take fifty cuts and not be disabled".
If McBane was telling the truth he certainly managed to get away with a large number of duels, though.
The pistols are necessarily less accurate than a modern one, as in the pistol duel traditions I've heard of in the 19th and 20th century (location does make a difference, though), the rule was to use smoothbore single-shot pistols which were less accurate than contemporary rifled pistols.
That depends on the distance and the manner of loading.
Smoothbore muskets are inaccurate, aren't they? Hence the need for 18th century armies to fire big volleys in order to get any hits.
A part of this is that the manner of loading, particularly under the stress of combat, causes variation in the powder charge. The amount of fouling increases as more shots are taken. The loose-fitting ball bounces up the barrel and will leave on slightly-varying trajectories. Hitting a man-sized target at 50 yards is difficul.
But, if you take such a musket to a modern meeting (e.g. https://www.mlagb.com/) and load it carefully with a patched ball and well-measured charge, under relaxed conditions, with the bore swabbed for a consistent amount of fouling, then they become sufficiently accurate for tight (a few inches) groups at 50 yards.
Pistols are much the same; loaded carefully, as I assume would happen before a duel, and they are very accurate. Of course, if the seconds were sloppy and used an undersized unpatched ball, and the distance was more than 10 paces, I'd expect inaccuracy.
Some rascals had their pistols rifled until within an inch or two of the muzzle so it wouldn't be noticed on a casual inspection.
What do you think a lot of inner city shootings are? Two people beef, guns get drawn, and shots fired. Sometimes your second gets involved, and if he thinks you were treated dishonorably he might hunt down you shooter and that man’s second. It’s even the same kind of honor culture, and was brought from the rural south which was the last bastion of high class American dueling.
Dueling has always been an upper class/urban affair, generally between men of wealth and substantial education. Traditionally only the nobility dueled but this was gradually liberalized into all upper class individuals. Even in the article for this thread (which is relatively late in the dueling game), it requires that you view the person you are dueling as a "Gentleman" alongside the all the connotations of such.
You can see a list of some US duels (and the participants involved) here [1]. The article also has some interesting backstory.
This is in my opinion far too narrow a view of aristocratic honor culture in the US and how that influenced Southern culture even among lower socioeconomic strata. By the civil war, dueling was pervasive throughout the south[1][2]. Over time this filtered down to "redneck" culture for lack of a better name for lower class southern whites. This in turn had effects on southern black culture and was carried north during the Great Migration[3] to some extent. So what you see in inner city shootings is the direct lineage of early American dueling imported to the south from French aristocrats who fought in the American Revolution. History is truly strange.
> Traditionally only the nobility dueled but this was gradually liberalized into all upper class individuals.
Looked at another way, traditionally only the upper class dueled, and that didn’t change when the capitalist class displaced the feudal aristocracy as the upper class.
It is though. Lack of a formal structure for who is sovereign in deciding disputes is what gets us the chaos of gang warfare. That’s … why there’s the warfare part.
We have a formal structure for who is sovereign in deciding disputes - civil society and the courts.
The actual problems of gang violence are endemic - poverty, trauma, systemic racism, underfunded education, poor nutrition, easy access to guns, lack of role models, the romanticizing of criminality in pop culture, to name a few. Nowhere on the list will you find "lack of clearly defined rules for setting order of initiative."
> We have a formal structure for who is sovereign in deciding disputes - civil society and the courts.
We do.
But other people reject that system.
And we (in the universal sense, in this case) also have a system of resolving that dispute, and it’s, in practice however much it gets gussied up in theory, to borrow a phrase, “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”.
I would add an enormously profitable market for illicit substances to the top of your list. If you legalized all drugs, gang violence would evaporate practically overnight.
I think it’s highly unlikely that people who have rejected outright the means by which civil society settles disputes will suddenly embrace them if you take away their mechanism for making an income. I’d expect the opposite reaction, actually, and would imagine a doubling down.
In fairness to your argument, I don’t think gang violence is a problem that can be reduced to zero, and think that there’s probably a low level equilibrium point that’s optimal for both parties (civil and non-civil society, for lack of better terms). So I’m probably not the audience for a total libertarian solution to the issue.
That's not actually true. The prosecutor and police can still come after you for most charges. For example, if you end up killing the other person, the prosecutor will still come after you for murder. The reason they tend to ignore lesser crimes if someone doesn't want to press charges is because they don't want to waste their time if nobody else is interested in taking it to court, and usually they need the witness testimony from the victim (although not always, and they could hold them as a material witness if they wanted to).
Article in French with a picture of the duel, fought with swords: https://www.lemonde.fr/m-moyen-format/article/2017/04/21/il-...
"le facétieux Defferre ne manquait pas de rappeler qu’il avait visé l’entrejambe de son adversaire pour lui gâcher sa nuit de noces, celui-ci se mariant le lendemain."
Essentially: "I aimed between his legs to spoil his wedding night", as one of the MPs was due to wed the day after the duel.