so i’ve always thought that this is interesting but i don’t see myself writing an essay on it very soon… it’s like… do people really want to hurt each other? what % of people do? how safe can you feel, knowing that there ARE people who want to hurt each other? Bad news is in the news all the time. it’s not newsworthy when people don’t hurt each other. Most interactions between most people is non-violent most of the time…

(now-deleted video of fight at st hildas secondary)

The fascinating thing about this fight, if you watch carefully, is that you’ll see that none of the boys actually _really_ want to hurt each other. That big kid could have practically murdered the smaller one if he didn’t pull his punches. The hit to the face looks to me almost like an accident, and even that was probably more of a ‘fist-slap’ than a proper punch. 

If the big kid was serious, he could have slammed the dude to the ground, broken some bones. A good elbow would have done a lot of damage.

I’m always fascinated by this. Boys, for all their bravado and ‘gangsterism’, are typically terrified of facing Real Consequences, and don’t dare to do any real lasting damage to each other.

It’s really just a game that dances outside of the boundaries of what is conventionally acceptable, but it has boundaries of its own: You don’t severely injure or maim one another. You put on the show, and then you allow yourself to be subjected to the due process – typically some form of detention, suspension, etc.

– 

Intent is a murky thing; my point is that they are self-restrained. 

You know, I see this with animals too. My cats claw and bite me playfully all the time, which I find annoying. Then once I saw my larger cat fucking murder a bird. And I realize that he could actually rip my throat out if he actually wanted to 

– 

The most vicious fighters you’ll see are on liveleak, not youtube. The brazilian and filipino street fighters who literally kill people on /r/watchpeopledie. I think there’s a relationship between level of violence and realistic expectation of justice/retribution 

– 

I was reading this book the other day about abuse, and this counsellor works with men who have abused their wives. 

She often heard them say that they just “lost control” at that moment, but when she asked them why they didn’t go further – punch their wife hard enough to deal some real damage, use the knife to actually stab her – they said they stopped just short because… they didn’t want the neighbours to hear, or they didn’t want to cause marks, etc. The counsellor commented that the limit for these guys was when their actions would actually cause harm to themselves – causing some grievous hurt that would land them in serious trouble. 

That was my first thought when I read what you said about the video. I don’t know if they’re afraid of really dealing damage, or if they’re just afraid of doing something bad enough to fuck themselves over. 

– 

^ there’s a logic to violence