An interesting point to all this is that it sort of answers the question of “Why is there so much violence in society?” The answer: because it feels good. You get a rush of power, you feel like a real badass, you feel like you handled a crisis with honor. Even if that crisis was triggered by you in a really stupid way, it still feels like you fought for something important at the time.
Pretty sure if we looked at violence as something primeval and powerful, like sex, we’d answer a lot of questions about the world.
Generally speaking, my friends and I wouldn’t be out looking for fights when we went out drinking (in the US). But I feel like over the years I would encounter my fair share of idiots who were.
To me the strangest part is the use of the expression “punch up” a form I have not heard since around 1962. Rather akin to a documentary about drug use wherein a beatnik is asked about his use of reefers.
Specific bars/types of bars seem especially prone to violence. In my reporting days, an Indianapolis bar called “The Pump Room” (named after a shotgun?) was good for fights almost nightly, enlivened by a shooting or stabbing on a weekly basis.
The risk has spread to so-called family establishments in these troubled pandemic times.
Or perhaps a reference to the (once famous, now defunct) Pump Room in Chicago (which itself was named after the Grand Pump Room in Bath, England, by the owner of the Ambassador East hotel – where the Pump Room was located – who was inspired by the novel “Monsieur Beaucaire” by Booth Tarkington, which is set in Bath. And that Pump Room was so named for the hot spring waters that would be pumped in from the Roman baths next door.) Sinatra’s Live version at the Sands of “My Kind of Town” includes the lyric “the jumpin’ Pump Room, Chicago is …”
It was a few decades ago and the two guys involved no longer behave this way, but I know a guy who used to go out drinking, and he and his buddy would look for fights to get into (I didn’t know his buddy very well). We were all out at a bar once while I was visiting, and some guy came in surrounded by girls. My friend told me that this was some actor who was a bit of a local celebrity. Then he said “I’ve never punched an actor before.” Fortunately I was able to talk him out of it.
Back then, you weren’t likely to get arrested for assault just for a drunken bar fight.
I know a couple of other guys who would often end up in drunken bar fights, but they didn’t set out to get into a fight intentionally.
So what would be a good attempt to solve this problem? More promotion of boxing or martial arts classes? Somehow, I don’t think so. I don’t think folks that are looking forward to fighting really would want to put all that effort and discipline into learning the “correct” methods of combat.
British/Irish/Australian/NZ culture has always had an under current of hard drinking and fisticuffs as a way of letting off steam for fellows with too much testosterone. There is usually a bar or club known for this. Ask and folks will give you directions. Football matches are known for brawls between rival supporters.
At the height of the industrial economy, it was far worse. The 1980s is in a northern town full of unemployed youths. It was pretty much like the Wild West on a Friday and Saturday night. The pubs closed at 11pm and you had to drink fast. Then it was home or to a night club with a belly full of beer.
But these days with all the macho metal bashing jobs are gone and replaced by call centres and customer service work. The culture is far more gentile. Though, if you do want a punch up, there are places where it almost guaranteed. But there are far fewer places like that. Fewer youngster in general, the demographics have changed.
It was always fists. Only low life drug dealers carry knives. Thankfully there are no guns. News of a gun being brandished will bring out a police swat team and possession of an illegal gun is five years in prison. Brawling was part of some peoples social life when young. Later they become become bouncers, to keep their hand in. But now, even bouncers need to have a license.
I think this is a really important point. A fight outside a pub is, for some working class lads, not much different than going to a boxing ring or joining a rugby team. It’s sport, a bit of a laugh, some rough and tumble, safe in the knowledge that no one is actually going to get seriously hurt. Because no one is carrying a weapon - only drug gangs carry weapons, and no one fights them.
I used to know a guy who was a ‘football hooligan’ as the papers would call him. Saturdays were for drinking, football, and having a scrap after the match with the opposition fans. All good clean fun, as far as he was concerned.
Please note, I don’t agree with or understand any of this, but then I’m a lesbian so men are weird alien creatures to me in general.
Not exactly- knives are an issue in the UK, but that’s a different problem. The knife issue is more gangs, dealers, muggers- those ingaged in criminal activity who don’t care how much damage they do- not those just looking for a bit of a scrap at the end of the night.
Your typical guys out for a punchup want a fight, yes, and I’m not going to pretend they’re all following Marquess of Queensbury rules, but they do want to all go home with all their parts intact, if a bit bruised. If you actually see the fights they tend to go for the big flashy punches, rather than actually aiming to do maximum damage. Frequently there’s one or more relatively sober mates who will step in if it looks like it’s going too far.
It’s only the real crazies who would think of bringing a knife to a punchup, and they tend to find themselves rapidly running out of friends.
I worked for a UK alcohol charity and we commission a big social research project on “Drunken Nights Out” which looked at all aspects of the experience (and harms) associated with young people hitting clubs and bars. This particular phrase didn’t quite make it into the report, but the lead research told us that
“Fighting is how straight men have sex with each other”
Here’s what did make it into the report (Section 6.2, Fighing As An Adventure In Itself, p84 but there’s loads in the whole section):
Having said this, there was evidence that – for some people at least – fighting can be an end in itself, a desirable social adventure independent of whether or not one has pulled. …
I think the thing is, with violence, there’s a veryfine line between pain that hurts and pain that’s enjoyable. I mean, for example, sex, like there’s theaspect of sex that people hurt each other to enjoy itand obviously, I’m not saying that fighting is sexual,but I am saying that fighting can actually be, I meanit does hurt but it can feel good. […] I think it’s…Getting your frustration out is really… it does feelreally good. I mean it’s like I mean it’s more a girlthing but occasionally like you just want a big, like,you just have a massive cry and then afterwardsyou just feel like that’s that and done and if youhave a fight occasionally like if you really, like that’show I used to feel afterwards, it’s a cathartic thing. [m, 21, Int44]
Deliberately seeking a fight in this way can be understood as the pursuit of another kind of social
adventure – an extreme and intense interaction with another person
