Dumb kid stuff, mainly. I’m 27 now, and I guess I was 15 or so the last time I was in an actual fight. I guess someone slighted someone else in some way, and it was on.
A situation where I believed that it would come to violence no matter what I did. If someone acted very threatening, or pulled a knife, or similar. I do pride myself in being quite good at talking my way out of threatening situations, though, so I hope it’ll never come to the punching and the running and the hoyvin-mayvin.
I do not consider “fighting words” an excuse for escalating from words to violence. If someone hits you, you can hit them back. If someone calls you an ugly sonabitch, you can call them an ugly sunabitch, but you can’t hit them back. I believe I am in good company here.
Only the people I like. And even then it tends to be a promise of harm if they don’t straighten up and act right.
< Steve Zissou >
You never say, “I’m gonna fight you, Steve.” You just smile and act natural, and then you sucker-punch.
< / Steve Zissou >
I do not agree with Brickbacon that it’s OK to respond to someone’s words with violence. But some people do use ‘fighting words’ as a debating tactic.
I work for a Government Agency that’s about 99% far-right politically. In some offices, I have been the only person that was the least bit out of step with right-wing beliefs (I consider myself a moderate). This has sometimes empowered individuals to use rhetoric towards me that I consider out of line.
I have found several times over the years that verbal challenges to ‘take it to the parking lot’ are an effective way to deal with this.
Please note, I never actually threaten anyone – I remember telling one guy that I offered to meet in the gym, “This is not a threat, it’s a challenge – I will not lay a hand on you, until we set foot in that ring”.
A sample, composite exchange with a co-worker:
CW: “Ah, whaddaya expect – you sissy liberals all think that.”
Me: "(Eastwood-like pause) “What did you say (CW’s last name)?”
CW: “I said you all think”–
Me: “No, I mean what did you call me – did you call me a sissy?”
CW: “Well, no, I”-
Me: “Are you calling me a sissy? Cause if you are, I’m calling you outside, right now. C’mon” (starting to the door).
FTR, no one has ever taken me up on these challenges. But consequently, when people debate politics with me, they are careful not to use ‘fighting words’ as a cheap debating tactic.
I haven’t actually fought anyone since I was in junior high, and I can’t think of a time when I’ve seriously threatened anyone in my life. There have been times when guys have half-seriously said that they were going to pick me up and carry me away, and I have half-seriously replied that they would seriously regret it if they did. The unfortunate truth about being tiny and female is that some people think there won’t be reprisals if they decide to manhandle you. Being physically aggressive may not be the best way to handle it, but it is a way, and that seems to be my instinctive response.
But someone would definitely have to get physical with me before I would even threaten them, let alone follow through on a threat. Words alone wouldn’t get me violent.
Well, honestly, I haven’t thrown the first punch since high school.
That time, a co-worker intentionally upturned a dirty mop bucket on a surface I was busy mopping.
My current policy is to only use lawful force. I don’t really like the idea of going to jail. So, to cause the current Mr. Woodall to throw the first punch, you’d have to be brandishing weapons at me, or perhaps just menacing a member of my family in such a fashion that I was convinced that my failure to engage you would result in immediate harm to a member of my family.
I’m a big, scary-looking guy, so I will probably NEVER be able to claim that an unarmed person’s actions intimidated me to the point that force was justified.
Only professionally.
I think there are some circumstances where words can and ought to bring about a violent response.
For example say some guy murders your daughter/son. Fifteen years later he gets out on parole and meets you outside of your work and taunts you/makes fun of your daughter/son begging for their life before he killed them.
Personally I think the emotional/mental trauma he would be inflicting on you in that situation would be of greater harm than a severe beating would be to him.
Of course that’s an instance where I’d actually kill someone with my bare hands (and I know how, very well in fact.) Legally I’d say I was in the wrong but I think with extenuating circumstances it’d be bumped down to manslaughter or even some sort of crime of passion.
I think people need to realize that all human beings have emotions and I think in complete honesty that given the right situations words (that don’t themselves threaten violence) could bring virtually anyone to physical violence.
Part of getting by in life is realizing where that “point” is for every person you meet, if you cross that point be prepared to fight.
I feel compelled to point out that in most professional environments, such an exchange would likely get you fired. Or at the very least it will get you mocked relentlessly.
How would you respond to this? “no I’m not going to go outside and fight you like a couple of 12 year olds. I will continue ridiculing you and there’s nothing you can do about it!”
Evil Captor
Hear hear! It’s what you call civilization. There are exceptions though. If someone says “I’m gonna kick your ass”, well, they may never hear themselves say …“ass.”
I don’t threaten, I warn people. If they are pissing me off to the point where I’m really enraged, I will tell them to get away from me or let me leave before I do something I regret.
Once my boyfriend and I were fighting and I tried to leave to cool down, but he wanted to talk it out. I just needed to get the hell out of there so I wouldn’t hit him, but he blocked the door. Apparently I was pretty scary. I didn’t hit him though. I’m hot-tempered, and I really get the urge to just beat people up sometimes, so when the urge hits me I leave.
I don’t remember what the fight was about, but we both thought it was pretty funny later.
Closest I can think of is a time when a black kid in my high school decided on me as the honorary heckle victim honky for the day. I just ignored him for the most part, but when he started interrupting conversations and whatnot I swooped up a chair like I was going to hit him–and he was out of there in half a second flat.
Bluff of course. Had he not run away I would just have spent the rest of the day heaping mental abuse on him (I shall make mental goo out of your brain my little minion mufufufu) But knowing the kid, this was the most expeditious method.
Dude, you’re failing in your pansy-ass peace-loving liberal ways! Come, join the dark side of the force! 
So I wasn’t the only one concerned that this is the level of discourse in a government agency then…?
Not all professional environments are the same. We’re a military agency, on a military base. The gym I mentioned used to keep a pair of boxing gloves at the front desk for such exigencies.
In any event, since I generally avoid political discussions at work, such instances have always been the result of people seeking me out, making it a lot harder for them to claim complete innocence to HR, and even less likely to be able to mock me when I’ve called them on it. Neither outcome you describe has ever happened to me – YMMV.
May I correctly assume from this statement that you haven’t been in a fight since you were 12? If so, I would respectfully suggest that you not go around calling people sissies. Not only is it unprofessional, disingenuous and petty, but unless you’re a lot bigger or tougher than most, it may not be safe – even in professional settings, there are people out there a lot more hot-tempered than me.
Wow. Just wow.
So not only do grown-up people act like this, but grown-up ‘professionals’ at that. :eek:
Er, I think there’s a reason why the last time most people got in an actual physical fight was when they were 12, that’s all…
The reason is because society deems it unacceptable now, not necessarily because it is unacceptable. There can often be honor and dignity in physical combat. Society has become so feminized that many people have fail to recognize that. I’m not advocating being a bully or a thug, but taking something to the street isn’t always a barbaric thing.
I thought that there really is nothing out there that one can say that should result in violence done to them, until I read your post. I wish that people would realize that words are just words, but I wouldn’t even go as far as trusting myself to do so - if ever in a situation you described. So now there is a dilemma - the person who threw the first punch is not always the one at fault(this used to be true for me with obvious exceptions, like for theft, which I consider violence against ones property).
Is there really a way to define what types of statements justify a violent response - or are you just always risking getting your ass kicked whever you open your mouth since its probably gonna vary greatly from person to person?
I think in a perfect world no words (unless they are an immediate threat against your person/life that you have every reason to take seriously) would result in violence.
But we don’t live in a perfect world. I think in the situation I outlined above (I tried to think of the worst possible thing someone could say to me without actually making a threat) human beings have emotions. We can all try to be like the Jedi or whatever and suppress these emotions, but all humans get enraged, and all humans can get enraged at just words. And once you’ve gotten enraged, I think all humans can go from there to violence given the right push.
This “breaking point” is different for everyone. For me personally unless I’m belligerently drunk being made fun of/teased probably won’t bring about a violent response, it’ll bring back even nastier verbal insults against my verbal aggressor. Some people, their line is way easier to cross.
My dad has a line that’s very easy to cross. Growing up (and even after I was grown) disagreeing with him in virtually any manner = extreme rage and possible physical violence. Note that it never actually came to blows with us, but I pushed him to the point of throwing household objects pretty easily and just via simple disagreement, and I have no doubt if I wasn’t more evenheaded I could have brought him to physical conflict fairly easily.
I know other people with similar dispositions.
I’m certainly not excusing it or condoning it, but I think if you want to get along in the world you have to be aware everyone has their breaking point, and unless you want to fight you need to say clear of it.
Most reasonable and rational people (my dad wouldn’t be in this group most of the time) have a breaking point that will never be reached in adulthood (all of us have easier breaking points as teens I think.) But I still think it’s there, like in the hypothetical I pointed out above.
And I think if you take verbal abuse that far you are doing such emotional harm to the person in question you almost have to expect a physicall violent response, and even be wanting one.
Anything someone says with the intent to insult, intimidate, or injure someone may bring about a physical response. While it does vary from person to person, most sane people would only react to the obvious things like racial or ethnic slurs, violent/hate speech, threats, etc.