Let me preface this by pointing out that this is not some random screed claiming that duelling is better. At best I have a neutral opinion on the matter.  The point of the title, and post, is not to call for people to do X, but to comment that X may be coming back on its own. X, of course, being duelling.  

This idea is a few hours stale, and my eyeballs are fuzzy from sleepiness, so hopefully its only a little sureal.

Lets face it, People love to kill people they disagree with. LOVE.  Its not a western innovation, duelling. The West duelled, but then, so did the Samurai in Japan's rather isolated and inward looking culture.  Parallel evolution of ideas.

insert obligatory comment about counting coup that doesn't really belong as is not supported by any research on teh author's behalf.

In the middle east it isn't really 'duelling', though honor killiing seems to fulfill the same function. Don't mistake me, honor killing is not confined to killing sullied women, oh no.  Pashtunwali, for example, has as part of the code a series of reprisals that should virtually garauntee genocidal warfare between tribes from any given insult over time. Honor killing, it lead to the discovery of the Nag Hamadi scrolls.  

Duelling can be arguably said to have existed from the earliest days of man, in some form or another.  Its also been illegal, with a spotty record, on and off for centuries.  Of course, gladitorial games reappeared in Rome, and were abolished, many times, even generations apart.

In the US duelling only really disappeared after the Civil war. Of course, we also started using the Secret Service to protect the president after the Civil War... hrm....

Anyway: the decline in popularity of duelling has been directly linked to the civil war, in America anyway, by means of this: the civil war was brutal and the brutality was not confined to soldiers on distant frontieers, but was in the cities and homes of the very men and women who fought in it, no segement of the population was insulated from it, meaningfully.  In teh face of so much death, in the wake of such bloodshed the idea of murdering, or facing death, over petty disagreements lost it's luster. And as an entire generation despised duelling, which had already been illegal for some time, so the practice died out.

Which brings us to today. Despite being illegal, duels do occasionally occur, and people are arrested. Like cannabalism, its something that has occured through ever era of human existance, and will continue in the margins for the forseeable future.

But we've got a cleaner world. Death and bloodshed don't have the visceral horror to the vast majority of people alive today, with ever decreasing numbers.

More too: the people have never left behind the desire to destroy those who oppose them, insult them, disagree with them.  Violence is done daily, around the country over all sorts of disagreements.  Dick Cheney was 'more of a man' for calling someone a dirty name on the floor of congress... gentility regarding disagreement can be said to be disappearing.

Enter Pokemon. Enter Magic tournements, and World of Warcraft cardgames, enter older Wargames, which only appeared after the death of duelling in modern memory (Little Wars was, 1918?)... and violence has been known to occure after these little substitute duels.

Eventually the middle man, the faux duels with cards, miniatures or internet debates will be eliminated... eventually a generation raised on the idea of challenging and Pwning their fellow men will turn back to the real thing, and like the pheonix, duelling will return.

I favor hand grenades at five paces. Somewhat messy but it gets the job done.

Congrats, at least your post is more entertaining than all the political junk that's flooding the board.

Anyway, by your very broad definition of "duelling", it's very much a fact of contemporary American life, in the form of the drive-by, the road rage incident, and the random escalation of sidewalk argument into gun and knife "fights" (or more typically, cowardly ambushes).

The bar was low, so I just fucking JUMPED that mother. Okay, stepped lively over it... whatever.

But what do I know, I'm in a coma right now, so I suspect this is just the, um, Id talking or something.

more coherently... cognizently... somethingly..on topic maybe... is the idea that eventually the random unfocused violence, coupled with a culture that has been absorbing in every increasing... diffusion?... widespreadness... a sort of regimented opposition, duelling by proxie (ha! Got it in one, this time! I needed it in the OP, damnit!) will start manifesting in the more or less unfocused violence that is already human nature.  Society may even tacitly endorse it, as its concensual behavior, and its less harmfull to society than randomly shooting some fuck on the street, and there is a certain ilicit thrill, vicarious if you will, to watching to motherfuckers butcher eachother in a regimented, orderly fashion (though, honestly, never as neat as the movies would have you believe...)...

or something.

I could be off on the timing, as I'm shooting for a few generations and it could be another couple hundred years (but you just know I'll pop up even then to say I told ya!)

Yeah, I think it's extremely unlikely. To an extent I suppose the contemporary forms are romanticized in film and music, but the reality isn't sanctioned by society at large--unlike "classic" dueling which was a respectable means of settling disputes among upper class and military men into the 19th century, as you alluded.

We already had this discussion on the SJGames off topic forum. There, pudgy-arsed geeks whose only experience of physical affrays came from slipping and bending their willie while lubing up to watch Hentai Tentacle Cheerleaders 23 boasted of how they'd like to go back to the days of fencing to settle disputes between, er, gentlemen.

This is a bit like when Fight Club came out, and all these blokes would come out of the cinema saying, "wouldn't it be cool to...?"

No, I don't think so.

Here you go, Spike.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;245632We already had this discussion on the SJGames off topic forum. There, pudgy-arsed geeks whose only experience of physical affrays came from slipping and bending their willie while lubing up to watch Hentai Tentacle Cheerleaders 23 boasted of how they'd like to go back to the days of fencing to settle disputes between, er, gentlemen.

This is a bit like when Fight Club came out, and all these blokes would come out of the cinema saying, "wouldn't it be cool to...?"

No, I don't think so.

Don't be a cocksmock, Jimmy.  I started this with the very statement that I'm not calling for it, gazing whistfully into the past for it, or any of that shit. I am merely predicting, and not necessarily within our lifetimes.

Also, a reasonable look at the last few centuries of Duelling in the west show that, while its been popular, its often been illegal, viewed as immoral etc.  I also don't suggest Fencing is the means it will return as.

In Uruguay, duels were legal until the 1990s.

Several (living) former presidents took part in them.

Quote from: JongWK;245715Several (living) former presidents took part in them.

In the interest of fairness, any dead ones?

!i!

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;245632We already had this discussion on the SJGames off topic forum. There, pudgy-arsed geeks whose only experience of physical affrays came from slipping and bending their willie while lubing up to watch Hentai Tentacle Cheerleaders 23...

Naturally, you're not one of those, right? You're a big, slim, tough guy, aint'cha?

Quote from: Ian Absentia;245752In the interest of fairness, any dead ones?

!i!

A (former?) president killed a newspaper editor (from a rival party) in a duel. That was in the 1920s, IIRC.

After writing a controversial newspaper article, another politician got into two consecutive duels with two fellow party members in the 1960s/70s. The latter two went on to become presidents. One of them was a descendant of the 1920s duelling president, and his father also had a famous duel against a right-wing general (his own Minister of Defense!).

A left-wing general fought a pistol duel against that same general in the 60s/70s. The first general went on to create the left-wing party that is currently in government.

I might take the it up if offered a chance to duel some of the modsquad at the site which it too vile to name.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;245632We already had this discussion on the SJGames off topic forum. There, pudgy-arsed geeks whose only experience of physical affrays came from slipping and bending their willie while lubing up to watch Hentai Tentacle Cheerleaders 23 boasted of how they'd like to go back to the days of fencing to settle disputes between, er, gentlemen.

This is a bit like when Fight Club came out, and all these blokes would come out of the cinema saying, "wouldn't it be cool to...?"

No, I don't think so.

I've had the shit beat out of me bad enough to say that I'd show up to at least one Fight Club before I'd have to hand in the towel. Oh, sure, I would. But I'd still go.

Quote from: Demonoid;245973I might take the it up if offered a chance to duel some of the modsquad at the site which it too vile to name.

Oh, come on.

I like dueling as a concept. Dueling with non-lethal weapons, I can get behind (this includes CCG tournements and martial arts matches and internet flamewars). Dueling with lethal weapons is a great way to become an example of Evolution in Action.

Plus, I'm just too old for a lot of that shit. Between my Navy experiance and my Security experiance, I'm convinced that violent and personally dangerous excitement is something best kept as a shadow of itself on the tabletop. I mean really, I've got a daughter and if I engage in something stupid that gets me killed then who will she borrow money from?