I would actually not be able to think in common or public spaces with that ambient level of physical threat.
As I understand the argument, the claim is that you (or rather, the reference class of people who feel like you) only react like that because you are hypersensitized to harmless (ie. with a short physiological return to baseline) threats due to lack of exposure.
If I am around a spider, I am in a state of mild to severe panic, depending on size. But this is not a fact about the inherent horribleness of spiders, but about my phobic mindset, and attempting to make the world spider-free would be a completely undue cost compared to treating my phobia.
To me, the question with Punch Bug is whether the suffering imposed on people who are naturally ill-suited to mild violence outweighs the suffering caused by lack of physicality and possible neuroticism (?) due to underexposure in people well-suited to mild violence.
To me, the question with Punch Bug is whether the suffering imposed on people who are naturally ill-suited to mild violence outweighs the suffering caused by lack of physicality and possible neuroticism (?) due to underexposure in people well-suited to mild violence.
Do we have to choose between everyone playing punch-bug and no one playing punch-bug?
It seems like the ideal would be that everyone who thrives in a kind of rough-and-tumble, highly physical environment would play punch-bug with each other. And the kind of people who go, “Wtf, you’re pro-punching?” would not. And everyone would be able to tell who’s who at a glance, and never mistake one for the other.
I would point to (the ethical parts of) the BDSM community as an example of useful norms about this.
1) You do not hit people who do not want you to hit them.
1a) Outside of the context of a relationship in which it can be assumed your partner generally wants you to hit them, you ask someone before hitting them.
2) You do not engage in consensual violence around nonconsenting individuals. (A light tap is not violence; punching someone is.)
2a) Bystander consent may be assumed if the bystanders are at a party or social event arranged for the specific purpose of facilitating people consensually hitting each other.
3) If you are going to be playing games where “no” doesn’t mean “no” (for example, “you’re not hitting me back so I guess you are playing punch bug!”), you establish a safeword ahead of time which means “no”.
This seems like about the best one can do for shared spaces that don’t require nonconsensual hitting to function. If people like Duncan want to delineate spaces for modes of coordination that do require this, then it’s not obvious that we should do much more than try to make sure people have a viable way to exit those spaces if they want to—as long as the space is clearly delineated, it’s not threatening to outsiders the way forming a military barracks might be.
In practice it seems difficult to guarantee adherence to BDSM norms for some groups such as small children, since many of them seem to have a strong drive to hit each other nonconsensually from time to time.
As I understand the argument, the claim is that you (or rather, the reference class of people who feel like you) only react like that because you are hypersensitized to harmless (ie. with a short physiological return to baseline) threats due to lack of exposure.
If I am around a spider, I am in a state of mild to severe panic, depending on size. But this is not a fact about the inherent horribleness of spiders, but about my phobic mindset, and attempting to make the world spider-free would be a completely undue cost compared to treating my phobia.
To me, the question with Punch Bug is whether the suffering imposed on people who are naturally ill-suited to mild violence outweighs the suffering caused by lack of physicality and possible neuroticism (?) due to underexposure in people well-suited to mild violence.
Do we have to choose between everyone playing punch-bug and no one playing punch-bug?
It seems like the ideal would be that everyone who thrives in a kind of rough-and-tumble, highly physical environment would play punch-bug with each other. And the kind of people who go, “Wtf, you’re pro-punching?” would not. And everyone would be able to tell who’s who at a glance, and never mistake one for the other.
I would point to (the ethical parts of) the BDSM community as an example of useful norms about this.
1) You do not hit people who do not want you to hit them.
1a) Outside of the context of a relationship in which it can be assumed your partner generally wants you to hit them, you ask someone before hitting them.
2) You do not engage in consensual violence around nonconsenting individuals. (A light tap is not violence; punching someone is.)
2a) Bystander consent may be assumed if the bystanders are at a party or social event arranged for the specific purpose of facilitating people consensually hitting each other.
3) If you are going to be playing games where “no” doesn’t mean “no” (for example, “you’re not hitting me back so I guess you are playing punch bug!”), you establish a safeword ahead of time which means “no”.
This seems like about the best one can do for shared spaces that don’t require nonconsensual hitting to function. If people like Duncan want to delineate spaces for modes of coordination that do require this, then it’s not obvious that we should do much more than try to make sure people have a viable way to exit those spaces if they want to—as long as the space is clearly delineated, it’s not threatening to outsiders the way forming a military barracks might be.
In practice it seems difficult to guarantee adherence to BDSM norms for some groups such as small children, since many of them seem to have a strong drive to hit each other nonconsensually from time to time.