The Martialist: The Magazine For Those Who Fight Unfairly

“Stay ‘unreasonable.’  If you
don’t like the solutions [available to you], come up with your
own.” 
Dan Webre

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constitute legal advice.  It is for ENTERTAINMENT
PURPOSES ONLY.

Copyright © 2003-2004 Phil Elmore, all rights
reserved.

I Know You Are, But What Am I?

Insecurity in the Martial Arts

By Phil Elmore

The martial arts are supposed to instill in their practitioners a sense of
confidence and, ideally, respect for others.  A martial art, however, is
really a vehicle for power, which is what drives the other qualities.  When
you are comfortable in the knowledge that you can defend yourself from
aggressors, that you can stand up for yourself when needed, you no longer fear
every tiny criticism and challenge.  When you are confident in yourself and
in your abilities, you have the power that comes with such knowledge. 
There is a component of fear that such power generates in others, too:  the
fear that, should they choose to use force against you, they might regret it.

Most of the time, this fear is understated.  It is simply a byproduct of
martial ability.  There are those in the arts, however, who seek to
cultivate this sense of fear.  They hope that others will see them and be
impressed — duly or unduly — by their ability to harm others.  They see
the martial arts as a shield behind which they can hide, a means of forestalling
criticism through an ongoing, implied argumentum ad baculum.

Worse, there are those who affect a facade of martial ability in the hope of
acquiring this power without earning it.  These people never tire of
telling others just how tough they are, constantly indicating that they will
settle any and all disagreements with their fists.  (When confronted with
the opportunity to meet those with whom they disagree, they invariably decline.)

Worse still are those who, bereft of any real knowledge of the martial arts
and unable to craft the pretense of it, hope to create the illusion of the same
by ridiculing others.  Ridicule, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad
thing.  There are those whose words and actions are so absurd that the only
appropriate response is sarcasm, the only warranted reply a healthy dose of
derision.  But there are among us those who decry others without grounds,
purveyors of intellectual dishonesty who do through empty assertions, strategic
omissions, blatant fabrication, and personal attacks what they cannot do
substantively.

What all of these people have in common is a profound insecurity about
themselves.  Their insecurities may be as simple as doubts about their
prowess in their chosen art or arts.  Their insecurities might also be as
thorough as the pervasive and lurking fear that everyone is better, in
some way, than they are (and thus they fear everyone and cope by trying to make
all others fear them).

The reason this comes up constantly is because on the Internet, those
interested in martial arts naturally discuss them.  Part of the discussion
of any art or individual or concept is criticism of those people or things,
particularly if we find ourselves in disagreement with them.  Those
confident in their abilities generally respond to substantive criticism with
substance of their own, which yields productive conversation and even debate. 
While no one is immune to becoming frustrated and angry during the course of
such a discussion, those who believe in themselves generally do not become
hysterical over these arguments.

Then there are the folks that send me hate mail.

It isn’t just me, of course.  Many of us have received similar mail. 
All you have to do to start receiving it is to speak out about a specific art.
There will be those who perceive your criticism as a personal attack.  The
more insecure the individual, the more personally he or she will take your
refusal to become a true believer in his or her system or guru.

This is perfectly understandable.  An extremely insecure individual who
uses the martial arts, or the pretense of martial ability, as a means of coping
with this insecurity has constructed a very elaborate and false self-image. 
Any attack on the component pieces of that image is an attack on the person,
as far as he or she is concerned.

The most common of all logical fallacies is the ad hominem attack. 
Committing the fallacy of ad hominem does not, as is popularly misbelieved,
constitute merely being insulting.  The reason ad hominem is a fallacy is
because the person who uses it directs his or criticism against the person
making an argument, rather than against the substance of the argument itself.

This is demonstrated to me most often as defensive criticism of my
unimpressive martial arts background.  I have no credentials of which to
speak and do not expect anyone to agree with what I say on the basis of who I
am.  One must wonder, then, why the words of someone who (if one
believes in the fallacy of the appeal to authority) has nothing of value to say
on a topic are taken so very seriously by some who become offended.  Well,
the answer is that every argument rests on its own content (and on the
premises from which it is built).  Criticism must be addressed according to
the criticism, not the critic.  If someone’s words make you
uncomfortable — if their refusal to believe in you or in your art makes you
angry — you must ask yourself why this is true.

This is what those who are deeply insecure in themselves and
their abilities cannot do — something they avoid doing whenever humanly
possible, in fact.  For those living in elaborate worlds of fantasy in
which they are the lords and masters of all they survey, practitioners of the
One Supreme Martial Art compared to which all others are inferior, the examined
life is too horrific to live. 

Such an assault on their egos is simply
too much for these people to bear.