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Copyright © 2003-2004 Phil Elmore, all rights
reserved.
Do They Know What They’re Talking About?
By Phil
Elmore
Do they know what they’re talking about?
The yin to the yang of Do I Know What
I’m Talking About is, of course, the wisdom and acumen of one’s critics.
Only an egomaniacal fool would assume he was infallible, his opinions
unassailable, his conclusions immutable. On these virtual pages, The
Martialist welcomes opposing viewpoints and regularly hosts opinions with
which I, its owner, do not necessarily agree. Many times readers have
e-mailed or posted online to add to, qualify, or offer critical insights into
material I’ve written myself. This, too, is most welcome, for all
of us are learning all the time.
Unfortunately for those who understand both the reality of
force and the day-to-day risk facing ordinary citizens, there is a relatively
large pool of critics online (and, one supposes, in real life) whose members
offer anything but substantive, reasonable input when confronted with the work
of others. (It is, perhaps, not surprising that very few of these
critics create anything of value themselves.) A flock of sheep in
wolves’ clothing, these loud-mouthed
virtual
tough guys make up in posturing what they lack in knowledge and ability.
Can there be a better example of armchair commando bluster
than a twenty-something French blogger telling you that you “obviously don’t
know anything about real-life fighting” because, as he’s only too eager to
tell you, he thinks you lack his extensive steetfighting experience on the
mean streets of France’s urban jungles? What if that blogger then
follows up a series of personally insulting posts with the lament that his
woodland camouflage pants are getting too faded in the wash, interfering with
his dream of starting his own wilderness survival school?
The world’s knife fighting experts apparently are very quick
to anger at least among those who spend their days working in the IT
departments of metalworking companies in southern states. Then there are
the combat experts still in college and strolling about in what
Morgan Freeman
called “invisible coats,” oblivious to the dangers presented by
street people. These are the
folks who believe that prudently
maintaining space is “panicking,” “overreacting,” or something that “looks
funny” (something the average teenage martial artist avoids at all costs).
Add up all the affected thousand-yards stares among the
brick-throwers indignantly accusing me of styling myself as a “tactical guru”
and you could , as the Who asserted, “see for miles and miles.” In a
world of macho fantasies and fragile self images, daring to state earnest
opinions about your own pursuit of combative skill is an affront to the ranks
of the armchair assassins. If you refuse to pretend, if you reiterate
what you know, you poke them with the proverbial stick of their own
insecurities prompting a flood of insults and accusations comprised of the
personal failings they project.
It is truly amazing just how many of the mall ninja,
world-weary street warriors, bar-tough working Joes, cynical self-professed
ordinary guys, proponents of social justice, and European webmasters out there
just don’t “get it,” whatever “it” might be at any given moment. The
fact that fools and herd animals roam in groups does not grant their majority
opinions any credibility. Reality is what it is no matter how many
Canadians extol the wonders of gun control, no matter how many high school
students from Singapore tell you that panhandlers are misunderstood saints,
and no matter how many coffeehouse clerks in camouflage pants tell you that
they’ve had more death matches in the bloody alleyways of Venice than have
you.
Do they know what they’re talking about?
They really wish you thought so.