Why Watching MMA is Psychologically Healthy (Mimetic Theory, Reaction)
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- Опубліковано 23 лют 2024
- Saw lots of responses to this video about why watching MMA isn't good (I think it's very good and healthy) but not many good ones, so here are my thoughts on why fighting and watching MMA is, in the words of Jorge Masvidal, super necessary.
Omg, Fr Mike 😆
Aight, I’m watching this
Okay so I watched it, as someone who does not really watch MMA fights but can appreciate the sportsmanship and the fanfare around it. I’d say the main difference with MMA fights and violent sports like football is that the tackling and physical domination is not the main goal of these other sports but in MMA fights that’s the main idea. Overall, I think it’s alright to enjoy it but it’s not as ‘noble’ as other sports
Hi Angel, I like your take and I think I probably agree, especially if we're taking individual psychology/biology into account - for starters, it definitely makes sense that MMA fights are more about physical domination than others; they're so much closer to the original combat sports than the rest.
I think the thing I’d need to work out is the concept of what is or isn’t noble, or what is less noble.
If “noble” is something like the textbook “having or showing fine personal qualities or high moral principles and ideals”, I’d say the qualities or high moral principles showcased in MMA are courage, discipline, competence, diligence, physical and psychological fitness and endurance, etc, and in one of the most combat-like contexts specifically.
Many/most other sports are packed with what I think most of us would agree are similar if not the same noble qualities, but in a less physically combative manner, which makes those sports more noble to some, and less noble to others.
What determines which group you fall into probably has to do a lot with whether you think the qualities of the warrior archetype are exceptionally noble or not so much.
And I think for some, it’s perfectly reasonable to see that archetype as a waste of time to prioritize and thus less noble for them.
Whatever that warrior archetype is exactly, it has almost always been seen as a valuable and even noble member of society and because we live in a world filled with people who will eagerly dominate you if given the chance (Russia invading Ukraine as a recent example), I’d argue it should still be.
Not because war is good, but because the ability and willingness to protect is good.
To me, the further away from the original purpose of sports you get (combat preparation), the less purpose is aimed at the qualities of the warrior archetype and the more it’s “watered down” from the original purpose (basically to encourage and train better warriors to put it simply), although the “warrior” is clearly still there in many if not most sports.
But does that make other sports more or less noble?
That’s where it really depends on the individual I think - my mom, as “mama-bear” as she can be in the rare situations its needed, is a classic nurturer, and God bless her for it, my sisters and I needed it, and thank her regularly for how well she cared for us. She protected us in different ways than my dad did.
She hated the violence in even football let alone boxing and MMA, and couldn’t embrace it for the life of her, and I actually think that’s natural and even good to a degree --
I think for her, MMA really is less noble, because her natural qualities and natural abilities are on the opposite end of the spectrum; it would be a waste of time and energy to focus on and try to emulate the “warrior”, or at least it would be to prioritize those qualities over others.
For myself, if I valued, paid more attention to and prioritized, say, nurturing vs protecting (I know those are loaded words but I think you'll get what I'm saying), that would be a waste of time and energy for many reasons, in part because I’m not hard-wired to be as competent in that way, and in my family, we have enough nurture to go around without me taking on those qualities as primary rather than secondary.
I'd guess we'd probably agree at least somewhat there, but the most controversial thing is when we consider masculinity and femininity.
Although I think it comes down to the individual, I do also think that most men - and I know this is more and more seen as an archaic belief - but I'm convinced that most men are naturally drawn to this "warrior" archetype and other masculine archetypes because they're biologically and psychologically hardwired to.
If that's true, I'd say that for most men (and definitely many women too), combat sports are at least as noble as the other sports, if not more so, as long as they're aiming at the right purpose.
The other controversial thing is dominance in sports - is it possible for physical dominance to be noble if the purpose is aimed at noble things? I think so, but it can be tricky.
@@JoshRueff It sounds a bit like rationalizing. In that spirit one could rationalize porn too.
I think islam did a good job in that regard. Wrestling is ok but striking not. One could do a training without the blood lust element I guess.
@@billat5085 Hi Bill, thank you for your take! I’ll start where I think we agree; I do think I’m rationalizing, and if you think the argument I’ve given is insufficient, we agree there too.
There’s a huge discussion about this online with great points on both sides, and my response (in the video and in the comment above) are important but primarily supplemental, as I try to fill specific gaps I found in the argument for MMA, and especially against Father Mike’s stance (which many others agree with) which is basically something along the lines of “there is nothing noble about MMA/watching MMA”. This, I cannot state strongly enough, is simply untrue.
To be unable to recognize the nobility in these sports I think might be one of the many signs of the breakdown of and dismissing of masculine virtues in the West.
To apply the argument I made in support of porn is difficult for me to see, but I'll try to steel man your position to see if I can understand it - using the same rationale we could say that porn is noble, that is, watching porn can be noble if it is aimed at noble things.
The difficulty there is showing how watching porn can be aimed at noble things - maybe some might say it's admiring beauty and intimacy and is, in that sense, noble?
But if you take the world of porn and all it's genres and fetishes - even just the most watched categories, let alone the darkest corners of the collective unconscious -
I won't go into the gory details, but the statistics on the subject are truly dark and horrifying, and the precise opposite of what I (and I think most people, if they took the time to learn about it) would consider noble.
One thing that may be worth throwing out there, not so much as an argument, but as an interesting observation, is this.
The only people I’ve heard associate martial arts/MMA with bloodlust are people who have never been a part of these sports. Many have never stepped into the ring, never fought, perhaps never even taken a hit.
I think sometimes, they view fighting through a certain lens because of lack of experience, and if they actually tried it, they’d quickly and intuitively recognize the nobility in these sports, and general lack of bloodlust in most competitors. Of course there are exceptions, and bloodlust and violence for violence’s sake (Sean Strickland comes to mind…) let say, is a real problem that should be recognized and ideally dealt with. But within the vast majority of these communities, it’s the exception not the rule.
There are many reasons why one could see porn as good or noble. In the end it is kind of an addiction.
I am not so shure that bloodlust is the exception in MMA. Reminds me of Joe Rogan who said it is fun to choke poeple out.
I was always interested in fighting. I trained mostly by myself and did only 6 months boxing in club. I am watching the field since the K1 times. I feel sometimes bloodlust in me when I watch MMA. It feels like addiction. I can not stop it. If it would not feel like addiction I think it would be more ok to watch it.
@5085 "There are many reasons why one could see porn as good or noble." Agreed, but are there any convincing reasons you can think of? I tried and couldn't think of any convincing reasons to see porn as noble.
"In the end it is kind of an addiction." Couldn't agree more. Archetypally speaking, it's an addiction to something like the incubi and succubi, very powerful patterns considering the fact that libido (freudian libido I mean) is such a heavy hitter, biologically and psychologically.
In combat sports, I think most would see the archetype of the Warrior primarily (both good and bad btw), in porn I see the archetype of the Temptress/Seductress, the Incubi and Succubi, the shadow side of the Lover archetype, masculine and feminine. Very dangerous, highly addictive. I doubt there's much nobility in there.
"Reminds me of Joe Rogan who said it is fun to choke people out." That's a tough one, because he could mean that in so many ways - from personal b-jujitsu experience, because that's one of the primary objectives in the competition, to tap your opponent (or when you're rolling with your friends on the mat), that means you won, so it is fun in the sense that winning is fun, just like pinning someone in wrestling (btw I forgot to say before, I didn't know Muslims say no striking, only wrestling, that's very interesting. I wouldn't have guessed that.)
Also, you probably know this but just in case you don't, to "choke someone out" in this context is almost definitely choking until someone taps to basically say "you got me, game over, gg", which is usually a few seconds, and you generally tap well before you pass out. It's about the most painless submission you can ask for and sounds much worse than it actually is. That said, I take your general point - whether Joe Rogan was talking about actually making people pass out by choking them or not, there are very likely outliers who actually enjoy putting people to sleep, for questionable reasons. But I do think those are outliers, which brings to the anecdotal - in your time boxing with others, did it seem like the majority of them were lusting for blood? I ask because in all of the gyms I've trained at, I've experienced this very, very rarely, in fact, I think I never have. I understand that's a difficult question, but curious to hear if you picked up on any of that in your time training.
"I feel sometimes bloodlust in me when I watch MMA." This is a great argument against watching MMA for some people - for me,
I've experienced the same thing you're speaking of I think, but it's rare and controllable, and I also wouldn't call it bloodlust, which is something like the textbook definition to me: "the uncontrollable desire to kill or maim others".
I've never experienced bloodlust myself, not fully at least (it's always controllable), and I don't believe I've ever seen it in the gym or even in the ring. But you're probably talking about something more like "a strong urge/desire to hurt someone, or watch someone get hurt" maybe something like that?
Either way, if you're unable to control bloodlust or the desire to hurt someone, I think I'd agree with you that MMA is probably not good or noble for you, in the same way that I can't control my gluttony when it comes to Oreos, so eating Oreos and keeping them in the house is a bad idea for me. Oreos are fine for many people of course, in moderation. But I often find myself overeating them, so I just cut them out of my diet completely.
For you, to do the same for somewhat similar reasons with bloodlust is probably wise. If you can control it and very rarely or never fall prey to it, to quit MMA or watching MMA seems like throwing some very important babies out with the bathwater, to me at least. (For most men in particular, because the ability to fight is fundamental in our roles as protectors - you can't effectively protect without the ability to fight, whether that's verbally, physically, or in some other way.)
Atheist here, MMA is a sport... some sports are non-violent while others very violent... but all are common because people dedicate their lives to perfect a skill that they love to do while making a living.
There's nothing wrong with watching a violent sport... in a way, it's art.
And as you said, we can learn other values from these sportsmen.
I watch mainly to learn various techniques, to see how skilled these fighters are, and to be entertained.
Hi Steve, thank you for your take, I couldn't agree more. I think it's likely that the majority of people who would agree that there is nothing good or noble about MMA or watching MMA have little to no experience with it.
So they see the very worst knockouts, injuries and trash talk, and equate that with things like primitive bloodlust, toxic masculinity, brute qualities, etc - I think it's understandable if you've never been in the cage or ring, or never participated in martial arts, or never had to fight, say to protect/serve etc. There are distasteful things in the sport that are hard for people to overlook.
But for Father Mike (or anyone) to make those limited observations and imply, with no experiential knowledge/understanding of the sport, that it is somehow less than noble, well... that's like me saying that the Catholic church is less than noble because of it's past corruption, history of sexual abuse, etc.
If I don't step into the church and experience it myself, and only point out the flaws that are present in pretty much any large community of humans, how can I assume it's all corrupt and evil, or "less than noble"? (Which I actually did very recently, attending a 1500 year old traditional Latin mass for the first time so I could understand it, and it was surprisingly beautiful to me in some strange, ancient way I can only intuit.)
I watch MMA for those reasons as well, and I've noticed that the more I prioritize things like that, the more I'm willing and able to act out/embody those virtues in various ways in my life. Which makes sense - if I prioritize information that promotes and teaches courage, I'm more likely to be courageous, if I prioritize information that promotes and teaches discipline, I'm more likely to be disciplined, etc.
The archetypes are like tuning forks for the mind; the archetypes we give our attention to and aim at are the archetypes we inevitably embody and act out in the spirit of.