Meditations on Beat-downs, Part 1

The Educational Beat-down.

The usual.

In all of the sub-cultures that I’m familiar with, beat-downs happen — with “beat-down” being defined something along the lines of: “Somebody got a hold of you and applied a large amount of physical pain and humiliation for a social purpose” — if you hear that somebody “Took an ass-whupping” or “Got tuned-up”, this is probably a beat-down.

We’re going to look at the three classes of beat-downs that cover the sub-cultures I have experience with, with the caveat that this is my experience in these specific sub-cultures. Other sub-cultures may be different.

So:

The Educational Beat-Down

Also called a “Disciplinary beat-down” or a “Corrective beat-down”, this one is fairly simple, and is — by far — the most commonly encountered. There was a social more¹, you broke it, when the pain goes away you probably won’t do it again. Since humans are social animals an educational beat-down is usually — but not always² — preceded by a warning. And if it is, if you’re an outsider, you may not understand that you’re being warned.

The good news³ is that your death or maiming is not the preferred outcome of a disciplinary beat-down⁴ — correcting your stupid is. Outside of some loose teeth, and maybe some blood in your widdle there usually aren’t any long-term effects.

Also, women are — in the sub-cultures I’m familiar with — generally immune from taking a beating from males they’re aren’t attached to⁵, and rape isn’t usually an option.

This does NOT mean that your wife or girlfriend can’t talk you into a ass-kicking⁶, however, and it does not mean that the distaff side of that social group doesn’t have their own ways of maintaining social order⁷.

One of the most thorough tune-ups I ever saw happened when a female vegan activist got worked up, and spit into the hamburger basket being enjoyed by a oil-field roughneck. As they were loading her boyfriend into the woo-woo bus afterwards, I observed that if she was going to continue to do that sort of bushwa, she should probably invest in a more durable boyfriend.

The best tactics for dealing with an educational beatdown? Avoidance. You self-select to catch one of these, so try not to be a dick.

If you’re an outsider⁸ to the culture, being an obvious outsider and carrying yourself with courtesy will oft net you not only a warning that you’re violating a rule, but a warning that you will understand, and maybe some leeway. Use this to issue an immediate, and sincere, apology (and possibly some variety of compensation⁹) and things can be smoothed things over, with your chiclets left in place.

If, despite all your efforts, you wind up getting whupped for corrective reasons, keep two things in mind:

1. While it can be very personal, it’s also a way of maintaining social cohesion and standards; and

2. Because it’s partially driven by social needs, they’ll keep piling the bodies on until they get the social effect they’re after.

This means — as a “for instance” — if you fondle an off-limits squishy bit in a bar, and you manage to whup the outraged husband/boyfriend, you can expect to see his brother(s), cousin(s), wingman(men), work-mate(s), and/or friend(s) coming in on an attack profile over the wreckage. Later, if not immediately.

Used to be, if I went to a bar to take an assault report where the victim had walked into a swinging stool or vodka bottle on the way to the khazi, I’d ask him to tell me about the fight he’d been in earlier. Nine times out of ten, it would turn out that he’d fought someone’s husband, won, and hung around to prove he “Wasn’t scared” long enough for a buddy of the husband to send him to the ER.

If you find yourself catching a kinetic correction, if you can stun the dude administering it — get away. Unass the A.O. Most folks won’t chase you further than a hundred yards or so, and I’ve never seen a chase go to two hundred yards. Then you can slow down, but keep moving away.

After that, when you’re somewhere safe … well, time to examine your life’s choices.

That’s the most common beat-down. Next post we’ll look at Status Beat-downs.

Ian

1. “The established customs and moral attitudes of a society or social group, dictating what is considered right or wrong and what is acceptable behavior.” Pronounced “moray”.

2. If you grope another man’s wife in a Southwestern bar there probably won’t be much of warning before you eat that knuckle sandwich.

3. For certain values of “good”.

4. The first time. If you have to get tuned-up twice for the same stupidity all bets are off.

5. Laying hands on someone else’s wife, girlfriend, daughter, etc. is the textbook example of a good reason for catching a beatdown.

6. Yes. You can be Doing Everything Right, and wind up spitting blood because your wife sassed the wrong person. Is it fair? Nope, deal.

7. The feminine side isn’t my specialty, but female methods of social correction tend to be non-physical, yet incredibly vicious.

8. If you’re an insider, and you’re getting tuned up — you knew better. Moron.

9. Jack Clemon’s “My Bad $20” is a life-saver.