Fighting

Fight Club wasn't about winning or losing. It wasn't about words.

-"Fight Club," 1999.

Before even having the class discussion (I swear that's not the only reason I wrote this post), I found myself very stricken by the fighting scene in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Throughout my whole reading of the book, I admired Douglass for his intelligence, his representative story, and the fact that he never showed any anger towards anything other than the institution of slavery itself. He often even sympathized with slaveholders because he knew that it was slavery's effects on them that made them cruel; "At this very moment, I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder" (27). And it was this understanding of slavery that made Douglass's fight with Covey so shocking to me. I would never have thought of Douglass as the kind of person to solve his problems physically. He understood that it was not his slaveholders' faults, but rather the fault of the institution. In my opinion, this is why he decided to run away to the North in the first place. He could rebel against his slaveholders, but he would never be able to escape the Institution, unless he escaped to the North.

Now I have a lot of guy friends, and I know how obsessed they are with fighting. I didn't think I would EVER understand why, but every guy seems to understand exactly how to solve a problem- with a fight, of course. I have argued with them about it countless times. I told them that fighting doesn't solve anything; when they are all bloodied in the end, their problems would still be there. And they would never agree. "Guys can have a fist fight and shake hands in the end, knowing that the problem is over. Girls go behind each other's backs and gossip and never ever let the problem end," they'd say. And I would always argue back, "Not all guys have the need to fight; I'm sure there are some that can just be peaceful and solve their problems like humans...Like say, Frederick Douglass."

Reading that scene, to me, was like realizing that Santa Clause isn't real. Even Frederick Douglass, a man who I had looked at as so respectable and calm, who took countless thrashings and lived under the power of an institution as cruel as slavery without ever lifting a finger in rage towards an overseer, saw a positive end result in violence. I'll admit, this scene changed my views on fighting entirely. Maybe it does solve problems. It certainly solved the one between Douglass and Covey. This scene opened my mind, and made me see the positive effects that fighting can have on certain specific situations. I can't think of many others in which it would benefit, but I've taken a step in my stubbornness to admit that it worked here.

What do you think?? In what other situations do you think fighting can be helpful?