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    Some People Are Not Duelable

    I'm not a big proponent of bringing back customs and manners from hundreds of years back. The centuries I study were much worse to live in than this one. But there is one concept from Ye Olden Days that (suitably retooled), I have always found pretty useful. That is the concept of people being "not duelable." I use it in my academic writing. I use it in my daily life. I occasionally teach it to graduate students. And it turns out to be a concept that both the Age of Twitter and the Age of Trump badly need.

    Now, dueling itself is a vicious custom and should not come back. But that custom contained one illuminating rule: dueling is something that happens between equals. (It's also restricted to the upper classes; humbler folk who fight with swords, like the playwright Ben Jonson, are just street brawling.) You only duel people who are, generally speaking, on your own level.

    If you're a 17th-century gentleman, or a Russian aristocrat, or a young swell in Flaubert's Paris, you don't get in duels with servants or bartenders or some poor hapless working stiff. That's beneath you. (I'm not going to idealize this practice; this is mainly about not giving the hapless working stiffs a fair shot at the rich folk, or allowing the working stiffs to fight back.) Fighting those people isn't simply wrong. The wrongness isn't even the main problem. Fighting with those people is demeaning to you. It lowers you. It invites shame and ridicule.

    Early in the 20th century (a little late for this sort of thing), the novelist Vladimir Nabokov's father got so angry about a yellow journalist's attack on him that he decided to challenge someone to a duel over it. (Neither Dr. Cleveland nor Dagblog endorses fighting duels or threatening journalists.) Did he challenge the person who wrote the article? No. That person was, from Nabokov Sr.'s point of view, just some greasy little scribbler, not worth the bother of tussling with. Papa Nabokov challenged the newspaper publisher. (The younger Nabokov has a wonderful chapter about this episode in his memoir, Speak, Memory.)  None of this is exactly Nabokov Sr.'s finest hour, but it taught me the basic "not duelable" concept, which has real value.

    Let's broaden the definition of "duel" here to mean any public or semi-public conflict which, on some level, involves your reputation. That's what duels were: fights designed to protect one's reputation, and when someone was not duelable that meant that fighting them, or even challenging them, would only damage your reputation more. Some kinds of political slagging and point-scoring qualify, alas. So do some entertainers' public feuds: two rappers beefing with each other are both acknowledging each other as peers and trying to raise their profiles. And, like it or not, academic writing has its share of this, both because professional reputations are closely tied to that writing and because academic debate works, especially in the humanities, by disagreement. It is almost impossible to write a publishable article about Shakespeare where you don't at least politely suggest some other Shakespeareans are wrong about something. Often, people are much less polite. Sometimes scholars get into epic running beefs. The letter pages of the Times Literary Supplement are notorious for hosting ongoing tweedy vendettas. The question of who is duelable and who isn't in academic arguments is one I've given a lot of thought to, and it needs a post of its own.

    One of my favorite examples of non- duelability in pop culture is Crash Davis in Bull Durham, flat-out declining to compete with boy idiot Nuke LaLoosh for Annie's favors: "I'm not interested in anyone who's interested in that boy." Translation: I'm not going to compete with that idiot, because he's not a suitable rival, and it would be demeaning to compete against him." Not duelable, bro.

    Two major-party Presidential candidates going at each other is unpleasant and arguably unseemly. But you can't say that conflict is inappropriate. As nominees, they are peers. But if the President of the United States, with all the majesty of that office, decided to beef publicly with say, an ESPN personality like Jemele Hill, which is too crazy to ever happen, he would be attacking someone non-duelable. If he were to get petulant with an NBA player, that is fighting with someone non-duelable. Calling an unemployed NFL quarterback a "son of a bitch" in public is totally attacking someone non-duelable.

    Trump does not make the duelable/ non-duelable distinction at all. He fights with people who have vastly different statuses. He goes after the grieving parents of an American serviceman killed in action. He beefs at Rosie O'Donnell, still, for God knows what reason. He gets in spats with the Emmys telecast and the Apprentice, with ESPN. The list goes on, unfortunately. It's depressing to see.

    The first problem with this is it's wrong, because the people he goes after are weaker and have no defense. One of the basic reasons large categories of people were originally designated non-duelable is because those people did not have swords or guns. (The laws often restricted weapon ownership to the upper classes.) Picking on the poor grieving mother of a dead serviceman is a disgusting way to use your power. It's wrong because unjustly harms other people. It makes you a bully, and a thug, and an asshole.

    The other two problems, which are interrelated, are problems because they harm you, rather than your target. The main problem is that it destroys your dignity. You get into the gutter to fight some rapscallions, what you win is a trip to the gutter. You get dirty and you make a depressing spectacle of yourself.

    Trump does not preserve the dignity of his office. He screeches at people who are, since inauguration, vastly below him in station. Part of this is that Trump still insists on operating like a fairly low-level New York media figure, a guy who gets into arguments on a call-in radio show. He's like a less well-adjusted Howard Stern. Part of it is that, frankly, he's a psychologically damaged personality. The rest is that Trump has always behaved like someone from an entirely different social class, rather than like a normal, socially-adjusted rich New Yorker. For all his money, he has never been able to learn the rules of upper-class Manhattan, social norms that usually get expressed as "taste," "manners," and "class." That he's a rich guy with the manners, and open resentments, of someone from a much lower class has always been a big part of his appeal. But it's not an act; Trump isn't someone who can charm donors to the Met and then switch it up to bond with a cabbie. He genuinely doesn't understand the normal rules of upper-class behavior, including the rule that some fights are just beneath you.

    What Trump gains by his refusal to observe decorum is the ability to attack people that Presidents usually don't attack. What he loses is the protective aura of his office's dignity. It feels wrong to insult a President of the United States in certain ways, but that's ultimately predicated on the fact that the President isn't going to shout crude insults at you, either. The aura is a two-way protection.

    Normally, the dignity of the President's office keeps people from calling the President a bum, but Trump doesn't respect the dignity of office and so it doesn't protect him. If a pro athlete called a president, any president a bum, I'd usually think that was a classless move. But the President in question called another pro athlete a son of a bitch in public yesterday, so he's the one who changed the rules.

    And related to the loss of dignity is the problem that when you get down in the gutter to fight with some guttersnipes, the guttersnipes might win. Trump publicly slagging on Colin Kaepernick and Steph Curry opened the door for LeBron James to just lay Trump out:
     

    U bum @StephenCurry30 already said he ain't going! So therefore ain't no invite. Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!

    — LeBron James (@KingJames) September 23, 2017

     


    That's not the golden political rhetoric of yesterday, but Trump is playing the playground diss game, and as playground disses go this is a classic. Trump has no one to blame but himself.

    (I do not mean to imply that Mr. James is a guttersnipe. He is a sublime athlete and a philanthropist. But he's also a guy who sweats for a living, not somebody who gets called in to give the Cabinet advice. Do you remember when FDR got into that public insult match with Joe DiMaggio? That's right. You don't.)

    The bigger question is whether the dictator of North Korea is duelable for an American president. All of Trump's predecessors thought not, and didn't waste time trading insults with a small-time dictator. Trump, who has no sense of dignity, is getting into a slagging match and, on balance, losing. But actually, this is not at all how people used to talk before duels. Duels are about saving face, but also about finding a way out of conflict if you can: a lot of energy focused on finding a way to say everybody's honor was satisfied without anyone bleeding out. Sometimes that failed, but that was the focus. Papa Nabokov found a way not to fight that duel. Trump and Kim are not looking for an elegant way out of this. They are woofing at each other like playground antagonists, both scared of looking "weak" by backing down. It's a situation that usually leads to the two knuckleheads trading blows because they're afraid not to.

    The danger, of course, is that if these two idiots come to blows, it's not just them.

     

     

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    Comments

    TRUMP does not behave like a "normal, socially-adjusted rich New Yorker....he has behaved with the manners, and open resentments, of someone from a much lower class has always been a big part of his appeal. "

    If there is a "social class" anywhere in the world today in which members behave like TRUMP I could not name the place or the class as I don't believe it exists.

    It has heen said Trump talks and behaves like an uneducated rural denizen thinks is normal for a rich powerful (racist asshole) white man. And they love it.

    But for most of them, regardless of class or income, they wouldn't talk, act or publicly go on record praising KKK or swastika wavers themselves.

    For them he is the Right Wing Talk Radio President. The ultimate product of 30 years and billions of dollars of Republican hate and culture war brainwashing.

    They built it.


    I think we agree that Trump is, class beahvior aside, a huge jackass. He just acts like a jackass from a different social class: maybe an aggrieved small-business owner in Queens.

    Think about his TV catchphrase, "You're fired." Real billionaires do fire people, inevitably, but they don't say it that way. They might delegate it; if not they're going to euphemize to soften the blow: "I think you need some time away," or "we're going to have to let you go." Because most very rich people don't get a power high from firing a subordinate: those people already feel powerful.


    Thanks for the response.

    Trump doesn't have the dignity of his office, because his "office" is being Donald Trump.  A man with no dignity or scruples.

    I would not call him a jackass, "a stupid person", which connotes a certain harmlessness.  

    He is a race baiting street agitator, a delusional white supremacist. Who is in a position to do immense irreparable damage.

    Interesting essay, yet his vile character is misconstrued by comparing him to shop owners or a class, any class, of people.......unless it's "Racist demagogue Nazi admirers of Queens who became President".


    I certainly don't mean to minimize Trump's monstrosity.

    But Trump is not alone. He has a base that likes and cheers him. When he called Kaepernick a "son of a bitch" he got enthusiasm from the crowd, and so he kept going with that because the crowd liked it.

    He is a monster, but he is not unique. He is a monster who represents many little monsters' values.


    That is our scary reality.


    Excellent points.  Along the line of followers and enablers.....

    Two nations of the twentieth century made tyranny great again. This from a 1935 book by a Finnish author, Prisoner of the OGPU, he quotes a fellow Russian political prisoner:

    What did the members of the intelligentsia do when the storm broke, destroying everything in its path? They went to work for the new rulers of Russia. They forgot their democratic ideals and placed themselves entirely at the disposal of the communists. They did not rise in arms against the tyrants, but entered their service.

    Bakhtiarov

    This is an apt description of the Republican Party and its media organs today.

    Serving a monster, forgetting democratic ideals and norms.


    Thank you for a different concept - and its application. Thank you for a refreshing look at Trump. And thank you for a diversion from the rather grim times I am going through.

    5 stars for an excellent essay.


    Thanks so much.


    Thanks for this refreshing take. Made my day.

    Trump punches down.

    The GOP is led by a white supremacist. The Republicans en masse are ready to take healthcare away from tens of millions of Americans to gave tax breaks to their wealthy donors. Republicans are also ready to ignore that we are in a Cyberwar with Russia. The Republicans are not ready to address Trump's collusion with Russia. If Merkel wins in Germany, she will be the new leader acting as a counter to the insane Donald Trump. Both France and Germany took steps to block Russian attempts to influence their elections. The United States remains vulnerable to Russian attacks. Trump puts the country in danger.

    Edit to add:

    Colin Kaepernick is a hero. Kaepernick made clear that he was protesting police abuse. Jefferson Beauregard Session told the DOJ to stopp reviewing police abuse cases in police departments and to end oversight of police departments who were found to have systemic racial bias. For his efforts, Kaepernick was attacked, including by so-called Liberals. Instead of focusing on police abuse, people were diverted to attacking the messenger Colin Kaepernick. It will be interesting to see if the bluster condemning Trump leads to Kaepernick getting a fair shot at a slot in the NFL. The anti-Kaepernick folks are on the wrong side.


    Not really - he's a guttersnipe lashing out. He simply doesn't occupy the office, and everyone including himself knows he doesn't belong there and are counting the days to his disappearance. His behavior seems no more absurd than everything else about him. King James occupies an office more solidly than the Trumpette, however much they try to prop up Trumpty Dumpty.


    Must recognize the irony that the guy I and others criticized for his both sides are the same, didn't bother to vote, makes no difference to me guy, CK....that his kneeling protests became the final irrefutable evidence, for those who still needed it,  that Hillary and Trump are definitely not the same.

     Providing consummate irrefutable proof of Trumps depraved racism.


    Yes! You precisely say here

    What Trump gains by his refusal to observe decorum is the ability to attack people that Presidents usually don't attack. What he loses is the protective aura of his office's dignity. It feels wrong to insult a President of the United States in certain ways, but that's ultimately predicated on the fact that the President isn't going to shout crude insults at you, either. The aura is a two-way protection.

    Normally, the dignity of the President's office keeps people from calling the President a bum, but Trump doesn't respect the dignity of office and so it doesn't protect him. If a pro athlete called a president, any president a bum, I'd usually think that was a classless move. But the President in question called another pro athlete a son of a bitch in public yesterday, so he's the one who changed the rules.

    And related to the loss of dignity is the problem that when you get down in the gutter to fight with some guttersnipes, the guttersnipes might win. Trump publicly slagging on Colin Kaepernick and Steph Curry opened the door for LeBron James to just lay Trump out:

    What I was trying to say over here on another thread, badly.

    It is definitely the dueling thing, to fight with honor. And the most popular sports heroes get this, of course. (I would add, not like: Mike Tyson, or what OJ became, or Michael Vick, etc.) Trump doesn't see this, as he's about "the art of the deal", better known as "the con", he doesn't even get it. He's still mystified by it all, he wants respect and adoration and everything he does works against it because all he knows is conning.


    Trump's attack on "sons of bitches" who miraculously are people of color is race specific. It is just another confirmation of Trump's white supremacy. Trump demonstrated his true nature when he went full Birther on President Barack Obama. You have to deal with race to deal with Trump.


    Yes, agreed that race is a huge part of this.

    But it should be noted that Trump and his worst followers routinely lose contests of dignity with people they view as inferior.


    NFL teams only began "taking the knee" in 2009. The DOD pays for the displays. Both Arizona Republican Senators objected to the military payments.

    http://www.snopes.com/nfl-sideline-anthem/

    Colin Kaepernick is nearing his pledge of donating $1 million to charity. Trump had to be forced to keep his pledges of charity donations 

    Kaepernick 

    https://www.gq.com/story/colin-kaepernick-million-dollar-pledge

    ​Trump

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/washington-posts-david-fa...

    Trump called the mothers of (mostly black) NFL players "bitches"

    Muhammed Ali, Jackie Robinson, Kareem Abdul Jabaar, Arthur Ashe, all stood up for justice. It was the Barkley-Jordan era that produced political inaction. Barkley said that he wasn't a role model. Jordan stayed silent to sell sneakers.

     


    I don't know if my point to you & Danny starts to come through, that whether Kap gets a contract is a sideshow - even now there's danger that this is just about the right to protest or somehow related to the anthem, and not the police brutality and racism they're protesting.  Anyway, Kap's stock went up 1000% thus week in a good way. His protest's gone super-viral.


    Thanks, aa. I think boxing is a great example. It was weight classes. No one applauds a heavyweight for fighting a welterweight. No one will permit that bout. You fight your own weight class.


    Thank you for bringing this element into view, Dr. Cleveland. It connects vividly with a thought I had in parallel during the emergence of the Trump.

    During the G.O.P. primaries, I remember thinking that Trump was lucky he did not live in an age where duels resulted from insults. Otherwise he would have certainly felt the glove on his face after the personal attacks he made. Trump was taunting the others in order to look strong while counting on them not being able to get "satisfaction" in the context of the debates. 
    From this point of view, Trump's penchant for litigation is part of a wider view of Law as a guardian that permits him to behave aggressively with impunity. It is stunning to me how such a cowardly figure could be seen as anybody's champion for anything.


    I think you're right, and the point about his litigation is a good one. He uses lawsuits to bluff and bully parties victims who can't afford the court costs.

    I think the most likely scenario for Trump in the age of dueling is that he would challenge someone else to a duel and then be terrified when the other person took him up on it. Trump is always demanding apologies, or else, and that's what a duel is: apologize, or else meet me at dawn with a set of pistols. Trump would pretty quickly run into the answer, "See you at dawn."


    I need to audit one of your classes, doc. Loved this.


    Aw, shucks. Thanks.


    As usual, I have learned from your post, and enjoy the (obvious, but missed by me) point that trump only attacks those who can't fight back, and thereby loses the respect and protection that his office formerly held.  When someone can call him a bum, and can also say "visiting the White House was an honor until you showed up," and have so many people think...'Can't argue with that," you know he has reached an previously unimaginable low.

    Thanks once again for such a good read.  


    As the Bloodhound Gang taught us... the trick is only pick on those who can do you no harm.

    Like, the drummer from Def Leppard's only got one arm!

    ...the drummer from Def Leppard's only got one arm!

    ...the drummer from Def Leppard's only got one arm!

    ...the drummer from Def Leppard's only got one arm!


    With so many bloggers and journalists spilling so much ink on Trump's glaring deficiencies, it's rare to read an analysis of his personality that I haven't already heard a hundred times. You've managed to pull it off though. Great piece.


    Thanks.


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