In
Defense of Dueling
(c) Copyright (2016) by Kathleen
Spaltro
All Rights Reserved
Although
the traditional saying alleges that politics is a substitute for violence, it
is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish politics from violence,
especially the verbal abuse of opponents. In short, at the moment, it does not seem
like much of a substitute. Another form
of conflict resolution, dueling, has passed into the realm of deeply discredited
practices. Yet, even though dueling
failed as a substitute for uncontrolled violence, it does not deserve its
common reputation as merely irrational. The
custom actually sought to control violence by slowing down the process of
exacting retribution as well as by subjecting the impulse of revenge to
elaborate rules.
The many rules and rituals
associated with the duel bound up the conduct of a duel with individual honor
and the requirements of exalted social rank.
Men took pride in abiding by the dueling code; men were shamed and
disgraced if they violated the code. It
reinforced many good qualities: physical
and moral courage, fortitude, self-discipline.
As Bertram Wyatt-Brown explained, “by ritualizing violence in a
punctilious grammar of honor, as it were, duels were supposed to prevent
potential chaos.” The custom accepted the inevitability of aggression but
sought to tame these rageful impulses. But
I did not perceive dueling as a deliberately contrived system for conflict
resolution until two films and a book challenged my limited awareness.
Stanley Kubrick's film "Barry
Lyndon" is very duel-focused.
Redmond Barry's father is killed in a duel; Barry's challenge to his cousin's
suitor exiles him from home; as a professional gambler, Barry enforces the collection
of gambling debts with challenges to duel with him; and the film reaches its
culmination in the protracted scene that brilliantly depicts Barry's duel with
his stepson.
Michael Powell and Emeric
Pressburger's fascinating and endearing film "The Life and Death of
Colonel Blimp" depicts Clive ("Sugar" or "Suggie")
Candy, a gentleman soldier awarded the Victoria Cross for service during the
Boer War. In Candy's view, war must be conducted by the rules of gentlemen, not
"gangsters"—a viewpoint that becomes irrelevant in World War One and
utterly obsolete in World War Two. The film concerns Candy's long friendship
with another professional soldier, a German officer encountered in 1902, 1919,
and 1939. They first meet as dueling strangers in Berlin; with honor satisfied,
they become best friends for life.
Both "The Life and Death of Colonel
Blimp" and "Barry Lyndon" stress the elaborate and very strict
protocol followed by duelists. Although
a 10-centimeter cut nearly severs Candy's upper lip and his opponent's own
wound requires 12 stitches, a nurse explains, "German girls find dueling
scars very attractive." This erotic
aspect may seem improbable but is well-attested. About dueling German students, Mark Twain
observed in 1878, "Newly bandaged students are a very common spectacle in
the public gardens of Heidelberg. It is also said that the student is glad to
get wounds in the face, because the scars they leave will show so well there;
and it is also said that these face wounds are so prized that youths have even
been known to pull them apart from time to time and put red wine in them to
make them heal badly and leave as ugly a scar as possible. It does not look
reasonable, but it is roundly asserted and maintained, nevertheless; I am sure
of one thing--scars are plenty enough in Germany, among the young men; and very
grim ones they are, too. They crisscross the face in angry red welts, and are
permanent and ineffaceable."
Twain's "A Tramp
Abroad" includes several chapters about his visit to Heidelberg University.
Over eight months in every year, for two days in every week, for 250 years, protocol
required at least six duels per week. Of
the five student corps (resembling fraternities), each corps had its regular
dueling-day in a carpetless apartment dedicated to dueling. The duelists' fortitude and stoicism
impressed Twain as he watched several duels with great fascination: "I had seen the heads and faces of ten
youths gashed in every direction by the keen two-edged blades, and yet had not
seen a victim wince, nor heard a moan, or detected any fleeting expression
which confessed the sharp pain the hurts were inflicting. . . . It was not
merely under the excitement of the sword-play that this fortitude was shown; it
was shown in the surgeon's room where an uninspiring quiet reigned, and where
there was no audience. The doctor's manipulations brought out neither grimaces
nor moans."
While the dueling code
reinforced the positive virtues of strength, courage, and honor, its elaborate
restrictions controlled the expression of violence but not its frequency. Men often chose to duel over very trivial
matters, so the custom did not diminish or tame violence but actually
encouraged it. In New Orleans, touchy
young men dueled behind Saint Louis Cathedral in Saint Anthony's Garden; later,
New Orleans' Duelling Oaks became a favorite meeting place. While dueling was accepted in the colonies
and then in the United States for about a hundred years (1750 to 1850), eventually
public opinion turned against it as a form of murder.
Before
it died out, however, signer of the Declaration of Independence Button Gwinnet,
Commodore Stephen Decatur of the United States Navy, and former Secretary of
the Treasury Alexander Hamilton (as well as Hamilton's son) had all perished in
duels. Future President Andrew Jackson
supposedly engaged in over 100 duels, including a duel in 1806 in which
Jackson, shot above his heart, returned fire that killed Charles Dickinson. As a biographer explains, "Dickinson
fired his pistol, slightly wounding Jackson. Jackson's weapon misfired—which
according to dueling rules counted as a shot. Technically, the duel should have
ended there. But Jackson coldly pulled his hammer back again and fired, this
time killing Dickinson. In the eyes of many, Jackson's behavior amounted to
little more than murder." Dueling rules,
it seems, were not made to be broken.
first published in The Woodstock Independent
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