Biden vs. Trump, the Dozens, and Inuit song duels
What do these three things have in common: the recent Biden vs. Trump war of threatening words, the Dozens, and Inuit song duels? They’re all ways that people (especially men) threaten each other in an almost-comical way, in which the real competition is about who is being the wittiest and boldest in speech. They are all substitutes for an actual physical fight, and are also popular spectator sports.
So that’s the way I see this:
The two, who have long engaged in schoolboy-style taunts, have taken it to a new level recently, with Biden boasting about how he would “beat the hell” out of Trump “behind the gym,” and Trump responding Thursday that if the two fought, Biden “would go down fast and hard, crying all the way.”
“Crazy Joe Biden is trying to act like a tough guy,” the president tweeted Thursday. “Actually, he is weak, both mentally and physically, and yet he threatens me, for the second time, with physical assault. He doesn’t know me, but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way. Don’t threaten people Joe!”
Earlier this week, Biden ”“ who has not ruled out a 2020 run for president ”“ taunted Trump by telling University of Miami College Democrats that he could have taken the president in a high school fight.
“They asked me if I’d like to debate this gentleman, and I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him,'” Biden said.
Trump is 71. Biden is 75.
Speakng of schoolyard taunts, Trump could say, “He started it!” That’s the stance he takes at the beginning of his tweet, pointing out that Biden has threatened him physically more than once. But then he can’t resist bragging that if such a fight were to happen, Biden would be the loser.
I’ll pass on the opportunity to predict the outcome of that particular bout if it were to really get physical; let’s just say it’s good we’ll never have to witness the spectacle of two old guys duking it out.
It all reminds me a bit of the what’s known (or what used to be known; I’m not necessarily up-to-date on this) as the Dozens:
The first academic treatment of the Dozens was made in 1939 by Yale-based psychologist and social theorist John Dollard, who described the importance of the game among African-American males, and how it is generally played. Dollard’s description is considered pioneering and accurate. The Dozens is a “pattern of interactive insult” evident among all classes of African Americans, among males and females, children and adults.
Usually two participants engage in banter, but always in front of others, who instigate the participants to continue the game by making the insults worse. Frequently used topics among players who “play the Dozens” or are “put in the Dozens” are one’s opponent’s lack of intelligence, ugliness, alleged homosexuality, alleged incest, cowardice, poor hygiene, and exaggerations of physical defects, such as crossed eyes…
Participants in the Dozens are required to exhibit mental acuity and proficiency with words.
If you read the whole Wiki article, you probably can see the connection between The Dozens and rap music, which is a much later manifestation of a related impulse.
And then there’s the Inuit song duel tradition, one I learned about long ago in anthropology class:
Instead of fighting, two people who were angry with one another came before an audience and took turns singing songs that pointed out the others’ faults and weaknesses.
Encouraged by the hoots and hollers of the crowd, the singers tried to outdo one another by making the funniest insults.
Unfortunately, neither Trump nor Biden were all that witty in this particular exchange.
The Friar’s Club and the Dean Martin roasts come to mind.
Speaking of which:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdPcjIrSvcs
In American pioneer days, you had bragging contests.
Davy Crockett and Mike Fink are two classic practitioners.
Abe Lincoln would use similar boasting, with wrestling added, to make friends in a new town.
With Trump’s WWE past, I think he wins against Crazy Joe.
As for old men fighting, what about Congressmen caning each other on the floor of the Senate?
At least Biden and Trump aren’t challenging each other to a formal duel, although that might settle a few questions for both sides.
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/The_Caning_of_Senator_Charles_Sumner.htm
On May 22, 1856, the “world’s greatest deliberative body” became a combat zone. In one of the most dramatic and deeply ominous moments in the Senate’s entire history, a member of the House of Representatives entered the Senate chamber and savagely beat a senator into unconsciousness.
The inspiration for this clash came three days earlier when Senator Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts antislavery Republican, addressed the Senate on the explosive issue of whether Kansas should be admitted to the Union as a slave state or a free state. In his “Crime Against Kansas” speech, Sumner identified two Democratic senators as the principal culprits in this crime–Stephen Douglas of Illinois and Andrew Butler of South Carolina. He characterized Douglas to his face as a “noise-some, squat, and nameless animal . . . not a proper model for an American senator.” Andrew Butler, who was not present, received more elaborate treatment. Mocking the South Carolina senator’s stance as a man of chivalry, the Massachusetts senator charged him with taking “a mistress . . . who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight–I mean,” added Sumner, “the harlot, Slavery.”
Representative Preston Brooks was Butler’s South Carolina kinsman. If he had believed Sumner to be a gentleman, he might have challenged him to a duel. Instead, he chose a light cane of the type used to discipline unruly dogs. Shortly after the Senate had adjourned for the day, Brooks entered the old chamber, where he found Sumner busily attaching his postal frank to copies of his “Crime Against Kansas” speech.
Moving quickly, Brooks slammed his metal-topped cane onto the unsuspecting Sumner’s head. As Brooks struck again and again, Sumner rose and lurched blindly about the chamber, futilely attempting to protect himself. After a very long minute, it ended.
Bleeding profusely, Sumner was carried away. Brooks walked calmly out of the chamber without being detained by the stunned onlookers. Overnight, both men became heroes in their respective regions.
Surviving a House censure resolution, Brooks resigned, was immediately reelected, and soon thereafter died at age 37. Sumner recovered slowly and returned to the Senate, where he remained for another 18 years. The nation, suffering from the breakdown of reasoned discourse that this event symbolized, tumbled onward toward the catastrophe of civil war.
Hmmmm, I am thinking I would pay at least $20 to watch a Biden – Trump school yard fight, of course one of them who is heavier might knock the other one over and fall on top of him or someone hit their head on the concrete after breaking his nose with the other guys fist, however, I think Sarah Palin could probably beat them both, maybe at the same time.
I kind of like this old time gentlemen calling each other out and because of their advanced years I think a duel with pistols 20 feet apart at sunrise on the mall, single shot, no high capacity crap in DC. Furthermore, if required get a special dispensation from congress to make it legal. Probably pass by a bi-partisan total majority.
Ok…first I have to stop laughing at OldTexan’s capital observation that Mrs Palin could open a can of whoopass on both Crazy Hands Biden & the President. That’s just funny and I don’t care who you are.
But…and more to the point…the same “duelling song & dance” is pretty common among Pacific Islander tribes. The Maori with their “haka” are the most obvious, but if you saw the “dance off” before the Rugby World Cup game between New Zealand & Fiji (I think)…you’d have thought they were about to go at it mano a mano at midfield. And then the game started.
I favor pistols at 20 paces. Let the calmest dead aim win in which case both escape unharmed.
I witnessed “the Dozens” in high school, down in the locker room, one black guy vs another, played mostly for the benefit of other black guys. The insults were amusing, occasionally memorable.
As for Joe Biden, my impression of him was forever altered when I read Emma Sky’s book “The Unraveling” about her time in Iraq. She’s British, and was anti-war and fairly well anti-American, certainly anti-military ; she went to Iraq in 2003 as a UK volunteer because she spoke Arabic and it was thought she could be helpful in their administration here and there. She ended up, amazingly, as General Odierno’s “right hand man,” and got to know just about the Iraqi leaders, General Petraeus, Mike Flynn and many others quite up close.
Emma Sky came to despise Joe Biden. She wrote of how he would come in with that big smile of his, accompanied by is flunkeys, but if anyone said anything he didn’t want to hear, the smile would come off his face and he’d turn nasty. Then he’d start smiling again.
He had more power in the Obama administration than I’d suspected. It was because of him that Maliki stayed in power after losing an election (none of which made much of a splash in the by then mostly departed US press), which led to Sunnis being arrested or kicked out of the government or Army and police — a major factor in the rise of ISIS and why the Iraqi Army became so weak.
It was Joe Biden, also, who was behind General Stanley McChrystal having to resign after the hotjob article appeared in Rolling Stone. Biden was the one some of the general’s aide’s supposedly mocked when they were drunk, and it was Biden who took such great offense.
I was wrong about Trump on several counts. But I wasn’t wrong that his candidacy and election represented a significant US slide towards idiocracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy
There were recent past times when a sitting president and an ex-vice-president couldn’t afford to trade schoolyard taunts in public. I think those were better times.
We shall see what remains of Trump’s legacy when he leaves office. I will hope for the best but I fear the coarsening of American political discourse will be standard, like brutal Facebook-style datamining, for some decades to come.
I first heard about “The Dozens” from the Whole Earth magazine, “CoEvolution Quarterly,” back in the seventies. It was interesting as local color but I wasn’t amused then and I still am not.
It just seemed stupid and mean. When rap appeared I saw the relationship immediately. It didn’t make me appreciate rap more.
I’ve read the evolutionary psychology explanations that such taunts, like bullying, prepare males to be manly and handle cruelty and rejection. I even think there’s something to that. As much as I detest bullying, I think the SJWs have gone way overboard in their efforts to stamp it out.
But I don’t have to like it. And I don’t have to see it as something we ought to admire and defend any more than we do burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands.
I read Ruth Benedict’s “Patterns of Culture” when I was 17. Although it was supposed to be a landmark volume espousing cultural relativism, I came away thinking, OK, I can see these cultural practices sorta make sense in their specific contexts, but I still thought the Pacific Northwest Kwakiutl, who blew through huge amounts of tribal wealth competing in give-away contests, and the New Guineau Dobu, who spent inordinate amounts of time scheming to put black magic hexes on their enemies, were way-dysfunctional cultures I was glad not be part of.
The idea people had that Trum was the Right’s new messiah hero king here to save them from the perfidious HRC (still not in jail, but that’s natural for hypocrites) was a pretty bad joke to me.
Especially since people online found it more noteworthy to complain about how I wasn’t spelling Trum’s name with 5 letters.
Meanwhile, Trum not firing and purging the Democrats that would later stab him in the back, which is what we warned would happen, few people paid any attention to.
It’s easier to focus on me than to focus on their boy Trum. Let me clue you American people in on something. Maybe it’s time to pretend you are in a war and that the Left needs to die. How about that, instead of being the Normal Retard self of chasing all these squirrels and distractions like 5 letters vs 4.
Just pretend you’re in a war and actually fighting, for once.
As far as I’m concerned, refusing to spell Trump’s name properly is just another version of Trump calling people stupid names.
Moving quickly, Brooks slammed his metal-topped cane onto the unsuspecting Sumner’s head. As Brooks struck again and again, Sumner rose and lurched blindly about the chamber, futilely attempting to protect himself. After a very long minute, it ended.
Bleeding profusely, Sumner was carried away. Brooks walked calmly out of the chamber without being detained by the stunned onlookers. Overnight, both men became heroes in their respective regions.
They didn’t mention that the Congressional house holds had a guy with a gun that told people to leave Preston alone. Which is why Preston went on for 4+ blows, not just 2. And the heavy desk Sumner was in, basically trapped him in from standing. As Sumner did not learn any of the H2H counter and defense techniques, a cane would have been sufficient at close range, since otherwise Sumner could have brawled and wrestled to counter act (the way boxers do when hugging each other).
In Congress, there were all kinds of Democrat traitors sympathetic to slavery or the money from slavery or the power and votes from slavery or the social caste system from slavery or the pre KKK white supremacist caste system.
Now a days, not so much different with Demoncrats.
I came to realize just how effective Demoncrat generational propaganda was when pro Confederate Southerners spoke up at a certain blog of a Southern gentleman with fellow deep roots in the ancestry of the South. Even today, they talk about blaming the War of Northern Aggression on Lincoln and how Sherman was evil and how the Confederates were the good guys.
I thought CW1 was old history. It wasn’t even WW1 or WW2, where people’s grandparents were. This is their great grand parents or their great great grand parents. The oral history has passed down UNCHALLENGED.
That is the power of Demoncrat mind control. Americans underestimate it, but they don’t have to believe me. When the Left slams their head into the concrete, maybe they will rethink their seriousness in consideration of mind control.
The slave masters propagandized that Sumner was weak, un able to fight, and not equal to a Southern plantation owner. Well, Irishmen, dogs, Scottish boys, women, and black people weren’t equal either to the white caste system hierarchy. What else is new.
Then they complained that Sherman was too effective at war. Make up your minds, slave owners. Is the North too cowardly to put up a fight or are they too good at burning down your Atlanta?
miklos000rosza Says:
March 22nd, 2018 at 8:28 pm
I witnessed “the Dozens” in high school, down in the locker room, one black guy vs another, played mostly for the benefit of other black guys. The insults were amusing, occasionally memorable.
As for Joe Biden, my impression of him was forever altered when I read Emma Sky’s book “The Unraveling” about her time in Iraq.
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IIRC, Hillary Clinton was not well-beloved by her staff and assigned escorts for much the same reason.
She treated underlings like trash.
She’s not the only one.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/03/the-senates-worst-boss.php
Anyone who takes on Trump in a twitter battle is asking for it. Biden just proved what an idiot he is – as if there was any doubt.
Another distraction. It isn’t vulgar braggadocio that will bring down the country. A bit off topic here but the seeds of that have already been sown. And of course it’s the Dems –
with California’s open defiance of Federal immigration policy. What do you suppose will happen if a far left Dem wins the Presidency and declares an EO to stop resource extraction or impose onerous gun control in red states? Like California, a state like Texas can just refuse to comply and double down by passing competing laws. What’s the President going to do – send in the Army? We look back on issues like the Dred Scott decision and the Kansas-Nebraska Act as the harbingers of the Civil War. One way or another, I think the immigration actions of 2018 will someday be as significant.
huxley Says:
March 22nd, 2018 at 11:19 pm
As far as I’m concerned, refusing to spell Trump’s name properly is just another version of Trump calling people stupid names.
Trum supporters are too angry to admit that one.
Humans have always been known to be resistant to admitting where they went wrong. It is cognitive dissonance.
It is especially difficult for Trum supporters or potential supporters.
Or in other words, calling William Clinton, Bill, is just another version of Trum calling people stupid names.
Ymarsakar:
“Bill” is the name Bill Clinton himself uses. It is not a misspelling, nor is it some sort of insult. It’s the name he prefers.
Nicknames are not a misspelling nor is it some sort of insult.
It’s just the name people like to attach to themselves or other people.
Hussein Obola counts as well.
It Depends on Respect.
For example the normal people, will ignore or gloss over HRC’s appellation as being the Wicked Witch of the West. Now that’s definitely not her name. They accept it, mostly because of their lack of respect for her.
Nicknames are sometimes accorded as a precursor to an official title, due to a person’s status in a subjective sense as well as their respect, also in a subjective sense, awarded to them by the viewer.
As for Trum, I’ll give him a proper title after he makes it out alive after 4 years. Until then, too premature to bake that cake.
Ymarsakar:
Calling Trump “Trum” is just an ad hominem. Name-calling like that is childish. It’s not remotely witty.
Calling Trump “Trum” is just an ad hominem. Name-calling like that is childish. It’s not remotely witty.
By your argument, people writing “Ymar” is using an ad hominem.
Do you people even understand what ad hominem means or are you using some kind of Folk Dictionary of that Latin logic terminology?
This is the problem with living in a bubble. You actually think your statements make sense because the people around you feel the same thus they agree. Well, that doesn’t include all of us on this earth.
Trump’s trash talk appears to be a mixed blessing. I can’t tell whether it nets out to an advantage. I’m far from the only person repelled.
It’s clear Trump sat on his hands for months — no doubt on his advisors’ recommendations — before House Republicans cleared Trump of collusion and Trump felt free to neg tweet Mueller. Trump is capable of some discretion.
However, the attempts by others, such as Marc Rubio and now Joe Biden, to mud wrestle Trump have failed.
Ymar Sakar:
Take a look at the way you write your name. You used to comment here as one word “Ymarsakar,” and then a while ago you switched to two words “Ymar Sakar.” Sometimes I use the original one-word name, sometimes the word “Ymar” which you already use.
So to the observer, “Ymar” looks like an approved name or nickname rather than any sort of insult or joke.
Whereas “Trum” is not a name Trump ever used, and it doesn’t come across as a nickname either. So people interpret it as an attempt at a witticism or an insult.
The two things (“Ymar” and “Trum”) are not the same.
You used to comment here as one word “Ymarsakar,” and then a while ago you switched to two words “Ymar Sakar.” Sometimes I use the original one-word name, sometimes the word “Ymar” which you already use.
So to the observer, “Ymar” looks like an approved name or nickname rather than any sort of insult or joke.
It doesn’t matter what the observer thinks, since the issue is one of logic. Ad hominem is a logical fallacy or error in which one makes an argument by saying a person’s behavior or character is evidence of the argument’s correct conclusion.
People use the shorted “Y” to designate me as well here and elsewhere, sometimes because the only person using a Y cognomen is me. Thus the Mik’s argument is that anyone that shortens a person’s name is using an ad hominem. You can’t avoid that issue, Neo, by bringing up the separation as it is fairly recent.
I also got the “Y” case in reserve, just in case people wanted to bring up the separation as well. Because back when people used Ymar, they did it to shorten it from Ymarsakar.
Whereas “Trum” is not a name Trump ever used, and it doesn’t come across as a nickname either. So people interpret it as an attempt at a witticism or an insult.
The two things (“Ymar” and “Trum”) are not the same.
Nicknames are in the same class. Thus one nickname is not the exact same as another nickname.
I doubt Hussein ever called himself Obola or HRC called herself a witch (although who knows what goes on in private).
People interpret things based on their SJW psychological problems. That’s the problem with subjective persecution complexes.
If people like Mik want to throw out logical fallacies to make themselves look better, they first need to use the logic.
SJWs interpret criticism or anything bad said about Hussein as being racism. This is just an example of humans copying behavior from people they fight. That is why they interpret it as a negative insult.
To be honest, racism is a problem between one person and another person, not the observers’ role to judge who is or isn’t racist.
And goal shifting from ad hominem to “interpretation as a witticism or an insult” is moving it quite a bit too far.
I think Trump is a one-off like Obama. Others may imitate Trump’s or Obama’s style, but so far no one manages their results.
They are both populist leaders who have created cults of personality with radically different objectives. At least Trump is not a machine politician as Obama was, in addition to being populist.
I believe both represent the deterioration and polarization of America. I’m more sympathetic to Trump but I have no idea how it all works out long-term beyond my sense things will get worse before they get better.
Sarah Palin almost ended up as a populist selected not elected person, but I guess “maverick” McCain didn’t make that one work.
I love your blog, Neo, but it would be really nice to have a “skip to next comment” button for a couple of your commenters. That way I won’t be wearing out my scroll wheel as quickly.
What Roy said.
Agree. Too much mouth, too little honor.
Heck, paintball guns tuned up to 350-400 fps and 30 rounds; no protection, no mercy, would be worth watching as well.
Many mourn the death of Alexander Hamilton in a duel, reckoning that he was killed by a rogue, and that he had contributed something to the financial stability of the Federal Government.
It seems a misfortune.
They forget what an obnoxious head case he was.
By the way, I am pretty much against the idea of dueling on a couple of grounds. From a purely social point of view, it creates a practice and social space which nihilistic psychotics inhabit and capitalize on. And there is a metaphysical dimension too; regarding the ultimate fate of men who would throw their lives away in such a calculating fashion.
A fight to the death is one thing. Planning one, is another.
Makes you wonder if Obama and Holder ever engaged in dozens in the White House basement:
“Ha, lawman, ya got contempt hung around yo neck!”
“Ya call yo’self a black president, but don’t serve chitlins and greens at state dinners?”
POTUS and Sloppy Joe ought to consider a world wide pay-per-view MMA match. The proceeds would wipe out the National Debt and result in a 1 year tax Holiday for us deplorables. (The enlightened ones who object to tax cuts would be sincerely invited to keep on paying.)
Lurch Says:
March 23rd, 2018 at 2:30 pm
POTUS and Sloppy Joe ought to consider a world wide pay-per-view MMA match.
* * *
I’m in.
If it doesn’t cost too much.