Bring back the duel?

 

My buddy Lawdog ponders the custom of dueling to resolve differences, and whether it should be brought back.  Go read his thoughts, then come back here.  I'll wait.

I'm in two minds about his ideas.  In the days of the duel, it certainly underlined the relative importance of honesty and civility.  Spread untruths about someone, or be rude and obnoxious to and/or about them, and there might well be a known (and likely) consequence.  The old saw, popularized by Robert Heinlein, that "An armed society is a polite society" was always a fiction, but even so, most people preferred politeness (or at least an icy indifference) to a hot-blooded, potentially fatal meeting on the dueling ground.

On the other hand, there were those who took advantage of the duel to train themselves to be merciless killers.  There are more than a few tales of those who never hesitated to issue a challenge because they knew their own skills were superior to nine out of ten of those they might have to face.  (The few occasions on which they found out, the hard way, that their opponents were, in fact, better fighters than they were produced some gripping tales, particularly the panic and even disgust on their faces as they died.)  In places where custom allowed it, an uncivil, impolite type could hire the services of a noted duelist to represent him, or pay a criminal to concoct a situation in which he could plausibly issue a challenge to someone the principal wanted dead.  This happened too often to be coincidental, and was one of the reasons advanced to do away with dueling.  Could dueling be reinstated without that danger?  I don't know how that could be done.  Cheating, one way or another, is as old as the human race.

Would it make us a less moral people if we allowed dueling?  In some ways, yes, it probably would;  but there's also the grim reality that death is and always has been a part of everyday life, and dueling kept that reality firmly in mind for many of the "talking classes".  It does to this day for those living in areas controlled by "strong men" or "warlords" or particular gangs.  Talk smack about them and you're going to suffer for it, quite possibly terminally - and no, they won't give you the chance to arm yourself and discuss the matter on equal terms.  "Might makes right" is another long-standing human principle.

I submit it would not be a bad thing if we could ensure that false, unjustified "mean speech" has consequences.  Today, too many people behave as if they can insult, denigrate or run down another without ever having to pay for it in any way, shape or form.  I think that's wrong.  If you do that, you should be subject to sanctions of some kind;  but people use the "free speech!" argument to get away scot-free.  Perhaps we should talk about "expensive speech!" instead, to make those who sling insults so freely consider that their words might (and possibly should) carry a price with them.  What that price should be, and who should decide whether and to what extent it applies, and who is to extract payment . . . those are whole new balls of wax to add to the fun.  We certainly can't trust the courts to do the job - they've let politicians lie without let or restraint for donkeys' years.  Some courts appear to be part of the lie themselves.

What say you, readers?

Peter