An armed Society...

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Panzercat

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I've always heard the saying thrown about that an armed society is a polite society. Certainly that was the case in Japan where a breach in etiquette could get you killed outright, and if you were a peasant, it was an honor to be used as sword bait. :scrutiny:

So now we come to the United States. Certainly one can't use this logic in the present day due to mitigating circumstance; that being carry doesn't hold mainstream popularity due to any number of factors beyond the scope of this thread. So let's jump back to, say, the wild west. One would assume by the name given that the west was indeed wild and it's well known that the firearms proliferated on the frontier... But politeness?

Now I'll take this opportunity to note that i am not an expert on the expansion west through what would one day become the United States, but everything I've seen or heard (even here) says that a large portion of society was armed during this period and you could be shot for looking at somebody wrong. But somewhere along the way it would appear that 'armed' and 'polite' parted company.

Of course that situation has only deteriorated over time and I can only guess as to why that when the fledgling United States was sufficiently armed, politeness didn't swing to the extreme that it did in Japan. Maybe it wasn't for a long enough period? Japan manged to be an "armed" society (insofar as you can count a specific ruling caste armed) for several hundreds of years.

What say those of you with a bit more foundation on this armed society back when?
 
I'm not really an expert on the western expansion of the US, but I do recall that the rates of violence were much lower than they are currently. The myth of shootouts at high noon is something created by Hollywood rather than actual historical fact. Who woulda thought that Hollywood would misrepresent something? :rolleyes:

As far as feudal japan, that was nowhere near what we envision when we talk about "an armed society is a polite society". It was essentially what the Middle Ages were to Europe. Only a select few were allowed to be armed, and everyone else would be killed if they possessed arms. The ruling class had an absolute monopoly on weapons and power. What we envision when talking about an armed society is a system where everyone has access to arms. I don't think the Samurai would have been so cavalier about killing people at the slightest whim if their targets were just as likely to pull out a weapon and effectively fight them. (Granted this isn't a perfect example as sword fighting typically requires more knowledge than shooting, but if we're talking about feudal Japan, I think its close enough.)
 
I agree with Telekenesis. From what I've been able to acertain the whole "wild west" stereotype was taken from a few high profile shootings (usually by lawmen, such as the gunfight at OK corral) and blown out of proportion by Hollywood.
 
The full quote from Robert A Heinlein is:
“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.”
Click to expand...

From his novel Beyond This Horizon
 
Fail. The full quotation is the entire paragraph. Puts a different meaning on it. If I were home, I'd dig up my copy and type it out.
 
There is a much bigger world of politeness than the mannerisms of Japan and it's feudal system and people. Some of the politeness is mistaken for culture and training for survival when growing up in a feudal society. I realize the OP posted a short well known example.

Many of the oriental societies are Buddhist and they do tend to look at the world differently than the Occidental mind or anyone else for that matter. The old ways taught you were not above or below but part of the world at large and were here to learn. All life has the same mission to learn and evolve. Many believe in reincarnation so you should be respectful to everyone and thing.

There have always been Warlords and their armies who forced their will and disarmed the populace throughout history. In that situation it pays to be self serving and polite unless you want to lose important parts of your body.

Were not most of the Jews nice as they went to the ovens?

In more recent times Cambodia was a beautiful country with gentle well mannered people yet no arms; they did not really need them or so they thought..1956 Cambodia established gun control. From 1975 to 1977, one million "educated" people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up & exterminated

They lost all their teachers or anyone who was educated simply because the newly installed leadership through force of arms wanted to remake the population into agrarian society and fabricate a new history that did not include the real history of the world; only a history approved by Pol Pot. Little 12 to 18 year old soldiers did their leaders bidding. Cambodia is still Buddhist today but innocence is lost and the culture will never return to the way it once was IMO. The only change is change itself and it is relentless. Very simplified synopsis with a lot of details left out but I am not in the mood to type or rehash what I have successfully tried to put out of my mind.

One of the greatest battles I have ever studied was where 35,000 Thai Warriors killed 400,000 Chinese at a valley in Laos which was done the old fashion way with sticks, stones, swords, and guile. Thai means free....they had to bring all 5 tribes together who, as our own American Indians, were always fighting each other. They joined to fight the greater evil that had subjugated them. When they joined and became one people they took the name Thai and moved south and founded the Kingdom of Siam around 1236 or 38?. Again there were soldiers which were needed to protect and conquer the new realm. After a few hundred years the Kings of all the neighboring countries were all paying tribute to the King of Siam which lasted until the English showed up with their Man of War sometime during the 18th century (1870?). Interestingly the normal people were not restricted from carrying swords and knives. But it was not done in the Palace by the common man to my knowledge.

If the American Indians had joined to repel the new arrivals we would all be speaking Choctaw or Cherokee (?) today but their societies were one of the true societies of the individual, family group, and tribe in that order. I am probably wrong but I believe it was Crazy Horse who stuck his spear in the ground and sat down during a fight with the Cav just to prove he had no fear.

Same old disarm thing is going on today in many countries but they call it something else now. I heard today not 40 but 60,000 Mexicans have perished in the supposed drug war in the last few years....For the most part they are not armed and have a long ancient history; you would think they would have known better but when a government fears it's people they always disarm the population. Call it civilization or whatever.......

IMO many of the third world countries have a way of politeness and mannerisms in their language that is used to not offend; many of the fetters of our perceived proper conduct are not in place like they are in more "uncivilized societies". Even today in those societies you act ill-mannered you can expect to be corrected one way or the other; pretty much here also only to me it is perceived differently and not as subtle. I can not speak for others but to me there are two kinds of armed or unarmed individuals. Those who want everyone to know they are tough and armed and like to intimidate through some natural type "A" gene run amok which manifest itself bordering on being a sociopath....Anyone who has lived has probably known that type and if lucky have watched them get beaten down or fragged when the time was right......

Others might be type "A" warriors also, but do not have the infantile personality of walking around puffed up an trying to act important ( dominate) because they have confidence in their knowledge and know what they eat today will end up in the toilet tomorrow just like everyone else. Again a very overly simplified observation. To me the more ancient the society the more reserved and polite; but there is always the knowledge that if you cross a line they will gut and skin you like a game animal and not necessarily after you receive a death blow. Rewards of being nice, or a good way for survival?
 
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Heinlein wrote a lot of cool things. While I really have enjoyed reading his books over and over (since discovering him as a young lad in the early 60's), I don't use any of his passages as a basis for world culture review. ;)
And please don't confuse the Saturday matinee 'wild west' with reality.

Want a line to base society on? "I want you to be nice until it's time to not be nice." ... Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse
 
I wish I remember where I read it but I think many (1/5 to 1/3 or more?) of the Samurai were corrupt and thugs who cruelly abused their local peasants.

Either way, Feudalism doesn't work very well anywhere on earth in history. Corruption + "only the upper class gets weapons" almost always leads to a horrible society and civil war sooner or later.
 
I suggest you do some research on Switzerland's militia in the last couple centuries, and draw some conclusions from that. I think there are more valid comparisons there than to compare the US to feudal Japan.

If you're not at all familiar with that country, active militia service and rifle ownership is required of males within a certain age range (or at least it was - I'm not completely familiar with present-day Switzerland, and I know they have received undue pressure from other European countries). They also have some of the lowest, if not the lowest violent crime occurences in the world, and it is noteworthy that they were able to maintain a stance of armed neutrality throughout two world wars - while geographically surrounded by other nations (there are other factors that aided them in the ability to maintain this, but I won't get into that).

Here is an interesting read I stumbled across a few days ago regarding Switzerland's "gun control model" and what the US might take from it. It highlights the intrinsic social benefits gained by the nation's well-regulated citizen militia model.

Here's an excerpt toward the end of the composition:

Cultural conditions, not gun laws, are the most important factors in a nation's crime rate. Young adults in Washington, D.C., are subject to strict gun control, but no social control, and they commit a staggering amount of armed crime. Young adults in Zurich are subject to minimal gun control, but strict social control, and they commit almost no crime.
Click to expand...
 
The "Wild West" idea was popularized in dime novels (paperbacks) of the time, mostly read by "civilized" idjits back east. As I understand it shootouts were not common, and there's only ONE that's actually documented.

At the time, folks were mostly god-fearing, and being polite ensured the cooperation and help from your neighbor(s) in time of need because that's all they had (no FEMA, HUD, etc.).
 
Panzercat, are you not originally from the US? Based on "So now we come to the United States" I have to ask.

One thing I've heard by a lot of military folks is that people overseas think all Americans are John Wayne. The stereotype of an American is some gun-toting lunatic who will shoot anyone he disagrees with. That is no more accurate than the other stereotypes out there.

There may very well have been some men who killed you if you looked at them wrong...but we have gangsters even today. However, if you're armed, there's a chance they'll think twice before picking a fight with you. They may be less polite and try and egg you on...but to outright pick a fight is foolhardy. (Of course, they may still pick a fight, but then whatever happens to them is their own fault).
 
Societies with a high potential for day to day interpersonal violence need to have more rules for how people interact. It's the social lubricant that gets everyone safely through each day. But, any breech of etiquette can lead to an attack from the offended party. Not that long ago, calling someone a liar to his face was a deadly insult and the offended party would do his level best to kill you.
 
In that book, the society was run by a genetic based authoritarian semi-dictatorship. Not a pleasant place. In fact, the genetic superstar hero was considering giving up carrying as he thought the macho, honor thing was silly. It was also very sexist and a few gun carrying women were looked at with doubt as not accepting their appropriate role.

Heinlein also went off the deep end in his last books where his best hero, Lazarus Long engaged in time travel and cloning intimate adventures that were unacceptable in most cultures.

On a positive note, in the Beyond book - the hero decided to carry a replica 1911 instead of a ray gun as he was a antiquarian freak kind of guy.
 
As noted, the quote is from a novel. It isn't based on any facts. The notion of it is rather stupid. Basically, you need to be armed in case you upset somebody and they decide to kill you for upsetting them. That isn't a polite society. That is a society based in constant fear.

If you're not at all familiar with that country, active militia service and rifle ownership is required of males within a certain age range (or at least it was - I'm not completely familiar with present-day Switzerland, and I know they have received undue pressure from other European countries). They also have some of the lowest, if not the lowest violent crime occurences in the world,
Click to expand...

Please, not this myth again. See my post #20 here... http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=491418&highlight=switzerland

Basically, Switzerland is in the middle of the pack. Sure, they are a bit better off than we are, but they are FAR from being the least violent society around. However, in one area they do excel, suicide.
 
Japan has always been a place of masterful arms control. The reputation for politeness comes from the fact that almost all Japanese are from peasant families, and the Samurai could kill any peasant they wanted for any reason, and being "rude" was a reason given to execute a peasant. Hence, over the centuries, the Japanese internalized courtesy into their culture out of fear of being killed. That is why the Japanese Americans I know who are 14'th amendment citizens, or otherwise born to Americans, are very different in terms of conduct than those who come directly from Japan after reaching adulthood.

As for their conduct in WW2, it was rather anomalous. Back when Japan fought Russia in the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese were noted for the kindness they displayed to prisoners. The crazy cruelty came from the propaganda they were fed in order to raise a large fanatical army of conscripts. As for the bullying, well, that's an unfortunate part of the culture.

Here are some relevant nuggets of information, thanks to the site that calls itself "This Very Wiki:

"Values Dissonance can often be seen during wartime, since it involves two differing societies fighting one another. One historically relevant example would be the differing viewpoints on the issue of surrender between the Japanese and the Western Allies during WWII. Whereas the Western powers such as the United States and Great Britain saw surrender as a respectable way to resolve a battle, the Japanese were taught to believe that surrender was the ultimate disgrace. The obvious result was very few Japanese prisoners due to the majority of them choosing death over capture, while Western prisoners were treated horribly by their Japanese captors. Note that this behavior wasn't traditionally Japanese: during the war with the Russian Empire forty years earlier, their treatment of prisoners was noted for its care and humanity. The harsh, brutal Japanese of WW 2 was the result of massive conscription to support the increasingly expansionist outlook of the Japanese Empire in the 30's. The Japanese military sought for a way to keep said conscripted troops disciplined - since discipline is often a big problem for conscript armies - so they introduced an absolutely brutal training and discipline, as well as an ostensibly samurai-based warrior mythos involving honorable courage and the dishonor of surrender.
Another touch of dissonance occurred when British and Australian commandos were captured on a raid to sink ships in Singapore harbor. The Japanese charged them with espionage and the war crime of perfidy, but according to one account called for the death penalty as a mark of respect for the courage and patriotism the commandos had shown. "These heroes must have left Australia with sublime patriotism flaming in their breasts," the prosecutor summed up, and it would be an anticlimax for their lives to continue after such a Crowning Moment of Awesome."

"John Douglas wrote, in his book Mindhunter, about being part of a training program that regularly invited officers from overseas. He mentions that the Japanese preferred to send pairs of officers, where one is the senior and the other the junior. There was one incident where the junior of a pair essentially acted as the senior's servant, shining his shoes, laundering his uniforms, and even serving as, basically, a practice dummy for the senior's martial arts practice. The senior was subsequently admonished that all students were to be treated equally in the program and that this was unacceptable behavior."
 
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If Japanese society has been a very polite society for many years, it did not apply to foreign POWs.

Some of our POWs of the Japanese have written that their soldiers treated each other almost as badly as they treated our guys.
It seems to have been a harsh, barbaric culture.

Most of us are well-aware that surrender by enemy combatants was not tolerated so well by their forces in WW2. That is quite obvious to anybody who has read a bit of history.
 
I've entertained for some time now the "Crazies theory of armed, polite society".

Dissect Heinlein's statement: "An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life." It doesn't really make a lot of sense, on the face of it. If you're dealing with another rational person, why would that ever be the case? No rational person is going to shoot you because you cut him in line, or failed to hold the door open for his wife, or something like that.

But, we don't always deal with rational people. There is a certain percentage, (probably way under 1%) that are, in fact, loony enough to shoot if you're rude to them. And that's a huge deterrent to being rude -- in the same way that just 5% of the population being armed and carrying is a huge deterrent to a mugger.

Last time I trotted this idea out (when I'd only just had it), the topic was shut down two posts later. :uhoh: But that's probably because I posted it right in the wake of a workplace shooting where the cause seemed to be a long period of hazing of the shooter by his co-workers. Too soon for that kind of analysis.
 
In most societies, polite behavior is only expected between social equals. We who are Americans find this kind of behavior strange. That's one of the reasons our forbearers left the old country!
Persons of the Samurai class were very polite to other people of their own class, even when they planned to kill them. They were even more polite to the daimyo class above them, but treated the classes below them with less respect. That's the way the system worked!
Europeans were no different. Thousands of men died because they needed to fight to the death to preserve their honor and their social status.
 
If you're not at all familiar with that country, active militia service and rifle ownership is required of males within a certain age range (or at least it was - I'm not completely familiar with present-day Switzerland, and I know they have received undue pressure from other European countries). They also have some of the lowest, if not the lowest violent crime occurences in the world, and it is noteworthy that they were able to maintain a stance of armed neutrality throughout two world wars - while geographically surrounded by other nations (there are other factors that aided them in the ability to maintain this, but I won't get into that).
Click to expand...

They still have the military rifle at home going on for those still in the militia.

Remember, their government is based on what we developed in 1776 - they were just better at sticking to a smaller government - as to crime, their society is very homogenous, unlike ours - and like it or not, folks like to "stick with their own kind" - that does reduce a lot of societal friction - as isolated as their country has been over the centuries, that helped in that regard

We used to have a very polite society up until LBJ's "Great Society" and the cultural revolution of the late 60's. Here in the South, in the rural areas, most kids still say Yes Sir and No, Ma'am and hold doors, etc........it is in the bigger metro areas, and areas afflicted with poverty and family structure breakdown that you lose the politeness. In the Old West, it was typically the local shop owners et al who took care of the rowdy thugs who acted wrong. Hollywood based most of their stuff on the original dime-store novels, who, in turn, exaggerated things in order to dells copies
 
This reminds me of the first time I took my wife to the shooting range. When leaving my wife looks at me and comments "Everyone there was so polite and friendly..." I reply "When everyone is armed people tend to watch their manners a little more... But then again, gun people just tend to be more polite."

I think it really open her eyes to the gun world as before then she could care less about my passion for firearms.
 
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