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Zusammenfassung von The Professor in the Cage

Name: The Professor in the Cage
Rating: 4.2 (21 reviews)
Author: Jonathan Gottschall

Jonathan Gottschall

Why Men Fight and Why We Like to Watch

4.2 (21 Bewertungen)

16 Min.

Kurz zusammengefasst

The Professor in the Cage by Jonathan Gottschall blends memoir and ethnography to explore the world of mixed martial arts, examining its place in modern society and the human condition.

Themen

Kultur Gender- und Sexualitätsstudien Sport

Inhaltsübersicht

The Professor in the Cage
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What’s in it for me? Find out why people still enjoy watching violence take place.

On your average weekend, how many fights to the death do you witness? It would be a fair guess to say none. Yet, if you were alive some two thousand years ago and were a citizen of the Roman Empire, the answer would likely have been completely different. These days, most of us enjoy the benefits of living in what is, relatively, one of the most peaceful periods in human history. We don’t witness anywhere near the level of violence experienced by our ancestors.

But this doesn’t mean that violence is no longer a pervasive force in society – you only have to attend a mixed martial arts (MMA) fight for proof. After all, violence is a natural impulse for humans, one deeply ingrained in our DNA. But modern-day humans have learned to channel this violence into less dangerous, more controllable pursuits. These blinks explain just how this happened.

In these blinks, you’ll also learn

how our ancestors fought to prepare for war;
about the violent origins of lacrosse; and
why males and females fight differently.

Fighting is a human act, but over time it has become more and more codified.

Some people fight for revenge, others for prestige and still others just fight for fun. But one thing is for sure: people have been fighting since the beginning of human history.

However, certain aspects of fighting have indeed changed. In the past, men have fought in ways that would seem brutal to people today. They would batter each other to death with stone axes, slice each other to pieces with swords and burn each other alive.

The reasons why people fought would also seem strange nowadays. For example, honor used to be one of the main reasons for fights, because a person’s capacity to defend his honor defined his social status. And without social status, a person was nothing in the eyes of others.

Clearly, our species’s past was quite violent. But over the course of many generations, humans collectively learned how to control their violent urges by allowing society to codify violence.

Take duels as a case in point. Instead of a fight breaking out without warning, duels controlled violence by codifying strict limitations and rules. For example, opponents had to agree on a time and place to fight, and only “civilized” weapons, like swords or guns, could be used. And if you could get your opponent to back down instead of fighting, you could win before anyone got hurt.

This pattern of increased codification of violence continues right up to the present.

Even though fighting still happens, and people do fight for honor, most of it is highly codified. Take the incredibly popular sport of mixed martial arts (MMA). Although there are barely any rules regarding the actual combat, the act of fighting itself is highly codified: it’s limited to a specific time and place, and is closely supervised by a referee.

MMA attracts people as a way to fight bullies, but also as a form of ritualized combat.

At some point during our life, we’ve all encountered a bully. Most people will have met one when they were still a child, while playing at school.

But bullying goes far beyond the playground; it happens in societies around the world because it’s universally effective. By picking on weaker members of society, bullies can boost their social status at the expense of their victims, without running the risk of facing retaliation.

Fighting is closely linked to masculinity.

In recent decades, our conceptions of men and women have changed radically. Gender stereotypes dictating that women stay at home to care for children while men work to provide for their families are being dismantled.

However, there’s one thing that definitely separates the sexes, namely the interplay between competition, violence and masculinity. In fact, there’s a clear evolutionary reason that males are more competitive and violent than females: reproductive differences.

Boys tend to play more competitively while girls prefer cooperation – and the same is true for adults.

Often when you see boys playing, it involves some kind of fight or competitive game. In contrast, girls tend to play together, rather than against each other.

This difference in playing style is observable from a very young age. Because of these different styles, the sexes tend to play separately from the get-go. Preschoolers are three times more likely to play with children of their own sex – by the age of six, this likelihood will have increased elevenfold.

Historically, sport helped train for war, but also helped avert it.

Have you ever felt yourself wishing for the other team to be obliterated while playing a sport or cheering on your favorite team?

That’s because many sports are ritualized forms of warfare.

Humans have always been excited by the spectacle of violence.

Have you ever seen the film Gladiator? If you have, you’ll know just how much people were entranced by violence in the past.

Indeed, there’s lots of evidence to suggest people have had a long-standing love affair with the spectacle of violence. In the Coliseum, the Romans watched gladiators fight to the death, and prisoners of war battle for their lives against wild animals. And in the Middle Ages, even children were taken to public executions to watch criminals being burned or buried alive.

Of all martial arts, MMA is the closest to real combat.

We’ve seen that sports have a direct link to war and violence. But this doesn’t mean that all sports are created equal – in fact, one sport stands above the rest.

MMA is the most brutal, hierarchical and realistic of modern combat sports.

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Worum geht es in The Professor in the Cage?

In The Professor in the Cage (2015), professor Jonathan Gottschall enters the world of mixed martial arts to discover the sources of our fascination with violence. Through the power of modern science and by applying the weight of human history, these blinks reveal how our love of fighting is grounded in our deepest human instincts.

Bestes Zitat aus The Professor in the Cage

Sustained eye contact is as stressful for other primates as it is for humans. As monkeys pace through their stare-down duels, the stress hormone cortisol floods their blood.

—Jonathan Gottschall

Wer The Professor in the Cage lesen sollte

Anyone interested in the origins of violence
People fascinated by martial arts
Anyone hoping to learn more about humanity’s fascination with fighting

Über den Autor

Jonathan Gottschall studies the intersection of science and art as a distinguished fellow in the English Department at Washington & Jefferson College. He is also the author of The Storytelling Animal, which was a New York Times Editor's Choice Selection.

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