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David Macy wrote: What a neat and powerful
thing to ponder-- What is 'entailment'?
P.S. What a vehicle you chose!
Any particular reason why this one? >JR: For example, if you're standing in a big puddle of
gasoline and you light a match, dropping it into the puddle; there are a set of
entailments which are likely to cause extreme bodily injury or death to you.
However, if you are not standing IN the puddle of gasoline, but are some
distance away when you throw a lit match into it, you will experience a
different outcome. Both outcomes are always entailed, but different relations
will govern the interaction differently. Thus, the entailments of what we
observe happening in the universe (causality) are only a small subset of the
total entailments any system possesses.>
Why did I choose that particular scenario.... Hmmm..... I have no
idea. I could always "pull a Sigmund" and say; sometimes a big puddle of
gasoline is just a big puddle of gasoline... If we wanted to read
stuff into it, though, I can come up with oodles of subliminals to make it sound
plausible!
Actually, the relational aspect of "deadly force" has always seemed like a
bizarre thing to me-- like; how a bullet requires velocity of a
certain speed in order to be dangerous; otherwise it's just a hollow piece
of metal that's not even sharp. The thing that got me to start thinking
about such a thing was actually the early Steven Segal movies. When he
first started making movies ("Screwface" and "Above The Law" come to mind), I
was blown away by his particular combination of martial arts (mainly Aikido). It
was very unlike Karate or the other "yelling" types. Segal was absolutely silent
and always used his capabilities in a defensive mode. I began to study what he
was doing because it was so amazingly effective and elegant at the same time.
Apparently, he used to be a body guard for Hollywood stars, and decided he could
make movies himself just as well... The last movie of his that I liked, though,
was "Hard To Kill". They've gotten kind of dumb since then.
Anyway, from watching how he could disarm people who were brandishing a
weapon and the way he could turn just about anything into a weapon to protect
himself with... what I came up with was that any weapon is only dangerous to
life and/or limb in a very limited number of ways. The average
kitchen knife is only sharp along one edge plus the point. A
handgun with bullets in it is only dangerous in a narrow path from barrel
to target. That leaves a whole lot of maneuvering room, which Segal was using to
disarm his opponents and then put them out of commission. Most people tend to be
paralyzed when someone pulls out a knife or a gun, which is understandable, but
may be exactly the wrong thing to do.
Self defense is a really important skill, for everyone I think, but
especially for girls. I have daughters, so I'm committed to making sure they get
some basic training in this throughout their lives. Perhaps my attitude is yet
another lesson learned from my father, who grew up in Brownsville, Brooklyn. He
said; "It was never good to look too prosperous or too vulnerable in
my old neighborhood." When he had to walk home late in the evening, from some
date or whatever, he would change out of his "date" clothes into an
old leather jacket and always carried a length of bicycle chain, which he
swung as he walked. He said gangs of "toughs" would cross the street to avoid
him when they saw him coming. But looking the part wasn't all there was to it--
one needed to be able to back it up if challenged. So he learned the
self-defense training his uncles were taught in the military, for WWII, and he
was also a pretty good boxer. (I still have his boxing gloves.) I am happy to
say that he passed on what he learned to his kids. I enjoyed his
fist-fighting lessons! Looking back on it, it's a little surprising that
he insisted on teaching me as well as my brothers, but then again, he was
(thankfully) not your average father.
Judith
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