The Young Turks

First off, I'll start by saying I'm a huge fan of The Incredible Hulk, so as you can imagine, blind-rage violence is good entertainment for me.

That being said, I still don't like things like UFC and I couldn't see myself watching them for more than ten seconds before I get bored, or sickened, and change the channel. Maybe not so much sickened, since it takes a lot to make me sick, and would probably require some massive amount of facial swelling and blood and bruising, but my point remains...

To that end, while I can't speak for EveningStarNM, I can say that I too find the idea of real-life fighting to be destructive as well. And honestly, who doesn't? True, one person sees two savages fighting and another guy sees two guys using honed techniques to fight, but the end result, and the final objective is the same no matter which side of that fence you're on: The objective is to cause excruciating or debilitating pain so as to make your opponent submit. How you accomplish it is probably irrelevant to EveningStarNM.

I find it to be complete violence-mongering... but here's the kicker... I DO see it as two professionals fighting. I do see two guys who know how to fight, signed on to it, and are good at what they do. However, I can't really toot my horn and say it's far above simply being violence. It's regulated violence to be sure, but it is still just violence for violence's sake.

But here's the real point I'm trying to make, I love The Incredible Hulk because although it involves a semi-hero who is tearing tanks apart, downing helicopters, and crushing buildings, it's not real. It's stylized, it's dramatized, and nobody really gets hurt.

So I don't classify fake violence and real violence to be the same thing. When I see someone on UFC get slugged in the face, hear barely anything but a muted dry thud if anything at all, see the other guy's eyes roll back into his head as he crumples to the floor, it just doesn't entertain me, and while I can clearly see the two men are professionals, they're professionals in the art of inflicting bodily harm. It's what they do. If in football the objective is to get a ball to one side of the field, if in basketball the objective is to get the ball in the hoop, in UFC, the objective is to inflict submissive harm on your opponent. The END GOAL is violence. The goal isn't violence in football or basketball, although certainly some violence may occur during the course.

That is how I rationalize the responses of EveningStarNM and others (not to say that their responses weren't rational to begin with).

That also being said, if you want to watch UFC-type shows, as Cenk always says, have at it, Hoss. Everyone likes different forms of entertainment and I think the most common thing here is that just because someone finds the goal of it savage, doesn't mean they don't understand it. Though I heartily disagree with whoever it was who said we should all be watching wholesome family entertainment; in a world like that, we truly would all be boring robots with no personality.

I admit, I like The Incredible Hulk because he personifies this idea of getting so incredibly angry and so incredibly violent and just unleashing what we bottle up day in and day out. It's just a powerful thing to behold, albeit fake, which is why it's fun for me, and easy to swallow.

And similarly, I wouldn't see any issue in saying that yes, such and such person enjoys UFC basically because it's raw violence. There's no shame in it. Violence appeals to most, if not all of us in varying degrees. Some could argue you might want to take pride in the fact that you entertain yourself with instinctual human entertainment, as to some it may display a sense that you are in touch with the fact that you're human and base things still appeal to you. We don't all have to be eloquent robots 24/7 to be civilized.

-Jason B. (CaptainDingo)