We Need to Bring Back Duelling: Conflict Resolution in the Era of Incels
The Consequences of a Consequence Free Society
I should have fought that guy.
Last week I had two interactions with strangers that convinced me humanity was more civilized when the threat of death or violence was more present.
People feel too safe, enabling dishonorable behavior without consequences.
A driver became irate because I did not allow him to make his turn exiting a parking lot. He believed he had the right of way, and decided to drive his car next to mine, blocking the incoming lane to let me know. He threw a few insults my way then told me he hoped that I would kill myself. I told him his reaction was out of proportion for the perceived slight, but he kept going. Finally I asked what he wanted to do about it? I didn’t mean it as a threat, but I later realized it could have been perceived that way. The man was two decades my senior, I was comfortable with my chances against him in hand to hand combat.
Naturally he didn’t actually want to fight. He just wanted to dump any pent up frustration he had against the world on me, while seated securely in his truck. He drove away, which was the end of the exchange. I’m not somebody looking to get into a fight. We’ve all been taught violence is not the answer, and I liked the shirt I was wearing. Getting his blood off of it would be a nuisance. I was at peace with how the exchange ended. Then a similar incident occurred at the golf course.
I was playing a Saturday golf round at public course, which was playing very slow. It took 2.5 hours to get through the front 9. The rest of my group left and I was debating whether to keep playing or stop. I noticed at the turn there was nobody on the hole in front of me so I decided to continue. I quickly caught up to the group in front of me, which consisted of a man, his wife and young child. It was a Par 3, they weren't on the green yet and the group on the next hole had already teed off. I figured I would skip the hole and play through. I indicated this to the man as I was driving by, he didn’t react initially. Once I got up the tee box, I saw the group ahead was still in range of where I could hit my drive. I had to wait for them and they were taking their sweet time. So long that the group behind me finished their hole. The man from the group started yelling at me that he wasn’t going to wait for me to play. I hit my drive, well beyond the range where his wife or son could hit but he was still upset. He hit a ball into me and kept yelling. Now it’s common etiquette to let a single player play through and I wasn’t delaying them. His reaction was once again over the top.
He was with his wife and kid. I wasn't going to hit a ball back at them or fight the guy in front of them. Perhaps I could teach his son a valuable lesson but I play at this course regularly, it’s not worth a potential ban/getting arrested. This guy clearly only behaved this way because he didn't think he would face repercussions.
If only there was a socially acceptable way we could settle disputes such as these without societal repercussions.
Dueling. For centuries this kept gentlemen in line. Protected honor and helped settle disputes in an amicable fashion. It’s time to bring it back. Keep reading to learn why.
Book I’m Currently Reading:
Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami
Current Nightstand Book:
Debrett’s Guide To Etiquette & Modern Manners by John Morgan
In case you missed them, here are some other recent articles to check out:
Necessary Disclaimer
I want to reiterate I am not a violent person. Yet there is only so much disrespect one can handle before needing to defend their honor. Although the longer the first stranger kept whining, the more willing I was to risk a few punches to the face to get him to stop. If any professional associates are reading this, I am not actually calling for violence.
In 2026 there is no rational reason to fight a stranger unless your life is at risk. The risk to reward ratio doesn’t make any sense. Any satisfaction you might get from winning a fight does not outweigh the legal and reputational consequences that come with it. It hasn’t always been this way though.
The History of Dueling
Dueling was created as an attempt to formalize violence.
The earliest traced sources go back to medieval Europe where nobles would occasionally settle legal disputes with Trials by Combat. Similar to what we saw in Game of Thrones. Instead of a Judge and Jury, they put it in Gods hand to decide. If the losing combatant died, it’s because God wanted him to, therefore he was guilty.
The modern gentleman duel started during the Renaissance in France and Italy (of course). The aristocratic culture was obsessed with personal honor and reputation. A public insult could not stand unaddressed therefore noblemen began settling private disputes through arranged combat.
By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, dueling was common among European elites. It was usually associated with swords, Zorro style. Allowing somebody to insult your honor was a challenge to your masculinity.
Despite the authorities attempts to ban it, France became the great center of dueling culture. The Crown and the church agreed that it was destabilizing and wasteful but they couldn’t stop the elites from doing it. Refusing a duel made someone look cowardly, and for an aristocrat the social penalty was worse than the legal risk.
By the eighteenth century, dueling had spread as far as the American colonies. The weapon of choice gradually shifted from swords to pistols. This also changed the nature of the game. Sword duels required skill and training, whereas pistol duels were more a question of luck. Who could get the shot off first without the gun jamming. The weapon quality wasn’t very reliable back in those days.
This leveled the playing field and had the advantage of shortening the duel time. Just like on the golf course, people had limits on their patience to watch grown men wave swords at each other.
The duel was not supposed to be a chaotic brawl. It was seen as a gentlemen act with rules, seconds, formal challenges, apologies, negotiated settlements and rituals designed to make the violence seem civilized. As demonstrated by the esteemed gentlemen Sir Larry David.
Dueling was so common, it was almost a right of passage for prominent statesmen. Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Lord Byron, Otto von Bismarck and most great Russian writers of the 19th century were all involved in a duel at some point.
It wasn’t all fun and games. Thousands of people died from these duels, some of whom were fairly consequential. Aaron Burr, Évariste Galois and Alexander Pushkin all died from duels. They certainly would have made more contributions to politics, mathematics and literature had they survived.
The Decline and Consequences of a Duel Free Society
Dueling began to fall out of favor in the nineteenth century. As the government became more powerful, they were able to crack down on private violence. Instead of risking potential death, aggrieved parties had alternatives to deal with reputational harm. Courts, newspapers and mediation etc.
As dueling spread from an Aristocratic activity down to the Middle-class it transitioned from gentlemanly to reckless, archaic and ridiculous. A bit like what happened to Soho House.
As societies became more bureaucratic, commercial and legalistic, defending your reputation via violence became unnecessary. Refusing to fight somebody looked more civilized then cowardly.
By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, dueling had mostly disappeared in Britain and North America, though it lingered in other parts of Europe. It really ended after WWI. Enough people died that, the idea of two men arranging a private honor contest seemed less cool.
While the effectiveness of dueling as a way to contain violence is debated, its removal has not helped foster a more respectful society. My experiences with the two strangers shows, that the impetuous to avoid violence relies on the insulted party accepting besmirchment. The legal system does a bad job of punishing medium-aggressions. To sue them for damages, they would have to tangibly damage me. This seems unfair.
They would not have behaved that way if they knew I was carrying a sword.
“Trigger fingers turn to Twitter fingers” — Drake
This is not a new phenomenon. People like to talk tough on the internet or when they feel protected either by physical distance or the legal system. Few of these people actually want to fight, they just want to insult people consequence free. This isn’t an internet thing either. Without trying to spoil School Ties (1996), the premise is that Brendan Fraser, a student at an expensive prep school, is poor and Jewish. Predictably some of the rich WASP kids engage in antisemitic behavior. When Brendan Fraser challenges the people responsible to fight him, of course none of them step up. He called them cowards and that was the end of that. How embarrassed their aristocratic ancestors must have been.
Now these are high school aged boys in the 1950s. Antisemitism was rampant and there was a certain safety in numbers dynamic picking on the only Jewish kid as a way to try to gain social acceptance. I’m not sure where on the spectrum of genius to madness of crowds, did people decide insulting people’s honor should come without bearing consequences.
Open Twitter and you’ll see endless angry hateful people out there without a proper outlet. You can extend that across social media, phone calls or even Op-Eds in your local newspapers. The further people get from the consequences of their actions the more emboldened they become. When people argue about free speech versus censorship, they seem to misunderstand the right to say anything does not mean you don’t face consequences.
Free Speech does not equal Consequence Free Speech. The government should not prevent somebody from posting things on the internet, but if they post something that is against the law, the government is well within their rights to punish them accordingly. A privately held social media company is free to decide what content they allow on their platform, but the more they play this role of arbiter, the closer they get to an editorial position, making them responsible for the content they do not censor.
There needs to be some rectifying force that keeps people in line, some societies do a better job than others. While in Japan, I noted that the legal system does not need to keep people in line because societal values are already engrained. Fighting serves an important role in hockey as a release valve, to allow teams to continue playing after they feel justice has been served. In leagues without fighting, you witness all kinds of cheap, underhanded and at times dangerous behavior, that referees are not able to rectify.
A few years ago it looked like dueling was making a comeback. Mark Zuckerberg was going to fight Elon Musk at the Coliseum. It would have been a monumental moment of the 21st century, but unfortunately the fight never happened. The stakes were too high, and I’m sure both men had teams of lawyers, PR people and other professionals trying to talk them out of it. Zuck and Musk don’t even hate each other. They were in a temporary spat, that they felt they could be settled the old fashioned way.
Violence is not the answer, but the more society tries to erase it, the more permissive it becomes of disrespectful actions that fall short of illegality. The more often this behavior occurs, the more it becomes normalized and that’s how we lose our civility.
We do not need more violence but we need better substitutes for it. Honor, shame, manners, reputation and social consequence all existed because law alone cannot govern every interaction between human beings. A society where nobody is ever afraid to be rude is not a peaceful society. It’s one where the decent are expected to absorb the indecency of everyone else.
We probably should not bring back dueling but people should twice before acting like they deserved to be challenged to one.
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Feels like the obvious conclusion is wussed out of here, at the risk of challenging a man's honour. The hockey example (one could point to rugby as well) suggests small amounts of violence are a good way of policing low level misbehaviour. Bring back the scuffle!