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Where the Action Is

In common parlance, "action" refers to social interaction, though precisely what kind of interaction varies greatly. Brokers are looking for places where the "action" consists of buying and selling with the potential for them to profit. Young partygoers seek out places where the "action" consists of meeting others with the potential for sexual activity.

In general, people leave the quite solitude of their homes to venture out in search of a place where there is action. One may argue that action is undertaken to produce a result - but there is a sense of importance in the action itself, and it can be observed that people often seek to be engaged in the action where there is no significant need of the outcome: the businessman, having already made more money than he can spend in the rest of his life, continues in his wheeling and dealing. He is doing so for the thrill of the chase.

Socializing, itself, is participation in interaction that often has no functional purpose or goal but the pleasure of interaction itself. Very few of our interactions are strictly necessary to achieve our goals - but instead, being engaged with others without purpose is itself the goal.

Chances

Human interaction is itself a kind of gambling, in which the possibility of success is only interesting because there is also the possibility of failure. We are far more excited when we do not know exactly what will happen than we are when things are set and certain.

Consider the pastime of gambling: the toss of a coin, the roll of a die, the deal of the cars, a spin of the roulette wheel. Each of these are chance engines where a final decision is uncertain. The mechanical means of chance are supposed to be fair and their outcome can be mathematically calculated: if a route-wheel is fair, there is an equal chance of the ball coming to rest in any slot, and if we speculate as to where the ball will land, we know there is a 1:36 chance (2.78%) that our prediction will be correct.

Here, the author goes into more specific detail about the various elements of a gamble: the wager, the payoff, the theoretical odds, and the given odds. In general, we expect the winnings to be weighted to the odds of winning. A 1-in-2 chance should yield a 2-to-1 payoff for the gamble to be fair.

On a more basic level, gambles involve opportunities that bear risk: there is something we wish to gain, a chance that we will not gain it and may instead incur a loss. It is possible to face risk without opportunity and vice versa, but our daily life generally consists of activities in which we choose to face a risk for the opportunity of gain.

Another note: gambling is generally a voluntary event. One may choose to participate or not. To gamble itself is a social act, and exchange of commitments with the other parties involved in the gamble. But one may also decline the opportunity - to choose not to commit or to take chances.

There is also some nit picking about timing. A commitment to gamble is generally made when the odds of the outcome are unknown. We do not bet upon the outcome of a horse race after the race has ended and the winner is known. And the house does not generally accept bets when the horses are running and one can observe which is in the lead during the course of the race itself. The bet is made before the event begins, and the wager is committed and cannot be taken back at that point.

There is a tedious argument to be made about the randomness of chance. The outcome of a coin-toss is not truly random, but has to do with the manner in which it was held, the manner in which it was tossed, the air currents, minute irregularities on the surface on which it lands, etc. While it is possible for all of these things to be measured and managed to ascertain a certain outcome, in most coin-tosses they are not - so the "randomness" we refer to generally means the intentional interference of an interested party to influence the outcome.

The instance of gambling consists of four parts:

  1. Bet-making - in which the parties make arrangements about what is being bet upon, the wagers and winnings in case of the outcomes
  2. Determination - the conduct of the event on which wagers are being placed
  3. Disclosure - the discovery and agreement upon the outcome
  4. Settlement - the collection of losses and payment of winnings

And continuing with the fussiness, the amount of time from beginning to end is to be called the "span" of play and any period of inactivity between the phases is to be called a "pause." A period of play involving multiple repetitions of the game is a "session" and the "rate of play" is the number of repetitions per given unit of time.

After this long diversion, the author attempts to drag it back to everyday life. Any decision in which the outcome is not certain is likened to a gamble. Sometimes there are other players in the game, and sometimes nature or fate is the house against which we gamble. There may or may not be set payoffs, and the only wager may be our time, etc. And when the metaphor has been thoroughly mangled, he simply trails off and drops a subtitle for the next section.

Consequentiality

One confounding obstacle to game analysis is that the value of a prize is entirely subjective. Where the prize is a specific article, it's easy enough to see that the interest a person places in participating in a contest and the effort the will put into winning (or even understanding their odds) is based on the degree to which they wish to possess the item that will be won.

A common mistake is supposing that money has universal appeal: not everyone will seek it, nor seek it to the same degree. Young boys may invest a great deal of energy in sorting out the details surrounding a one-dollar bet, most adults will bet a dollar casually and without even thinking about the odds, and some would scoff at the prospect of such a small bet - participating at all is not worth their time.

Then, there are the sentiments toward chance itself. The optimist is far more interested than the pessimist in any game of chance, as one overestimates and the other underestimates their chances of winning. Some people have higher tolerance for risk than others, which finance has come to accept and psychology has yet to explain. Others simply enjoy the sport of it - to be involved in a wager is exciting to them, regardless of the outcome or the odds.

There are religious and societal influences as well that influence the perspective toward gambling, or at least certain kinds of gambling. A person may choose to obey or defy the opinions of their social groups, to varying degrees, or may be convinced that gambles certain kinds is acceptable whereas gambles of other kinds are not. Racetrack betting is legal in more locations than casino gambling, and investing in stocks is hardly considered a form of gambling at all.

Even within the gambling industry, which has invested much observation and study in games of chance, it is accepted that there are different kinds of gambler. The casino offers a variety of games to accommodate their tastes for varying prizes, degrees of chance, amounts at stake, length of the span of play, rate of play, and so on.

Logically, it makes sense only to wager when the expected outcome is favorable - when the odds favor a win. But people participate in wagers that have negative prospects (the casino is full of them). Even a game at fair odds should be of little interest - if the value of the outcome is exactly the same as the value of the wager, then it's simply a waste of time.

There's a brief mention of "gambling" on skill rather than chance. In most instances, this is entirely fictional: there is no such thing as a skilled roulette player. But in other instances, there is a factual basis for this: the poker player who benefits from his ability to deceive and detect the deceptions of others, regardless of the cards he actually holds.

Similarly, there's the potential for disparate knowledge or evaluation of the odds of winning. Those with a particular knowledge of horses can more accurately calculate the odds of a given one winning a race, and recognize instances where the house has grossly underestimated a strong contender.

Of course, logic is based on perfect knowledge and mathematical competence - and most gamblers who speak of having a "system" or a sure-fire method of winning a game of chance are clearly lacking in one or both of those capacities. Such people have a distorted and subjective perspective of the gamble and are often ignoring certain factors or miscalculating their prospects of winning.

Back to the prize, there is also a subjective valuation when it is any item of value. People have different degrees to which they value the prospect of winning a new car, and seldom consider the actual cash value of the vehicle as the value of the outcome. Even when the outcome is cash, there are differences in the degree to which people value sums of cash: they imagine what a purse of ten thousand dollars would mean to them, and may place more than that dollar-value on the prize. The same amount of money creates different consequences for different people.

Another common oversight in game analysis is the notion of alien pressures: something that exists outside of the gambling situation that makes a person more or less prone to gamble. The loss of the wager may mean the inability to meet a commitment that would otherwise have been met (the middle-class couple who gamble away their children's college fund), the prospect of the prize may enable them to fulfill some need that otherwise would have been neglected (gambling to win money for an expensive medical treatment). Both the wager and the purse represent something more than a certain amount of money to the gambler, impact his willingness to gamble and his behavior at gambling.

The notion of consequences as reward connects the behavior of gambling to the behavior of life. What is interviewing for a job, starting a new business, proposing marriage, or choosing a vacation destination if not a gamble? We have only a vague notion of what we stand to lose by failing or the mathematical odds of either outcome - but it is still a gamble. We have only a vague notion of whether we will even be happy with the prize if we win.

In particular, any action we take in order to improve our status quo is a gamble. And even when we feel that certain action will definitely lead to certain results, we are assuming certain conditions - choosing to believe in the face of all evidence to the contrary that life is at all routine and predictable when, in reality, anything can happen and everything is a gamble.

Fatefulness

While time is our greatest value, it is only value when it can be put to productive use or spent in an enjoyable activity - otherwise, time is a nuisance and we seek to "kill" it.

Consider the time we spend waiting: a man arrives half an hour early for an appointment and must spend this time in the waiting room. There is nothing productive or particularly pleasant to do in that environment, and there is not sufficient time to leave and return. And so, he finds a way to kill the time - most often, picking up a magazine and inattentively perusing articles he's not particularly interested in just to pass the time before the appointment.

The activities that we busy ourselves with to kill time are generally of little importance and have little impact on our lives. We read magazines, watch television, work a crossword puzzle, have a nap, or busy ourselves in small talk with others who are trapped in the same situation. Such time is truly wasted, and most people attempt to arrange their lives to minimize it - to show up exactly on time, thus avoid having time to kill.

Deciding how to spend these loose moments of time is a nuisance: there is no function or goal, no objective reason to choose one activity over another when the only purpose is to pass time.

He then speaks of mindless work: any job has meaningless and annoying tasks that can be done with a minimum of mental effort, and some occupations are almost entirely composed of performing mindless tasks. They are just routine duties, done out of necessity, that do not involve decision-making. Aside of doing them to a minimum level of acceptability, there is no point in applying one's mind to mindless work.

For most people, very little time is actually spent doing things that are meaningful - where there are options that must be carefully considered and a decision made that will have a significant impact on our lives. These moments, and these tasks, the author refers to as being "fateful."

The author also wishes to rule out consequences that are unintentional, eve though accidents have significant consequences: the individual waiting on a train becomes so engrossed in the magazine article that he misses the train, misses his interview, misses out on a job that could have changed his life. But this consequence is accidental - it was not a conscious decision.

There's a bit about corporeality: that a human being is a mind encased in a fragile case. Our first concern in all situations is the integrity of our bodies, as any injury or debilitation suffered in pursuit of one goal is a permanent consequence. A person brings their body into any situation and must carry it out, preferably in the same condition.

Then, a bit about the social consequences of any activity. While our primary concern is for the functional objective of the activity, we must also be attentive to the social impact: how our engagement in the activity and the way we conduct ourselves will be seen by others, and has the potential to increase or decrease our esteem and their willingness to collaborate with us in future.

The third set of consequences are those that have an impact on property: it may be gained, lost, or changed in any undertaking. Economists often consider property to be the first order of motivation - but given the potential consequences to body and social standing, it is always the third.

Practical Gambles

The author avers that any social encounter has the potential to be fateful, and that managing social exposure is a method by which an individual mitigates his risks: those who are generally pleased with their condition will not value the potential gain, and fear the potential loss, of any gamble.

Those who seek social encounters are generally ambitious to gain and willing to accept the chances of loss - though this is often implicit. There are few instances in which a person has a very specific agenda when seeking a social encounter - and for the most part they are either excited by or indifferent to the unknown possibilities.

For the most part, men bumble through life, and when a fateful event occurs they are not quite sure how it came about. They feel their lives to be the product of some equation that they do not quite understand, chance events falling into place by freakish and improbable chance or some mystic intelligence magically guiding their hand.

Yet there are a few social situation in which man enters with a sense of what is at stake and a hope, or even a strategy, to turn events in his favor. He may seek to propose marriage, to interview for a job, to make contact with a potential client, and so on - and in these instances he is aware of the potential and feels his fate to be in his own hands.

It is only when we begin with such intents that we recognize the game we are playing, the stakes we are risking, what we hope to win, and the way we can act to influence our chances. The same situation exists, however, when we are blissfully unaware - we are merely unaware and unfocused, improvising our way without a clear understanding of what we are doing. It also exists when, unbeknownst to us, we are pieces in a game being played by others.

The author the considers occupations in which "problematic consequentiality" is commonly faced:

  1. A commercial operation in which one must risk an investment to pursue a financial gain
  2. A sales, brokering, or hustling type activity where earning a fee or commission is based on successfully convincing others to make an investment
  3. A pursuit in which there is a goal to be accomplished that requires a person to place their physical self in danger as a part of the process
  4. A performance in which failure would diminish the future earning capabilities of the individual - such as a performing artist giving a bad performance
  5. Instances where one must enter into a situation that is known to be dangerous. Soldiers, policemen, and firefighters must routinely face such risks. So must athletes, both professional and recreational.
  6. Criminal enterprises are similarly problematic, as there is always the potential of getting caught and punished in planning or execution, or even years after the fact.
  7. Involvement in any situation that is considered morally questionable, when one's profession requires moral uprightness: for example, any moral compromise to a politician or clergyman.

Adaptations

From eventful moments, the author turns to uneventful ones: dull and unexciting, when there is no risk in the undertaking, or no undertaking at all. Mot of life is composed of uneventful moments, where there is certainty without drama. They are our daily routines, where nothing remarkable occurs.

It is possible for an uneventful situation to have positive benefits, generally by slow, progressive, and predictable action. An onlooker might find wonder and admiration in the performance, but the performer himself is quite bored - focused on the task, but being sure of the outcome because of his expertise. It is simple and unchallenging for him.

And while quick gains are to be made by taking risk, the greater part of progress is through slow and steady processes with a great deal of planning and preparation for each activity. It is not only orderly, but highly effective, to operate in this manner.

Uneventful activity is characterized by mental focus and physical care. There is no daydreaming or distraction that could lead to an unexpected accident, and motions are measured and precise. While there may be uncertainty or even danger, it is understood and mitigated by carefulness.

Another characteristic of uneventful activity is progressiveness. One may win a great sum of money in a daring gamble, but one may also uneventfully save small amounts over a long period of time to achieve the same goal with less risk and greater certainty of success.

Safety and insurance are also characteristic of the uneventful act. One recognizes what might go wrong and has plans and the mechanisms to act upon them should predicted events occur. The spare tire and the fire extinguisher are means to deal with unlikely but predictable events that may occur, enabling the actor to mitigate the harm and continue toward his goal.

In social settings, manners and etiquette are generally uneventful: they are undertaken to avoid giving unnecessary offense to someone who is not important at the moment, but who may be so in the future.

There's a brief mention of the mis-assignment of eventfulness. The execution of a prisoner is not eventful - the trial that led to his sentence was. And in the modern system of appeals, each appeal is the eventful occasion. The execution is merely a consequence, the delivery of an outcome that has already been decided upon.

It's mentioned that risk-mitigation can become paralytic when the risks are overestimated, both in their nature and probability. One cannot be prepared for any contingency, and whether it was prudent or foolish to recognize a risk and choose not to prepare for it is unknown in advance.

Risk creates excitement. There is very little emotional arousal at the prospect of an uneventful event where specific action will lead to certain outcomes - but greater interest at the prospect of an incident where the possible outcome is unknown and there is a disconnection between action and result. For some, this excitement is instead anxiety, that leads to avoidance of rather than preparation for any perceived risk.

Another reaction to risk is superstition - the extra steps taken and rituals performed that have no logical connection to an outcome, but which help to mitigate the anxiety of the actor. A gambler may wear a "lucky" bracelet, an actor may have an idiosyncratic routine before going on stage, an applicant may whisper a prayer before opening an envelope to see the decision. The behavior has no impact on the results, but is an emotional calmative.

Determinism is a common form of superstition: a person may choose to believe that "fate" or "destiny" or "luck" is in control regardless of what he does, and this gives him the ability to take action rather than "wasting" time considering or preparing for contingencies. Modern psychology also enables people to assign themselves to specific "types" of personality, making their profile rather than the behavior the cause of success or failure. It also enables him to maintain his self-esteem in spite of his lack of preparation - so determinism becomes a self-perpetuating behavior.

The actions undertaken to mitigate risk, whether rational preparation or irrational superstition, also mitigate regret or remorse after the worst had happened. We can feel that we have done our bet to ascertain success, or as much as can be reasonable expected, and the failure is less damaging to self-esteem. It is "not our fault" that something unpredicted occurred.

Action

By the term "action," the author means fateful activities in which risk is undertaken for the sake of reward. There are activities in which a person faces risk for its own sake, the thrill and esteem that come from just being daring without accomplishing anything - but these are not seen as "serious" activities. Action, in its true form, is a method of achieving results by facing risk.

The only way to entirely avoid fatefulness is to avoid taking action of any kind, which is clearly a ridiculous proposal. Further, because the time it requires to mitigate risk is considerable, the individual who attempts to reduce the potential for variance in every activity will find it impossible - for all the planning and preparation, he will have time to do almost nothing. To make progress, it is necessary and even inevitable to engage in chancy undertakings and face risk.

On the other end of the extreme is the man of action, who seems bold to the point of foolishness - and who seems attracted to risk itself, taking on long-shot wagers where the potential reward is clearly not worth the potential risk. They express contempt for the "safe and sure" methods as being cowardly and slow, and feel justified by their own successes that their way is the better path.

In brokerages, speculative traders who take enormous risks with large amounts of money feel themselves distinctly superior than the portfolio managers who handle bond purchases for institutional clients. In the military, the combat soldiers infantry have a low opinion of battlefield support and noncombatants behind the lines. Even in the criminal world, burglars consider themselves to be brave and talented, and look down upon the petty thieves and muggers, who have little courage or cunning and focus on simple, safe, and small scores that involve little skill and risk.

The appetite for risk also seems to be supported on the societal level: those whose professions require them to face risk are better compensated than those in safer professions, and the same is true with positions in the same firm. However, society seems to be largely blind to the success ratios: the fortunes made by a few distract them from the failure of the many.

Part of the allure of risky professions is a sense of personal empowerment and freedom. The safe employee works at a moderate pave, safeguarded by rules and procedures that prevent him from taking risk. The risk-taker has no restrictions or guidelines to follow in his endeavors, and has a much higher degree of autonomy.

He refers back to the four phases of a gamble - bet-making, determination, disclosure, and settlement. These phases exist when there is any level of uncertainty in an undertaking, but they tend to happen more quickly and with less meticulousness in fateful events.

When an individual asks "where's the action," he is generally seeking out the speed and degree of risk - the more of these, the greater the intensity of the action. If there are eight craps tables working, he is seeking the one where the largest wagers are being made and the dice are being thrown the most times per hour.

But there is some ambiguity over which factor matters most. One table may be crammed with a dozen one-dollar bettors, another with a single player betting thousands, a third with players betting in multiple and inconsistent denominations, a fourth with people making long shot wagers and avoiding the safer bets, etc. Which has the most action or the right kind of action depends on an individual's perspective.

This applies outside of gambling situations as well. A salesman's preference for action may be a variety of clients, or a few wealthy ones, or a large number of small sales, or clients buying a variety of goods, etc. A pickpocket may seek a street with the most people, or the heaviest pockets, or specific items, or whatnot.

The author presents a number of quotes from publication, each of which use "action" in reference to a different kind and intensity of activity. In all, the word connotes "interesting activity" without considering the reason the activity might be found interesting or to whom.

There's a last bit about success and failure in risky endeavors. Specifically, there is a greater tolerance for failure. Gamblers speak about "blowing it" when they lose a significant bet or do something they recognize as foolish - but are quick to shrug off the loss and place their next bet. There is some tolerance for a salesman "blowing" a deal, though like the gambler his wins must ultimately exceed his losses. But there is little tolerance for a doctor or an accountant "blowing" their job or career by making a rash decision in the heat of the moment.

Where the Action Is

If most of our activities consist of a routine where familiar efforts leads to predictable results and risk is mitigated or eliminated, then "action" is not a part of our daily lives, and we must go elsewhere to seek it.

Commercial sport is a common pastime because it enables people to seek out action without putting anything consequential at risk. There is some level of emotional stake, but nothing is actually gained nor lost in the contest. Sports contests are staged for amusement, watched for fun, and there is for the most part nothing produced or affected.

The author speaks of "non-spectator risky sports" to indicate sporting and sport-like activities in which a person is not merely a spectator, but a participant: playing in a neighborhood game, hiking in the wilderness, catch-and-release fishing. These are also activities that accomplish nothing, put provide pleasure for the participants.

Next, there is a consideration of non-sport games - there is in almost every community a billiard parlor and a bowling alley, or other venues where people play at games of skill involving little physical exertion or risk of injury.

Race tracks and casinos are another form of leisure, though these generally involve a small financial stake to make the outcome more meaningful for the betting participant.

There's a mention of amusement parks, with "thrill" rides that give us a sense of risk without any real danger.

There's also social events, where people gather for no particular purpose except to interact with one another - though there are some sociological elements (generally sorting out the pecking order of who should defer to whom) and the potential to form relationships, most social event are just people milling about, having superficial conversation, and leaving just as they arrived.

He paints the scene of a casino as a place where various activities take place: some come to gamble, others to indulge in food and drink, others to socialize, some just to watch, etc. Everyone there is simply looking for an escape from the dullness of everyday life, hoping for something interesting or exciting to happen - but ultimately to go home at the end of the night in more or less the same condition, and return to their routines.

There is also significance in the association or dissociation of certain kinds of action. The people who participate in a common activity form a kind of society with its own culture. And it is generally maintained that certain activities are appropriate or inappropriate for people in certain roles or cliques.

There are also certain social arrangements through which access to action is made available to an individual. Where there is a profit to be made by providing action, the profiteers themselves seek to engage interested individuals: they advertise to attract participants, making their event known as widely as possible to attract a paying audience.

In certain events, the profit is made from the audience rather than the participant, so those that wish to profit from a spectacle are far more carful in selecting who may participate. In bullfighting, it is not the ability to quickly dispatch the animal that is valued, but the ability to execute a number of "near misses" before the final kill is made - hence the promoter does not allow just anyone into his arena, but only the matador whose skill will satisfy the paying audience.

This also brings to mind the way in which events are managed for the benefit of the audience - the promoter seeks to have a "fair" match where the outcome is certain. And so, various rules and procedures are put into place to restrict the participants from doing things that would enable them to succeed too easily.

This is also true of non-staged events: there is always a matter of handicapping the participant to make success less likely in order to make the effort more entertaining. A sure-fire bait that will always catch fish is of great interest to the commercial fisherman, but of little interest to the amateur angler: being certain of success would take all the "fun" out of the effort.

There are forms of action that put contestants at odds with one another: one can only win if the other loses. Consider a pistol duel, in which each marksman is the other's target.

In this context, there is also the concept of handicapping - when one contestant has clear advantages over the other, his advantage is mitigated so that the contest is "fair" and the outcome is less certain, providing greater entertainment for the spectators. While we seek to minimize risk in daily activities, we maximize risk in leisure activities, and uncertainty itself is the thrill.

As an aside- thrill-seeking has a decided masculine quality. It is almost unheard of for there to be a lady matador, or for women to duel with pistols. There are very few activities in which it is considered appropriate, by social standards, for women to engage in risky activity.

Lurching back on topic, it's noted that action is "episodic." That is, it is an unusual event that is in a way separated from normal everyday life. We seek out action, participate it, and then withdraw back to the normal life from whence we came - hence the action is an episode, a story with a finite beginning, middle, and ending.

And if action is the point of life, then there are few interesting moments and long periods of dullness in-between. The action-seeker is reminiscing about his last episode or looking forward with anticipation to his next one - and all the moments in between are just passing time.

Character

To recap, the topic of chance has been explored, and fateful action defined as situations in which there is something to be gained, but at the risk of taking a loss. Along the way, it has been stated that people differ in their desire for action - whether people are bold or timid has to do with their character.

Then, conditioning is considered: a person develops certain skills as a means to mitigate risk. If strength is necessary to succeed in a challenge, an individual who anticipates facing that challenge can develop his strength beforehand, generally in a safe environment. Where the skills are not clearly understood, simulations can be held in hopes of intuitively gaining the skills necessary - such as a marksman who shoots targets on a firing range to develop his aim, not knowing how to describe the skills needed to aim.

Those who have developed their skills in advance of a challenge are less fearful and more eager to put those skills to test in a real-life scenario. (EN: This is more psychological than functional - we "feel" that we have the right skills to face a challenge. We do not know until after the challenge whether this was true.)

In addition to developing skills, preparation also includes understanding of the trial itself - the environment, the tasks, the opponents, etc. This is often geared toward identifying contingencies and preparing for them as well - so that a person has the perception skills to recognize when a contingency has occurred and the functional skills to deal with that contingency. (EN: along the same lines, we "feel" that we understand the challenge, and perceive the outcome as being based on skill rather than luck, hence we "feel" that we have control.)

Uncertainty in the face of chance is the foundation of fear. The less we know about what the outcome(s) might be and the probability of each outcome, the less confidence we will have. However, this is entirely internal: we must believe that we do not know in order to feel fear. An individual who believes he knows all the risks will be quite courageous even if his knowledge is quite lacking - this is being foolhardy, from the perspective on another.

By "character" the author means the individual's ability to hold correct and steady in the face of sudden pressures. It is not about his actions, but how he manages himself. A person who can maintain composure and act correctly under pressure is said to have strong character, whereas a person who loses integrity under even a modicum of stress is said to have a weak character.

The qualities of character are universally valued, such that regardless of the culture, a person who has strong character is admired and those in the upper classes are expected to display strong character. Although it may be argued that character is valued among all classes, and even lower-class people are encouraged, though not expected, to display good character.

The quality of a person's character is often assessed in fateful moments, where character is demonstrated under duress - but character is present at all times, even inconsequential daily activities.

There follows a rather long passage about executions - how some men panic when they are to be executed, but others maintain stoicism or even display "gallows humor" in the moments before their death.

There are numerous folk-sayings about the nature of persons and the manner in which they demonstrate their qualities of character, most of which are quite wrong. They are generally based on the expectation of consistency - that a heroic person will always behave in a heroic manner and a cowardly person will always behave in a cowardly manner. There is the folk believe that character is something that cannot be restored once it has been lost - a person whose courage fails once will remain a coward forever.

While human behavior is largely consistent, it is not perfectly so. A hero may behave in a cowardly way, a coward may find his courage. A person who done something six times may do something differently the seventh and then return to his former performance on the eighth. To demonstrate good character is a choice, and one may choose differently at any moment. It is no more predictable than any other choice a man may make.

But at the same time, individuals generally attempt to maintain a certain consistency. The character a person shows is an announcement about the kind of person they wish to be (or wish to be perceived as being) - and so, we can expect a person to make a choice that is consistent to their desired persona. And most of the time, they will act accordingly.

This may also explain the attraction to action: every man has certain things he believes about himself, but he is never quite certain. Action gives us the ability to test our mettle, to discover whether what we believe about ourselves is really true. And part of the attraction to action is whether a person expects a test to validate or negate what they believe.

Character Contests

The manner in which we conduct ourselves while undertaking a challenge is a testament to our character - esteem may be won or lost regardless of the functional outcome. Even when there are instances in which there can be only one "winner" those who did not achieve functional success may maintain or build character by their conduct.

However, there are instances in which a competition places personal character at stake, in which one or more participants is certain to lose esteem. A "character contest" is a special kind of moral game.

Our character is tested in everyday activities - we tent to gain or lose in small increments over time: every day we can gain or lose esteem, but generally in small ways. And when we interact in social settings, we can "play" to boost or damage the esteem of others as well.

Very often in social settings, there is a battle of poise - the subtle innuendo of teases and taunts that occurs even among friends. We gain esteem by justly and deservedly undermining the esteem of another, or lose it by giving affront to someone whom others think ought to be respected. We gain or lose esteem by defending these small incursions against our own, if we do so effectively and in a proper manner.

All of this has to do with the rank and order in society: the challenger is attempting to gain ground against the challenged, or simply to improve his esteem in the context of the group. The challenger may be attempting to gain ground against a rival of the same rank, to weaken the position of one who outranks him, or reaffirm his superiority over someone of lower rank.

Character may be a secondary aspect in a functional contest, or the functional contest may be a false front for a contest of character. Or it may be purely about character with no other functional objective.

The game begins when one player has offended against a moral rule, giving affront to someone else. This is a "provocation." In some instances, it is unintentional and the would-be challenger quickly apologizes for the unintended offense. When this occurs, the esteem of both parties is preserved. It may be detrimental for a party to repeatedly or egregiously given unintentional offense, this would be the consequence of individual clumsiness rather than an interpersonal challenge.

In such instances it is generally better if the offending party recognizes his own offense, but it is also common for the other party to indicate he has taken offense and demand an apology. In such instances, the offending party can still back down gracefully, or escalate the situation to a challenge.

Even for the offended, there is the choice to ignore the affront rather than taking offense. In effect, to declare that the challenger is unfit to make such a challenge and it is beneath the dignity of the affronted party to become socially engaged in a challenge. This, in itself, is an affront to the status of the challenger - to be ignored and treated as unimportant implicitly defeats the assertion that the challenger has sufficient status to make a challenge. A contest begins in earnest hen the person who has given offense confirms that it was his intent by refusing to apologize.

Character challenges are often quite subtle, and subtlety itself is considered a distinction of superior class. Where one participant acts with subtlety while another is overt and clumsy, the latter loses esteem. Subtlety on the part of both parties also helps to mitigate damage - particularly where an offense was unintended, the subtlety of the defense helps to prevent escalation.

Character contests follow the ritual of the duel: the two parties may engage immediately or they may arrange to meet again at a designated place to have it out. It is understood that it is a contest between two parties and bystanders must refrain from interfering. Defeat may be functional, or it may be when a party surrenders.

The outcome of a character contest is meant to be that one party wins and the other loses - but there are situations in which both may "win" when they conduct themselves morally and there is no functional injury, and both parties may "lose" by misconduct.

A contest it is judged by the bystanders. Regardless of how the participants feel about themselves and one another, it is about esteem - the way that others see them. Each person who witnesses a contest of character will decide for himself how he feels about the participants afterward. So while the victor may feel he got the better of his opponent, he may have lost the respect of society for the manner in which he conducted himself.

The bystanders judge the actions of the participants by their own cultural standards. They do not and cannot know what is in the minds of the contestants, and tend to judge by their own logic - their own psychological and cultural profile.

Moreover, the contestants are also hampered by their own cultures, each judging the intentions of the other by its own subjective standard. This is the reason that negotiations across cultures are so difficult. Thus, some contests will end with both parties believing that they have won - and because there is no observable evidence in a contest of character, there is no objective that can be proven to have been accomplished (or not).

Given the dynamics and subjectivity of the character game, most people would simply prefer to avoid them, and etiquette and protocol in most cultures provides a plethora of loopholes and wiggle-room to avoid a character contest.

However, conflict-averse cultures are fertile ground for bullying: if a person is aware that others will surrender in order to avoid a challenge, there is great opportunity for him to profit by bravado - challenging opponents he expects to surrender rather than meet his challenge.

The bully functions by making small threats, expecting his victim to surrender rather than accept his challenge. He begins with small and implied ones, then escalates if the challenge is ignored. The bully does not need to possess either the will or the capability to act upon his threats - he relies upon his victim to believe he does.

Sometimes, bullying is done for the sake of a functional gain, but other times it is simply for positioning: the bully expects that he will gain esteem and his victim will suffer humiliation.

Bullying occurs everywhere in society, from the schoolyard to business negotiations to international politics. And it is not always done by the strong to victimize the weak, but as an act of insolence by the weak against the strong, counting on courtesy rather than fear to cause the other party to acquiesce.

The author gives the example of individuals who ask small favors, then take advantage: the individual who asks for a cigarette and pockets the entire pack, or the salesman who asks for a minute of your time and then consumes more than an hour. This is a common form of passive-aggressive bullying that exploits the courtesy of good people.

Within a society of people who regularly interact, the bullies and victims become well-known: an individual develops a reputation as one who is always looking to take advantage, or one who can easily be taken advantage of. These are, of course, the extremes between which most individuals seek a happy balance - to be approachable but not easily victimized, to be strong but not overly aggressive.

Those who approach either extreme are of low status in society and are often ostracized. As such, a person who seeks to engage in character contests too often places his social standing in jeopardy, regardless of whether he wins or loses. In time, the odds prove themselves out and the gambler loses - or even if he does not lose, he is banned from the casino.

Maintaining a respectable position in society requires carefully choosing one's challenges: to stand to the right ones and avoid being involved at all in the wrong ones. What is right or wrong is culturally derived.

Culture itself is defined by challenge situations. Where a person does something and no-one raises objection, then this creates the sense that the action is acceptable within the culture, given the roles of the individuals involved. A single incident does not define a cultural norm, but the repetition of the incident does.

Likewise, the rules of culture are challenged by defiance of cultural norms: someone who does something that is inappropriate to their role is challenging the cultural standard. Others in society may choose to react to defend the standard, or refuse to react and accept the change to the standard.

Conflict of culture is not always a rogue individual acting against society, but often involves groups. Where bystanders' sympathies lie with one or the other party, they form into factions - and it is the judgment of the factions rather than the outcome of the contest that determines whether a conflict will have any impact on the cultural norm, regardless of which party wins.

Nonviolent interpersonal conflicts generally follow the same protocols as violent ones: a cool exchange of words is structurally similar to a physical fight insofar as their impact on character. So while we may disdain the physical violence of primitive societies, the rules of such conflicts remain relevant to daily life in more genteel and sophisticated cultures.

The frequency and degree of character contests are evidence of the degree to which a culture is dynamic and evolving. Where society is settled and unchanging, the rules and protocols of interpersonal conduct are well known and practiced. Where society is evolving, the rules are being called into question - character contests are more commonplace, and escalation of a social play of manners into a fistfight or a duel is more common.

Conclusions

The traditional perspective of sociology is optimistic - that men act intelligently, with awareness and their long-term self-interest in mind, and that the compromises we make to live within a society are for the greater good of all. It is usually so, but not always so.

When an individual is seeking to pursue a personal goal or acquiescing to a social norm, he tends to act consciously and deliberately, applying his reasoning to the best of his perception and intellect. Very little is accomplished accidentally - though much is done imprecisely, with imperfect knowledge and imperfect reasoning.

The more challenging the circumstances, the less chance that imprecision will result in success. If a person is to succeed in high-stakes situations, and to do so routinely, it must be by the application of his best knowledge and reasoning. And where there is a contest between two persons, it is the one whose knowledge and reasoning are superior that tends to prevail.

The success or failure of a society is merely the aggregation of the success or failure of those individuals of which it is composed. Hence a culture that fails to apply knowledge and reasoning is not sustainable, and will invariably fall to one that is superior in these regards.

But again, these are generalizations: we can recognize that imprecise or even improper action may sometimes lead to success, and the intelligent man recognizes that this is a paradox - an exceptional situation whose occurrence is improbable.

We also recognize that fateful activity is unusual. Neither an individual nor a society can sustain where every action is a gamble and the stakes are always high. We seek to reduce fatefulness, accepting smaller but more certain results from a predictable course of action, in our daily lives and reserve fatefulness for rare and unusual circumstances.

We seek to reduce fatefulness, but not to eliminate it altogether. We recognize at times the need to take risk to make progress - it is not always acceptable to progress by small and safe steps. It is the unusual nature of fatefulness and the magnitude and speed of its consequences that cause excitement.

Genuine fateful action is distinguished by three factors: First, the actor himself is involved in the action - he is not merely watching someone else. Second, that the gain or loss is meaningful to the actor. Third, that the action involves a sequence of events that are contained within a relatively small space and time.

Literature and film depict dramatic events, sporting events stage them, history recounts them. In all, there is a great romance for drama that gives rise to a desire to experience it first-hand. We are excited by drama, but cannot sustain a life of constant drama. For most people dangerous tasks, character contests, and serious action are sporadic and rare.

Those who engage in these activities routinely find that it is unsustainable: they become unable to sustain these practices, whether physically, financially, or psychologically. In due time, they take themselves out of the game - to bust out or burn out, and return to a less risky daily routine, if one is not entirely destroyed.

In most societies, we find that there are artificial means to experience the excitement of fateful activity without significant risk: the entertainment industry provides a variety of options to experience the thrill of a gamble when nothing is really at stake. But entertainment, for the audience, is not serious business: because nothing is risked, nothing is gained. For the armchair quarterback, his daily life is not at all affected by whether his favored team won the match - though he finds emotional rewards in witnessing this simulacrum of action.

And for most people, most of the time, entertainment and fantasy is the extent to which they will engage in fateful action.

JIM.SHAMLIN.COM
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