On the subject, the last recorded duel in France took place as late as 1967 and between two sitting MPs/Representatives because of an insult uttered in the Chamber.
"le facétieux Defferre ne manquait pas de rappeler qu’il avait visé l’entrejambe de son adversaire pour lui gâcher sa nuit de noces, celui-ci se mariant le lendemain."
Essentially: "I aimed between his legs to spoil his wedding night", as one of the MPs was due to wed the day after the duel.
This was written in 1847, well after dueling had fallen out of fashion, and well after the USA had begun to develop its own distinctly American cultural identity. So it sounds like this was meant to be a "fun lighthearted history" book, rather than a documentation of how people actually behaved in the 1840s. Not unlike my favorite bathroom reader of all time, The Strange Laws Of Old England.
According to Mark Twain in Pudd'nhead Wilson the 1850s was a time when 'The people took more pride in the duel than in all the other events put together, perhaps.'
Actually, the situation isn't as clear as one might think. Duels are allowed under two conditions: 1) no "honor duels" (see [1], bottom of page 7) and 2) all participants must be protected (see [1], first paragraph of section 1, page 2). The latter usually means at least protective suits and in most cases dull swords as well.
There has been a duel two weeks ago in Erlangen that violated both these rules [2] - they fought for the honor of their corporation, with sharp swords and without protection. The clusterfuck ended with one minor and one major injury, now police are investigating and politicians are talking about banning duels entirely.
We've had code review dueling for the past few years, and it has really helped with the quality of code and pull requests.
In the past, programmers submitted all sorts of junk code into our version control, what I would today call chatgpt nonsense. At the time it was likely Stack Overflow nonsense. In any case, Code Review Dueling has changed the landscape of our coding. For the past two years, not a single negative comment has appeared on code pull requests. All it took was the deaths of a few unqualified people who lied on their resumes.
This "old is new" methodology has caused programmers and architects to work with other people before ever writing code or designing systems. In our monthly metrics report from the CI (but not CD) pipeline, I also noticed that we no longer import any dependencies from 3rd parties. In fact, IT has shutdown all access to pip, apt-get, and so forth. Everything is custom and has been beautifully designed and coded in-house.
It's absolutely amazing. Even our customers regularly request they be allowed to purchase extra copies of our software, just to give to their children and grandchildren, when they come of age. But before purchasing extra copies, they always call first, since our license lawyers are very prolific, proactive, and protective of our rights.
It is actually not permissible to duel. You can engage in "friendly combat", but duelling to restore your honor is both illegal and dishonorable. (The German fraternities, which are responsible for these fights, gave their word of honor that there would be no more duels to satisfy insults to honor)
It is also an extremely stupid idea that scars are somehow an "authentic mark". As somebody who fought three of those "mensuren": Scars are a sign that you thought you are better than you actually are. It's the embodiment of "Dunning Kruger walks here".
It's also worth noting that unlike college fraternities in the US, which seem to be pretty ubiquituous, Burschenschaften in Germany are fairly niche and all veer to the right wing of the political spectrum: mostly Christian conservatism although there are widespread völkisch nationalist undertones. I'm not saying these are "nazi" groups but I've yet to encounter a Burschi who isn't at least to the right of the general public. As the StackExchange answer suggests, membership is also often tied to military service (which also is much less common than in the US) and the culture is strongly tied to aristocratic (or at least "old money") lineages and "mentorship" (some would say nepotism).
Basically the correct mental image is probably private societies in expensive English "public schools" (i.e. what most of the rest of the world would consider private schools: the kind you have to pay for), not US style "Greek houses".
It's worth noting that despite the similarities between völkisch nationalism and ethnonationalism, most Burschenschaften are explicitly opposed to the far right, at least in public statements. If you want to tie them to an anti-democratic movement it's probably more likely to be neo-feudalism (e.g. the Reichsbürger monarchists) than actual neo-nazis. There have been some instances of nazi chat groups within Burschenschaften being found out and members have been running for the far-right nationalist Alternative für Deutschland party however.
EDIT: Also, worth noting, schlagende Verbindungen, i.e. the ones engaging in ritualistic duels with sharp blades, are on the fringe of these groups and also veer to the right of those (I think most "moderate" Christian conservative ones are strongly opposed to the practice). So the entire dueling thing nowadays is a fringe of a fringe of a fringe and most Germans would feel very concerned if you tell them you engage in it.
Old Norse dueling, the Holmgang, was outlawed when griefers turned it into a cynical thing, challenging weaker neighbors over trivia so they could kill them and take their land, legally.
The logic of this process in England was amazing. You would swear before God that your claim was true, and so would your opponent. And then God would favour the honest claim.
But then people realized you could have someone fight for you if they'd swear that your claim was true (IE, they'd be a witness). If you lost the duel, it would mean that you lied, making it perjury. So your equivalent of a lawyer would be some renowned fighter, undefeated in combat (since if you were defeated, you wouldn't be able to swear in as a witness).
It turned into situation where you'd use the person you hired as a negotiation tool (oh you hired "Bob the Barbarian" as your champion? Let's settle 60/40), so most challenges wouldn't even come down to a fight.
Reminds me of the Fremen people in Dune by Frank Herbert. In the book, a man is challenged to a duel. When he wins the duel, he gains the wife, property, and children of the one that he killed.
In the book, the legality of this form of dueling seems to be justified by an absolute need for strength, and the survival of (only) the fittest, in order to adapt to the hostile environment that they live in.
When physical superiority stops being a necessity for the survival of the community, this type of dueling law becomes a problem.
People say politics are out of hand these days but man things were wild in 1904.
Dueling aside…
> Discredited by the duel with Hamilton, Burr sought to regain political power by a filibustering adventure, which led instead to his indictment for treason
I can't help but think dueling would make politics more honest. I would expect not many to be willing to die to defend their positions if these positions were just paid off by corporations.
The musical Hamilton (spoiler alert) involves several Duels, and the rules are introduced with a quite formal explanation. (It’s a nicely choreographed piece of exposition).
In the musical the first step to having a Duel is to go across the river to Jersey, as it’s legal there (“everything is legal in Jersey”)
Another interesting part is that a doctor attends, and turns his back during the duel itself, in order to provide plausible deniability.
The show is in lots of ways built around those three duels, which makes sense given that the elephant in the room of any story about Hamilton and Burr is their ultimate duel.
The first duel, in December of 1778, is between Laurens and Charles Lee, who was challenged by Laurens for running down General Washington's leadership after being relieved of command for his failure at Monmouth. What makes this an inescapable part of the show, IMO, is that Hamilton was Laurens' second and Burr was Lee's. (Charles Lee took a bullet in the duel, but it wasn't apparently serious -- he lived until 1782, and probably died of tuberculosis.)
The second, famously, was between Hamilton's son and George Eacker, in 1801. (Eacker, too, died of TB, in 1804.)
Obviously, the final one was between Hamilton and Burr, in the summer of 1804.
One of Ridley Scott's first (but relatively obscure) films was "The Duelists". This is a fairly unique film. Apparently a cinematic response to Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. It has a lot of future famous actors, and all the drama and manners around dueling in Napoleonic France.
The Duelists, 1977
France, 1801. Due to a minor perceived slight, mild-mannered Lieutenant d'Hubert is forced into a duel with hot-headed irrational Lieutenant Feraud. The disagreement ultimately results in scores of duels spanning several years.
> In 2010 in the case of the State of Iowa vs Christopher Spates, the Supreme Court judge Justice Ternus states that Iowa only considers the mutual combat law if two combatants agree to the use of deadly weapons, so you can see how different the law varies from state to state.
There's the story that when Abe Lincoln was challenged to a duel, he responded with his choice of weapons: cow dung at 10 paces. Needless to say, the duel never took place.
>...he responded with his choice of weapons: cow dung at 10 paces.
That is not correct.
>...Since Lincoln was challenged by Shields he had the privilege of choosing the weapon of the duel. He chose cavalry broadswords "of the largest size." "I didn't want the d—-d fellow to kill me, which I think he would have done if we had selected pistols," he later explained. For his own part, he did not want to kill Shields, but "felt sure [he] could disarm him" with a blade. At six feet, four inches tall, Lincoln planned to use his height to his advantage against Shields, who stood at a mere five feet, nine inches tall.
>The day of the duel, September 22, arrived and the combatants met at Bloody Island, Missouri to face death or victory. As the two men faced each other, with a plank between them that neither was allowed to cross, Lincoln swung his sword high above Shields to cut through a nearby tree branch. This act demonstrated the immensity of Lincoln’s reach and strength and was enough to show Shields that he was at a fatal disadvantage. With the encouragement of bystanders, the two men called a truce.
While duels have been outlawed, I don't think we have really replaced the necessary role they play in managing disputes and incentivising a self organizing social correction in a way that rewards virtue and has consequences for dishonesty.
Ironically, the main thing that maintained social order in small groups up until recently was humor. It wasn't mere cutting remarks either, it's a subtle understanding of power dynamics in a group that lets humor equalize and revert to shared values. The unspoken rules of humor were pretty close to those of Code Duello, particularly regarding punching down, and accepting when you had been beaten - then moving on once order was re-established.
Duels provided a similar reversion to a shared understanding of order and values. These rules are still around in an implied way, where boys involved in sports or group activities tend to learn a variation of them, and someone who fights without an understanding or respect for them is considered just a criminal and not trustworthy, tough, or masculine.
In the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey / Maturin books, dueling is a frequent subject. Stephen Maturin is said to have "been out" many times, and a deadly accurate shot.
[+] [-] mytailorisrich|3 years ago|reply
Article in French with a picture of the duel, fought with swords: https://www.lemonde.fr/m-moyen-format/article/2017/04/21/il-...
"le facétieux Defferre ne manquait pas de rappeler qu’il avait visé l’entrejambe de son adversaire pour lui gâcher sa nuit de noces, celui-ci se mariant le lendemain."
Essentially: "I aimed between his legs to spoil his wedding night", as one of the MPs was due to wed the day after the duel.
[+] [-] hutzlibu|3 years ago|reply
But I found an english article about it, for those of us whose french is a bit rusty:
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/last-sword-duel-1967/
[+] [-] giraffe_lady|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] publicola1990|3 years ago|reply
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2297371.stm
[+] [-] nerdponx|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JamesSwift|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bryanrasmussen|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] penguinvondoom|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bravura|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rippercushions|3 years ago|reply
https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/69224/how-can-a-t...
[+] [-] mschuster91|3 years ago|reply
There has been a duel two weeks ago in Erlangen that violated both these rules [2] - they fought for the honor of their corporation, with sharp swords and without protection. The clusterfuck ended with one minor and one major injury, now police are investigating and politicians are talking about banning duels entirely.
[1] http://www.corpsarchive.de/images/digiarchiv/bghstudnitz.pdf
[2] https://taz.de/Erlanger-Studentenverbindungen/!5917975/
[+] [-] IncRnd|3 years ago|reply
In the past, programmers submitted all sorts of junk code into our version control, what I would today call chatgpt nonsense. At the time it was likely Stack Overflow nonsense. In any case, Code Review Dueling has changed the landscape of our coding. For the past two years, not a single negative comment has appeared on code pull requests. All it took was the deaths of a few unqualified people who lied on their resumes.
This "old is new" methodology has caused programmers and architects to work with other people before ever writing code or designing systems. In our monthly metrics report from the CI (but not CD) pipeline, I also noticed that we no longer import any dependencies from 3rd parties. In fact, IT has shutdown all access to pip, apt-get, and so forth. Everything is custom and has been beautifully designed and coded in-house.
It's absolutely amazing. Even our customers regularly request they be allowed to purchase extra copies of our software, just to give to their children and grandchildren, when they come of age. But before purchasing extra copies, they always call first, since our license lawyers are very prolific, proactive, and protective of our rights.
[+] [-] groby_b|3 years ago|reply
It is also an extremely stupid idea that scars are somehow an "authentic mark". As somebody who fought three of those "mensuren": Scars are a sign that you thought you are better than you actually are. It's the embodiment of "Dunning Kruger walks here".
[+] [-] hnbad|3 years ago|reply
Basically the correct mental image is probably private societies in expensive English "public schools" (i.e. what most of the rest of the world would consider private schools: the kind you have to pay for), not US style "Greek houses".
It's worth noting that despite the similarities between völkisch nationalism and ethnonationalism, most Burschenschaften are explicitly opposed to the far right, at least in public statements. If you want to tie them to an anti-democratic movement it's probably more likely to be neo-feudalism (e.g. the Reichsbürger monarchists) than actual neo-nazis. There have been some instances of nazi chat groups within Burschenschaften being found out and members have been running for the far-right nationalist Alternative für Deutschland party however.
EDIT: Also, worth noting, schlagende Verbindungen, i.e. the ones engaging in ritualistic duels with sharp blades, are on the fringe of these groups and also veer to the right of those (I think most "moderate" Christian conservative ones are strongly opposed to the practice). So the entire dueling thing nowadays is a fringe of a fringe of a fringe and most Germans would feel very concerned if you tell them you engage in it.
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] karpierz|3 years ago|reply
But then people realized you could have someone fight for you if they'd swear that your claim was true (IE, they'd be a witness). If you lost the duel, it would mean that you lied, making it perjury. So your equivalent of a lawyer would be some renowned fighter, undefeated in combat (since if you were defeated, you wouldn't be able to swear in as a witness).
It turned into situation where you'd use the person you hired as a negotiation tool (oh you hired "Bob the Barbarian" as your champion? Let's settle 60/40), so most challenges wouldn't even come down to a fight.
[+] [-] jackothy|3 years ago|reply
In the book, the legality of this form of dueling seems to be justified by an absolute need for strength, and the survival of (only) the fittest, in order to adapt to the hostile environment that they live in.
When physical superiority stops being a necessity for the survival of the community, this type of dueling law becomes a problem.
[+] [-] kpozin|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arealaccount|3 years ago|reply
Dueling aside…
> Discredited by the duel with Hamilton, Burr sought to regain political power by a filibustering adventure, which led instead to his indictment for treason
https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/july-11/
[+] [-] alwayslikethis|3 years ago|reply
I can't help but think dueling would make politics more honest. I would expect not many to be willing to die to defend their positions if these positions were just paid off by corporations.
[+] [-] billfruit|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LeonB|3 years ago|reply
In the musical the first step to having a Duel is to go across the river to Jersey, as it’s legal there (“everything is legal in Jersey”)
Another interesting part is that a doctor attends, and turns his back during the duel itself, in order to provide plausible deniability.
[+] [-] ubermonkey|3 years ago|reply
The show is in lots of ways built around those three duels, which makes sense given that the elephant in the room of any story about Hamilton and Burr is their ultimate duel.
The first duel, in December of 1778, is between Laurens and Charles Lee, who was challenged by Laurens for running down General Washington's leadership after being relieved of command for his failure at Monmouth. What makes this an inescapable part of the show, IMO, is that Hamilton was Laurens' second and Burr was Lee's. (Charles Lee took a bullet in the duel, but it wasn't apparently serious -- he lived until 1782, and probably died of tuberculosis.)
The second, famously, was between Hamilton's son and George Eacker, in 1801. (Eacker, too, died of TB, in 1804.)
Obviously, the final one was between Hamilton and Burr, in the summer of 1804.
[+] [-] Bad_CRC|3 years ago|reply
Came here just for the Hamilton reference tbh.
[+] [-] khy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eternalban|3 years ago|reply
The Duelists, 1977
France, 1801. Due to a minor perceived slight, mild-mannered Lieutenant d'Hubert is forced into a duel with hot-headed irrational Lieutenant Feraud. The disagreement ultimately results in scores of duels spanning several years.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075968/
[+] [-] billfruit|3 years ago|reply
There is also Ridley Scott's recent 'Last Duel', which is set farther in the past, in mediaeval France.
[+] [-] jackcviers3|3 years ago|reply
> In 2010 in the case of the State of Iowa vs Christopher Spates, the Supreme Court judge Justice Ternus states that Iowa only considers the mutual combat law if two combatants agree to the use of deadly weapons, so you can see how different the law varies from state to state.
https://law.justia.com/cases/iowa/supreme-court/2010/05-0883...
I wonder if the state would actually adhere to that judgement again.
Mutual combat laws apparently exist in many U.S. states - Texas, unsurprisingly, is one of them too.
[+] [-] aaron695|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dannyobrien|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] litoE|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] opo|3 years ago|reply
That is not correct.
>...Since Lincoln was challenged by Shields he had the privilege of choosing the weapon of the duel. He chose cavalry broadswords "of the largest size." "I didn't want the d—-d fellow to kill me, which I think he would have done if we had selected pistols," he later explained. For his own part, he did not want to kill Shields, but "felt sure [he] could disarm him" with a blade. At six feet, four inches tall, Lincoln planned to use his height to his advantage against Shields, who stood at a mere five feet, nine inches tall.
>The day of the duel, September 22, arrived and the combatants met at Bloody Island, Missouri to face death or victory. As the two men faced each other, with a plank between them that neither was allowed to cross, Lincoln swung his sword high above Shields to cut through a nearby tree branch. This act demonstrated the immensity of Lincoln’s reach and strength and was enough to show Shields that he was at a fatal disadvantage. With the encouragement of bystanders, the two men called a truce.
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/abraham-lincolns...
[+] [-] dukeofdoom|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] papandada|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IncRnd|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ubermonkey|3 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Duel_Commandments
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] motohagiography|3 years ago|reply
While duels have been outlawed, I don't think we have really replaced the necessary role they play in managing disputes and incentivising a self organizing social correction in a way that rewards virtue and has consequences for dishonesty.
Ironically, the main thing that maintained social order in small groups up until recently was humor. It wasn't mere cutting remarks either, it's a subtle understanding of power dynamics in a group that lets humor equalize and revert to shared values. The unspoken rules of humor were pretty close to those of Code Duello, particularly regarding punching down, and accepting when you had been beaten - then moving on once order was re-established.
Duels provided a similar reversion to a shared understanding of order and values. These rules are still around in an implied way, where boys involved in sports or group activities tend to learn a variation of them, and someone who fights without an understanding or respect for them is considered just a criminal and not trustworthy, tough, or masculine.
[+] [-] fermigier|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlbertCory|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaza|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KappaFromHell|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] forinti|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] liotier|3 years ago|reply