Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons^™

Fighting Is The Most Real And Honest Thing: Violence And The Civilization/Barbarism Dialectic, John Brent, Peter Kraska

Peter Kraska

Over the past two decades, the activity of ‘cage-fighting’ has attracted massive audiences and significant attention from media and political outlets. Underlying the spectacle of these mass-consumed events is a growing world of underground sport fighting. By offering more brutal and

less regulated forms of violence, this hidden variant of fighting lies at the blurry and shiftingintersection between licit and illicit forms of recreation. This paper offers a theoretical and ethno-graphic exploration of the motivations and emotive frameworks of these unsanctioned fighters. Wefind that buried within the long-term process towards greater civility rest the seeds for social unrest,

individual rebellion …