When to fight, or if...

What is at stake: Honor? Essential resources? Existence?
How much do we stand to lose (or gain)?
Do we have the means to fight the attacker?
Can we achieve a satisfactory victory?
What is the probable cost of fighting?

We stood to lose much more than we could gain in Iraq, even if the level of expertise directing our occupation had been adequate. Did France gain or lose by capitulating early on in WWII? What if France and England had attacked Germany after the Anschluss in March of 1938? If the US had entered WWII in September, 1939 instead of December, 1941, wouldn't there have been a much lower loss of life all round? Should the US have intervened in the Pacific on the side of the British Empire before the last stages of Japanese expansion in SE Asia?

People are well advised to avoid physical fights over minor issues. It just isn't worth it in 99 out of 100 cases. Interpersonal fights result in significant injury quite often, with no real gain of value--unless one holds one's personal 'honor' very dear. Is it worth losing teeth, damaging eyeballs, breaking bones--all that--to prove one's honor? What about to defend someone else's honor?

It is a good thing to be able to defend one's self in a fair, small fight. Defending one's self in neighborhood combat with thugs who specialize in violence is a losing battle with nothing to gain. Time to seek a more civil environment.

Interpersonal conflict in the workplace (all verbal or civil actions -- arguments, memos, meetings, strikes, boycotts, etc.) can have very significant consequences for the individual and the organization. The conflict may or may not be worthwhile. One has to measure what's at stake, what is to be gained or lost, and for whom in this kind of fighting too.

A great question, and I like how you link the personal and the social, the child and the politician.

And I will follow your outline and answer first, and then try and work out what the answer means. My answer is "never".

But in order for that to make any sense at all, I need to distinguish what I want to rule out from obvious everyday necessities, from making an effort, from resistance, from struggle, from forceful intervention.

any fight usually has an implicitly agreed terminal condition, such that the fight is understood to be over when the condition is reached, although this only indirectly bears on the fight boundary question. — tim wood

I think this is crucial. The end point of a fight is its boundary, and if the end boundary is clarified, that will shed some light on the beginning. Am I allowed to declare that the end of a fight is submission? Where death and knockout are equivalent to submission. There may be violence after submission, but it is no longer a fight, but retribution or punishment - kicking the man when he is down.

Which means that a fight is a struggle for dominance. Not dominance itself, but the struggle to obtain it.

So when the police are called to a pub brawl, they do not join the fight on one side or the other or even on their own side. If they are themselves struggling for dominance, they are continuing and expanding the fight, not ending it. Their business is to be dominant and to restrain the combatants, not to fight them. I'll pause here, because there is enough controversy already for some vigorous discussion.

It seems clear that "fight" is a very broad term, especially if it includes war as a species of fighting. Is there anything in common that might link them in a genus that's more than just a word?

What is at stake.... The conflict may or may not be worthwhile. One has to measure what's at stake, what is to be gained or lost, and for whom in this kind of fighting too. — Bitter Crank

To be sure, an evaluative aspect. But is the beginning of any fight well-defined? As to WWII, we could all wish that someone had shot Hitler in 1928. I suspect the reality of the answers to those question of when to act and how lay more in what was immediately possible than in long term calculation (a kind of local field theory v. action-at-a-distance interpretation). But it raises the question of fighting as business, which brings with it all the ethical questions - including whether there are ethical considerations.

Does the fight begin with the possibility or the actual? Possibility would be a general threat combined with the ability and intention to carry it out.

My answer is "never".
The end point of a fight is its boundary.... Which means that a fight is a struggle for dominance. Not dominance itself, but the struggle to obtain it.
So when the police are called to a pub brawl, they do not join the fight on one side or the other.... Their business is to be dominant and to restrain the combatants, not to fight them. — unenlightened

"Never" as preliminary or given is for most contingent and yields to necessity - but then it's not "never" (What? Never?! Well, hardly ever). Your points about dominance and the police is such un-common common sense (the best kind) that I could wish that more police knew it!

What I'm pushed toward as boundary conditions are 1) understanding of the situation 2) acceptance of the risks, and 3) commitment to the goal.

↪Bitter Crank ↪unenlightenedIt seems clear that "fight" is a very broad term, especially if it includes war as a species of fighting. Is there anything in common that might link them in a genus that's more than just a word? — tim wood

Question: can a pacifist legitimately engage in street fights, fist fights with his or her neighbor, all out screaming and rock throwing at the police, etc. AND be against war? I don't think so. A war, lots of interpersonal conflict, and a gang fight all have a kernel of similarity.

When the (US football) crowd sings "Fight on, fight on for victory" to a John Philip Sousa tune, or when the rally leader yells in the megaphone we must fight racism, or when somebody at a bar decides they want to physically beat you up, or when the Senate decides to declare war, and so on and so forth, obviously the term means different things.

One way to define "fight" is: commence an aggressive physical attack. This excludes what happens on the football field, or at a political rally. This usage includes bar fights, gang fights, brawls, organized riots, invasions, and the like. For those on the front line, commencing an attack in war is probably a lot like a gang fight, or a fight where two people agree to fight something out. There is a degree of organization about it.

So it is that "fight" as I use the term includes a moment where one can decide whether anything important is at stake. (One may not have a very long time to think about it, however -- maybe a minute).

"Fight" can be defined for organizational change, too. When people organize a union, or organize the ouster of the boss, or the redirection of a program, it can have the intentionality and intensity of a physical fight without any violent actions. The critical ingredient is that organizational force is being applied to subjects who are unwilling to cooperate. (If the subject is willing to cooperate, then it is called 'negotiation'.)

ln organization 'fighting' one also has the opportunity to consider what is at stake, what can be gained, what can be lost. For most people, the stakes in organizational fighting (no violence) may be much higher than the stakes in a fist fight. Attempting to organize a union and failing can lead to very negative results for working class people.

Trumps trade war is aggressive, has physical consequences, is organizational, but not a physical fight (we hope). It's a fight.

One way to define "fight" is: commence an aggressive physical attack. — Bitter Crank

I'd like to sharpen this: assuming a physical fight - a fistfight, say - at what point, exactly, is your participation "commenced"? It sounds like your starting point is when you launch your first punch. I'd argue you start when you decide to start. The two moments may be as close as seconds. If it's, "let's step outside," then it could be minutes. Or, if it's, "We'll settle this next Wednesday," then maybe a week.

Two different timelines, two different accounts. Stay with yours, or include the time of decision?

Perhaps for an observer it's the start of the action, which is also the last moment for a change-of-mind for the participant. But if a participant changes his mind, it implies he had already decided to fight - does that mean that there was a fight, simply not perfected in the action of the fight?

I'm partial to setting the start at the time of the decision (commitment). My engagement comes at a cost: if my opponent backs out, I've still been damaged (and of course I may be immensely relieved: I mean damaged in a legal sense).

I mentioned these, above:

1) understanding of the situation 2) acceptance of the risks, and 3) commitment to the goal. — tim wood

Do these work for you? Modify or add to them?

Do you think war and fighting are the same, or different?

Do you think war and fighting are the same, or different? — tim wood

I agree that the beginning of a fight is when one decides to fight -- which may precede the first blow by a significant time gap. (The decision to do something -- file for divorce, get a dog, kill somebody, write a book, clean the attic and basement -- often precedes the concrete action by a gap in time that may be years in length.)

War, as they say, is diplomacy carried out by other means. Sometimes individuals avoid fighting by diplomacy -- talking their way out of a hostile situation. Some people assiduously avoid situations which might end up being violent. What applies to individuals sort of applies to states, as well.

Hitler began preparing for war over a multiyear period -- building heavy armaments, airplanes, ships, and subs, etc. The German people were being gradually prepared for a war of expansion for a decade. Observers certainly noticed what was going on--it didn't take deeply embedded spies to see what was happening. There were several test cases -- the Anschluss and the acquisition of the Sudetenland -- that were allowed to pass. His international adversaries (UK, France, USSR, USA, et al) looked, saw, and decided not to act with military force at that time.

But the US, despite its isolationist faction, did begin preparation to fight Hitler and Japan before Pearl Harbor. Our national mobilization didn't strictly begin on December 8, 1941. So again, as you note, the decision to fight preceded the first blow.

It seems clearer to me now (having read a slew of WWII histories) that the UK and France should have attacked Germany in 1937 or 38. Germany wasn't ready for war yet, and the two allied nations were more ready. Further, the US should also have declared war in 1937-38, with its allies, not two+ years later. The result would almost certainly have been a shorter war, far fewer deaths, no holocaust, etc. All 20/20 hind sight on my part, but there were thoughtful people by the mid 1930s who saw where things were heading.

I have taken an anti-war/pacifist stance on fighting at various times, but in the case of 1930s Germany, a clear and present menace was at hand. There was no clear and present danger in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan. If there was a country behind 9/11, it was probably more Saudi Arabia and it's export of Wahhabi Islam than anybody else. We didn't need to invade them, we could have blockaded their ports (which would have been an act of war -- a blow, not a gesture).

1) understanding of the situation 2) acceptance of the risks, and 3) commitment to the goal. — tim wood

Fine fine fine. There are various ways of putting it, but we should include rejection of the risks and not committing to the goal. Fighting is often more destructive that the goal is worth.