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Notes -
I'm not sure I would put myself in this category. I think I disagree with the overall idea about how we should organize society around quokka-like behavior. My ideas on this topic are still a bit protean. But they are influenced by FromSCC's stance on rule-based systems being very vulnerable to exploitation. But I'll give it a go.
It seems to me that this rule: "Personal Violence is verboten" is very vulnerable to exploitation by smug assholes who's verbal intelligence allows them to insult, provoke, coordinate violence and other behaviors. They seem to take for granted that this rule exists, and it allows them to succeed at the expense of everyone else. That smacks as unfairness to me. The problem is that rule, is not natural. It only exists due to a strong centralized authority that will "Swing it's dick around". Now the motte/Chesterton's fence for this rule, is that in tries to prevent the interpersonal violence. The anti-violence norm is one of the pillars of mass society. But it is not a natural equilibrium because it's missing the other side of interpersonal violence.
A society needs more than a “no hitting” rule. It also needs a serious norm against provocation without accountability. Otherwise, the society privileges people whose aggression is deniable, verbal, procedural, or reputational. The thug says, “I’ll beat you.” The civilized predator says, “I’ll make everyone hate you, destroy your reputation, get you fired, humiliate you in public, bait you into a reaction, then appeal to the rules when you snap."
This is the cancel culture people claim to hate. It comes across as masculine vs feminine norms in society. We seemed to be in a phase of punishing the masculine and supporting the feminine. I don't think a society can survive without balancing these norms.
And while a lot of this idea is prescriptive, I think a large thrust is actually also descriptive. I think many lay people just intuitively grasp this idea. They grasp that if you verbally start shit out at a bar in the sticks, it is expected that you are going to get beat unless you can back it up with physical might. It's only in more urban, high-class, environments that people seem to not grasp this natural reality.
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