Never have I been so conscious of why duels existed and why they were healthy.

Duels served two functions:

A) deterred inherently rude people from going too far

B) forced everyone to grow a thicker skin. If you were offended, but didn’t have the balls to duel, nobody cared

The Reactionary approach to free speech is this:

If what you say does not pose a threat to the state and it’s foundations, you can say it. If someone doesn’t like what you say, it’s not the state’s business. If they want to shut you up, they need to put their life on the line.

The result of this is that you tend to have a more well-mannered society that can still deal with real inter-personal offence as well as subversion. It’s barely 100 years ago we still had this system in some European countries.

Over 300 years we have systematically dismantled all of the social technology it took centuries to perfect in terms of rules and customs. And we really wonder why we live in a clownish hellscape where some soyboy journalist can destroy your life, legally, with no recourse?

It is true there have been restrictions on duelling dating back to Medieval times, sometimes with good reason. For instance, it was too popular with high-ranking military and drained good fighters, but I still consider it a net good

From Uruguay‘s code:

Only thing wrong with this is we are seriously lacking in ‘respectable citizens’ right now

“an honor tribunal of three respectable citizens, one chosen by each side and the third chosen by the other two, had ruled that sufficient cause for a duel existed.“