Keep your right hand up.
So directed my grandfather as he taught my sister and I some boxing moves.
He wasn’t grooming us to be prizefighters. But he wanted us to have the skills to defend ourselves. And the first order of business was getting that right hand in position to protect our faces.
I was incredulous at first. Wasn’t fighting about aggression? Wouldn’t the objective be to throw some powerful left hooks? And if it was, wouldn’t it be harder to land them with my right hand blocking my view?
My grandfather drove the point home as clearly as he knew how.
If you don’t keep your right hand up, you’ll end up like me.
He pointed to his nose, permanently broken after a sparring incident in his youth. And the message landed with gusto.
Failing to protect myself would mean a blow to the nose, or maybe taking one on the chin. Neither outcome was desirable, and it was my duty to avoid them.
I stopped protesting and put my right hand in front of my face.
Some years later, I attended a boxing match.
The action was frenetic at times, boring at others. But only one moment really stuck with me.
It occurred during the undercard – the fight before the main event.
One of the boxers threw a punch that missed wildly and — crucially — failed to get his right hand anywhere near his face. His opponent then landed two punches in quick succession.
One smashed into the boxer’s forehead. The other bashed his chin.
The battered boxer dropped like a rock, while the crowd gasped in horror.
Moments later, medical staff carried him away from the ring. The silence was deafening.
I don’t know if that boxer’s career ended with those blows, or even if he survived the night. I don’t know his name, and I don’t care to know it.
What I do know is what taking it on the chin looks like. And given the choice, I want no part of it.
Prediction? Pain.
So utters boxer Clubber Lang in the movie Rocky III, when a reporter asks him about his prediction for an upcoming fight.
It’s a basic line, almost commonly so. But it leaves a mark.
With all our glorifying of conflict, from the schoolyard to the battlefield to the silver screen, we seem to forget what it feels like to bear the brunt of aggression.
The force of a big hit hurts in unproductive ways. Pain in this context is not weakness leaving the body; it’s the body telling us something is dangerously wrong. And crowd support for the assailant is like an aftershock rattling our psyche.
Are we supposed to override the alarm bells of our body, and simply endure this damage? Are we not worthy of protection, concern, or grace?
In Wild West duels, no one paid all that much attention to the gunslinger that took the bullet. The lifeless body simply lay in the street until someone saw fit to drag it away. And all these years later, the same principle reigns supreme.
I think about this while watching football or similar activities with physical contact. But I also consider it in other contexts.
For Taking it on the chin has long been associated with situations where no punches were thrown, and no bullets were fired. It resonates for those who have been deliberately denied opportunities or left footing hefty economic bills.
This second example is particularly resonant these days.
As I write this, the world is in a precarious position. The global economy is out of whack, inflation is far too high, and a financial recession seems imminent.
How all this unfold and how this adversity can be mitigated are each up for debate. But if past is precedent, one thing is certain. Many everyday people — in America and elsewhere — are about to take it on the chin.
This could be in the form of layoffs and unemployment. It could be in the form of paying crippling prices for food, clothing, and shelter. It could be in the form of disappearing retirement savings. It could even be all these things in tandem.
There is no alternative.
You see, economies are but constructs, filled with entities that serve people. Businesses, government agencies, financial institutions — they’re all instruments that facilitate commerce. They can’t take on water to cushion the blow. They can only succeed or fail.
At the end of the day, it’s ordinary people who take it on the chin when things go haywire. It’s ordinary people who experience significant pain — often for no fault of their own.
And yet, this struggle is shrugged off, ignored, forgotten. Much like that prone boxer who was carried out of the ring, our strife becomes out of sight, out of mind.
It’s nauseating.
Several years ago, I saw Man of Steel in a movie theater.
My friends raved about the storyline, the acting, and the special effects. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the collateral damage.
Many of the battles between Superman and Zod’s army level entire city blocks. Instead of protecting his environment, the Man of Steel cuts through it like a buzzsaw on his way to take out the bad guys.
I found myself asking follow-up questions. Were those buildings cleared of people before they were toppled? And even if they were, wouldn’t the tenants now be destitute?
No one seemed to care about the answers. For those victims who took it on the chin had little impact on the plot. They were out of sight, out of mind.
And that’s precisely the problem.
We must cease this cruel business of trivializing suffering. We must stop ignoring, justifying, and glorifying the pain of others.
Strife in the service of the greater good is still a detriment. There is no gain great enough to wipe away what was lost entirely.
The more we normalize taking it on the chin, the more the fissures in our society build. Divisiveness simmers until it boils over, leading to even deeper ruptures.
It’s on us to rein in the high-level rhetoric. It’s on us to let our humanity show instead.
Indeed, we should kind and compassionate to those suffering. And we should resolve to help them out where we can.
This work might not keep some of us from taking it on the chin from time to time. But it can soften the blow.
That’s a step in the right direction. And one that we should not hesitate to take.
Let us begin.