When Society Breaks Down
by Mark Cheng, L.Ac.

Hurricane Katrina was an incredible reminder of not only the frailty of humankind in the face of natural disasters but also the frailty of society’s mores. When looters started shooting at relief workers, it was a grim day for all Americans. Such news stories in the wake of the storm brought back many memories of what it was like when riots broke out in Los Angeles in 1992. I was in the heart of the city when the first fires were set, and I was in Koreatown in the days that followed when opportunistic looters trashed mom-and-pop stores that were run by good, peace-loving people.

One of my close friends and students left me with a great quote this week while we were discussing the tragedy: “There’s a very thin veneer on society, and it doesn’t take much to cause humankind to lose its humanity.”

A few of us were talking about a variety of subjects related to the lawlessness that’s followed Katrina, focusing mostly on disaster preparedness on an individual level. We all agreed that self-defense skills with empty hands and weapons were as essential as first-aid kits, food, shelter and clothing.

That thought brought back memories of my parents and my kung fu instructors telling me how carefully the Chinese guarded the secrets of their martial arts schools. During times of lawlessness, special skills often meant the difference between life and death. My mother told me that while she was growing up in China, she and my grandfather had to travel with bodyguards. Apparently, the countryside was a favorite hideout for bandits, who often waylaid travelers going from one city to another.

I was shocked when she told me about that, thinking such situations belonged to an era long before her lifetime, but her observation hit home. “When the law doesn’t extend to where you are, you’re responsible for your own safety,” she explained. “We always hope that the government and the police can protect us, provide for us and come to our rescue. But sometimes the situation dictates that we need to be able to defend ourselves until the police or whoever else restores order.”

That doesn’t mean we have carte blanche to take the law into our own hands as soon as the authorities are out of the picture. What it does mean is that a dignified people in a society with integrity must continue to uphold and abide by the law while maintaining their own safety and that of their loved ones.

In situations like those, your preparedness might be the only thing that keeps you from ending up as a statistic or an unidentified body. You might strive to conduct your life with dignity and live within the law, but that certainly doesn’t mean others in your city, town or village will have the same intentions. For every idiot that shot at police and rescue workers, I have no doubt there were hundreds, if not thousands, of law-abiding citizens who were powerless to stop those sick-minded few.

Martial arts training is more than a nice form of exercise, and it’s more than a way to give your kids something fun to do after school. When you look back to the not-too-distant past, you can see how it helped people prepare themselves to face adversity. It taught physical skills for self-defense, and perhaps even more important, it gave practitioners a strong sense of ethics and built a foundation for mental endurance. The martial arts still do all those things while helping people stay on the right track even in chaotic moments when society seems to be falling down and the veneer of humanity is fading away.

About the author: Mark Cheng is a traditional Chinese-medicine physician and martial arts researcher based in West Los Angeles. To contact him, visit http://www.chung-hua.com.