Street fights
Here is a text I first encountered, and memorized in both English and French, more than half-a-century ago when I was learning French in Paris. It is by Charles Baudelaire, and in his Salon of 1846 he says this for everyone:
“If ever your idler’s curiosity has landed you in a street brawl, perhaps you will have felt the same delight as I have often felt to see a protector of the public slumbers — a policeman or a municipal guard (the real army) — thumping an incendiary. And if so, like me, you will have said in your heart: ‘Thump on, thump a little harder, thump again, beloved constable! for at this supreme thumping, I adore thee and judge thee the equal of Jupiter, the great dealer of justice! The man whom thou thumpest is an enemy of roses and of perfumes, and a maniac for utensils. He is the enemy of Watteau, the enemy of Raphael, the bitter enemy of luxury, of the fine arts and of literature, a sworn iconoclast and butcher of Venus and Apollo!’ …”
(Here I’ve used Jonathan Mayne’s touching translation.)
Of course, this rule does not apply internationally. In Islamic societies, such as Shi’ite Iran, the rôles of constable and street brawler are generally reversed, and thus one is cheering on the incendiary.
I suppose this observation makes me guilty of relativism.