By Smaktakula

Our progenitors were a proud people who would be wholly unfamiliar with our citified existence. Lacking our modern amenities and easy-access conveniences, these dim and shadowy relics of a bygone era placed an inordinate amount of value on intangibles, like honor–a thing easily besmirched in historical times. The loss of personal honor was no small thing to these people, and there were only a few means by which this honor could be reestablished.

Chief among these means was dueling, the ancient gentlemanly art of gaining satisfaction for a perceived wrong. Dueling has been outlawed in the civilized world for over a century (and in Uruguay since 1992), and in that time the global population has seen a precipitous drop in its collective honor.

Today, the pale descendants of these hot-blooded historical figures are but poor facsimiles of the barbaric and half-drunken men whose self-reliance made the advances of the 20th and 21st Centuries possible. Today’s citizen has as much or more pride as these gun-crazy ancients, but none of their honor.

For this reason, Promethean Times proposes a return to the glorious and time-honored practice of “seeking satisfaction.” Moreover, in keeping with America’s more egalitarian society, dueling must be made accessible to the lower classes in the same way as has golf, higher education and regular meals. By giving a chance at satisfaction to those individuals most inclined to take offense, society should have an excellent chance of curbing its excess asshole population.