Tragedies of the arena

From "Who killed Davey Moore/Why an’ what’s the reason for?/'Not me,' says the man whose fists/Laid him low in a cloud of mist" by Ann Althouse. About a long ago (and forgotten?) tragedy and controversy which captured the nation's attention at the time and led to a song by Bob Dylan.


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Feather weight boxer, Davey Moore died on March 25, 1963, aged 29, as a result of injuries sustained in a match against Sugar Ramos.

This caught my attention. Bob Dylan wrote a song about the bout which serves as a great example of using deterministic root cause analysis about a dynamic complex system. In Dylan's song, all the participants involved in the boxing match credibly disclaim responsibility for the tragic outcome.

Who killed Davey Moore
by Bob Dylan

Who killed Davey Moore
Why an’ what’s the reason for?

“Not I,” says the referee
“Don’t point your finger at me
I could’ve stopped it in the eighth
An’ maybe kept him from his fate
But the crowd would’ve booed, I’m sure
At not gettin’ their money’s worth
It’s too bad he had to go
But there was a pressure on me too, you know
It wasn’t me that made him fall
No, you can’t blame me at all”

Who killed Davey Moore
Why an’ what’s the reason for?

“Not us,” says the angry crowd
Whose screams filled the arena loud
“It’s too bad he died that night
But we just like to see a fight
We didn’t mean for him t’ meet his death
We just meant to see some sweat
There ain’t nothing wrong in that
It wasn’t us that made him fall
No, you can’t blame us at all”

Who killed Davey Moore
Why an’ what’s the reason for?

“Not me,” says his manager
Puffing on a big cigar
“It’s hard to say, it’s hard to tell
I always thought that he was well
It’s too bad for his wife an’ kids he’s dead
But if he was sick, he should’ve said
It wasn’t me that made him fall
No, you can’t blame me at all”

Who killed Davey Moore
Why an’ what’s the reason for?

“Not me,” says the gambling man
With his ticket stub still in his hand
“It wasn’t me that knocked him down
My hands never touched him none
I didn’t commit no ugly sin
Anyway, I put money on him to win
It wasn’t me that made him fall
No, you can’t blame me at all”

Who killed Davey Moore
Why an’ what’s the reason for?

“Not me,” says the boxing writer
Pounding print on his old typewriter
Sayin’, “Boxing ain’t to blame
There’s just as much danger in a football game”
Sayin’, “Fistfighting is here to stay
It’s just the old American way
It wasn’t me that made him fall
No, you can’t blame me at all”

Who killed Davey Moore
Why an’ what’s the reason for?

“Not me,” says the man whose fists
Laid him low in a cloud of mist
Who came here from Cuba’s door
Where boxing ain’t allowed no more
“I hit him, yes, it’s true
But that’s what I am paid to do
Don’t say ‘murder,’ don’t say ‘kill’
It was destiny, it was God’s will”

Who killed Davey Moore
Why an’ what’s the reason for?

We want to know what happened and why something happened (Why an’ what’s the reason for?). In looking for an explanation, we frequently treat all systems as if they were linear and deterministic and therefore there is always a root cause which can be discovered through Root Cause Analysis.

Once you have the putative root cause, usually there is a silver bullet solution. This one simple trick . . .

But complex systems are not linear and deterministic. They are complex, dynamic, multiple process, non-linear systems with indiscernible feedback mechanisms. There is no silver bullet, no root cause. Instead, there are multiple necessary and contributive causes, not any one of which on its own is sufficient. And most human systems are complex, not linear.

The tragedies and inefficiencies occur when we mistake nonlinear systems for linear systems. We do this all the time without paying much attention to the phenomena and with very little commentary. The entirety of postmodernist thought is dependent on single deterministic linear solutions to nonlinear problems.

Despite this being a routine error with consequential tragic outcomes, as far as I am aware, we have no vernacular term for this type of category error.

Dylan's song is a great example of the issue though. Perhaps we should call them tragedies of the arena. Negative outcomes from multiple contributions which had to combine in unpredictable ways for the outcome to occur.