LMA vs. Path Dependency (Patreon)

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Path dependency is a phenomenon where past practices or paths persist due to resistance to change. These practices, entrenched through institutionalization and standardization, make it difficult to adopt better alternatives, even when they are available. This persistence often serves the interests of "Western hegemony"—a term used to describe the dominance of Western powers, particularly the United States, in global politics, economics, and culture. Western hegemony is defined by capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism, and it often uses path dependency to maintain continuous control.

Once a method or path becomes dominant, it can lead to lock-in, where alternatives are neglected or actively suppressed. Western hegemony does not simply observe this phenomenon; it actively incentivizes path dependency, benefiting from upholding existing power structures and minimizing challenges to its authority, thereby perpetuating a cycle that resists change.

We've previously discussed path dependency in the context of martial arts, where belts and tests are often solutions in search of imaginary problems. A similar phenomenon occurs with modern keyboards, which still use the QWERTY layout originally designed for mechanical typewriters. This layout was not chosen for its intuitiveness or efficiency; it was developed to prevent the typewriter keys from jamming by slowing down typing speeds. Additionally, it was favored by telegraph operators for translating Morse code. Despite the obsolescence of these original contexts, the QWERTY hegemony persists.

Path dependency also appears in other areas, like the use of training wheels when balance bikes are older and more effective. Capitalism enabled the dominance of training wheels, and path dependency maintained it. Likewise, gentle parenting predates rigid Western authoritarian parenting; play-based learning predates the banking model of education, including rote memorization and decomposed practice; land-based learning predates instructor and instruction-led learning. Yet they all came to dominate through Western hegemony and defend their positions through path dependency. Hegemony is absoluteness, and being absolute means eliminating alternatives, thereby imposing dependency.

Another example is the fossil fuel hegemony, which reinforces the path dependency of the dollar hegemony. These dependencies work together to enforce the status quo, which means the current world order with the US as the Supreme Authority. Path dependency can be thought of as a trajectory. US hegemony and capitalism represent the ultimate path dependency, where those in power cling to their course despite it causing genocide and heading the world toward annihilation. Even from the perspective of capitalist efficiency and self-interest, driving towards extinction is profoundly inefficient. However, US imperialist (capitalism and US hegemony) path dependency is not about inefficiency but maintaining control at all costs. Instead of planning for the future, it shuts the door behind it, preferring universal demise over losing power. US imperialism is path-dependent on steering us toward annihilation if it ensures its control until then.

While not all path dependencies sustain systems of oppression, all systems of oppression rely on path dependency to maintain themselves.

Under Western hegemony, methods often persist not because they are beneficial, moral, or humanizing but precisely because they are not. Path dependency is not just a result of historical inertia; it is actively maintained through psychological conditioning, economic incentives, and institutional enforcement. These mechanisms ensure that established methods remain in place, regardless of their actual benefits or drawbacks.

Radical and socialist martial arts practices are, let's face it, often path-dependent on reactionary pedagogy. They depend on reactionaries to take the lead on training design and then copy their pedagogy—like the Mr. Bean meme—placing reactionaries at the top and copying down. Their supposed radical departure is to use the master's tools against them instead of building an alternative approach from the bottom up. Using their approach doesn't dismantle their approach; it reinforces it. What is radically different about plagiarizing the same system while disguising it with radical language?

If reactionaries are always your authority and you're perpetually two steps behind playing catch-up, what is the logic behind surpassing them? Reactionary approaches are path-dependent and resist better approaches, and radical martial artists are path-dependent on reactionary approaches. It's like cheating on an exam by copying the worst student.

There's a dangerous contradiction among radicals who tacitly believe that in matters concerning the body, the body fascists are right. Regardless of the exam results, the worst, most colonial student must be right. This is how those who say they oppose rigid orthodoxy end up pushing the hardest to enforce orthodoxy in martial arts. Their self-image omits their path dependence and praise of body fascism. If conservatism is the resistance to change and maintenance of the status quo, then radicals, too, can be vehemently conservative. The more LMA becomes visible, the more we run into this conservatism. There are now too many observers to keep this dirty little secret hidden.

The LMA Way actively opposes path dependency, often drawing contempt from those who adhere to it. Instead of dependency on a predetermined path, we promote pathfinding. Path dependency is rote learning and memorization rather than critical thinking, embodied cognition, and Wayfinding. Understanding path dependency equips us to resist colonial and oppressive approaches, enabling us to flourish in martial arts and beyond.

During a remote session with KA, an LMA practitioner, we discussed the pressure she feels to conform to a certain path, to which I said, "Find your own path, KA." The path should serve you, not the other way around.

– Sam