The martial arts are supposed to instill in their practitioners a sense of confidence and, ideally, respect for others.  A martial art, however, is really a vehicle for power, which is what drives the other qualities.  When you are comfortable in the knowledge that you can defend yourself from aggressors, that you can stand up for yourself when needed, you no longer fear every tiny criticism and challenge.  When you are confident in yourself and in your abilities, you have the power that comes with such knowledge.  There is a component of fear that such power generates in others, too:  the fear that, should they choose to use force against you, they might regret it.

Most of the time, this fear is understated.  It is simply a byproduct of martial ability.  There are those in the arts, however, who seek to cultivate this sense of fear.  They hope that others will see them and be impressed -- duly or unduly -- by their ability to harm others.  They see the martial arts as a shield behind which they can hide, a means of forestalling criticism through an ongoing, implied argumentum ad baculum.

Worse, there are those who affect a facade of martial ability in the hope of acquiring this power without earning it.  These people never tire of telling others just how tough they are, constantly indicating that they will settle any and all disagreements with their fists.  (When confronted with the opportunity to meet those with whom they disagree, they invariably decline.)

Worse still are those who, bereft of any real knowledge of the martial arts and unable to craft the pretense of it, hope to create the illusion of the same by ridiculing others.  Ridicule, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing.  There are those whose words and actions are so absurd that the only appropriate response is sarcasm, the only warranted reply a healthy dose of derision.  But there are among us those who decry others without grounds, purveyors of intellectual dishonesty who do through empty assertions, strategic omissions, blatant fabrication, and personal attacks what they cannot do substantively.

What all of these people have in common is a profound insecurity about themselves.  Their insecurities may be as simple as doubts about their prowess in their chosen art or arts.  Their insecurities might also be as thorough as the pervasive and lurking fear that everyone is better, in some way, than they are (and thus they fear everyone and cope by trying to make all others fear them).

The reason this comes up constantly is because on the Internet, those interested in martial arts naturally discuss them.  Part of the discussion of any art or individual or concept is criticism of those people or things, particularly if we find ourselves in disagreement with them.  Those confident in their abilities generally respond to substantive criticism with substance of their own, which yields productive conversation and even debate.  While no one is immune to becoming frustrated and angry during the course of such a discussion, those who believe in themselves generally do not become hysterical over these arguments.

Then there are the folks that send me hate mail.

It isn't just me, of course.  Many of us have received similar mail.  All you have to do to start receiving it is to speak out about a specific art. There will be those who perceive your criticism as a personal attack.  The more insecure the individual, the more personally he or she will take your refusal to become a true believer in his or her system or guru.

This is perfectly understandable.  An extremely insecure individual who uses the martial arts, or the pretense of martial ability, as a means of coping with this insecurity has constructed a very elaborate and false self-image.  Any attack on the component pieces of that image is an attack on the person, as far as he or she is concerned.

The most common of all logical fallacies is the ad hominem attack.  Committing the fallacy of ad hominem does not, as is popularly misbelieved, constitute merely being insulting.  The reason ad hominem is a fallacy is because the person who uses it directs his or criticism against the person making an argument, rather than against the substance of the argument itself.

This is demonstrated to me most often as defensive criticism of my unimpressive martial arts background.  I have no credentials of which to speak and do not expect anyone to agree with what I say on the basis of who I am.  One must wonder, then, why the words of someone who (if one believes in the fallacy of the appeal to authority) has nothing of value to say on a topic are taken so very seriously by some who become offended.  Well, the answer is that every argument rests on its own content (and on the premises from which it is built).  Criticism must be addressed according to the criticism, not the critic.  If someone's words make you uncomfortable -- if their refusal to believe in you or in your art makes you angry -- you must ask yourself why this is true.

This is what those who are deeply insecure in themselves and their abilities cannot do -- something they avoid doing whenever humanly possible, in fact.  For those living in elaborate worlds of fantasy in which they are the lords and masters of all they survey, practitioners of the One Supreme Martial Art compared to which all others are inferior, the examined life is too horrific to live.