Dangerous

“Dangerous” and “aggressive” are perceived as negative words. This is not a new phenomenon. In fact, Samuel Johnson’s “Dictionary of the English Language” first published in 1755 defines both terms as being a threat to survival. As societies evolved and grew the words took on a slightly more subtle meaning. The threat to survival qualifier was dropped indicating some awareness of a relativity factor, but to this day that awareness is only slight. Where the word “nice” took up a half page of definitions in 1755, indicating a great deal of complexity and thought on the meaning which has since been dumbed-down to a dozen lines, the words “dangerous” and “aggressive” have remained relatively unchanged. Not a lot of thought has ever gone into those two words, but a whole lot of agreed upon assumptions have, and where there is little thought and much agreed upon assumption misunderstandings occur and people get hurt.

Hitler was a dangerous and aggressive man. So was Gandhi – and therein lies the problem. Danger or aggression in itself is actually neutral. It does not take on a value until the terminal to which it is directed is taken into account. A person who is dangerous to a criminal is a very good person to have around if one is not a criminal. The highly aggressive surgeons who developed our current emergency room trauma care system have saved countless lives.

We tend to have a knee-jerk reaction to all things deemed dangerous or aggressive, but such an instant assessment can easily create more harm than good. When our lives are in peril, when our future or safety hangs in the balance we are thankful for the assistance of anyone who is a danger to what threatens us or who can act aggressively enough to save us, but when the threat is gone we are uncomfortable with that same dangerous or aggressive person and too frequently attempt to hobble that which saved us not that long ago or could save us in the future. I will not belabor the point here . . . the topic is worthy of an in depth examination that is not suited to a blog, I would, however, propose that we all re-examine those words. Before we condemn a person or group for being dangerous or aggressive, perhaps it would first be wise to determine exactly who they are dangerous to, what are they aggressive toward. ‘Nuff said for now . . .