TheGunBlog.ca — Following are quotes on being dangerous by Jordan Peterson, a novel by Robert Heinlein, the movie “Act of Valor,” and others.
#BeDangerous
Act of Valor (2012)
- Directed by Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh
Before my father died, he said the worst thing about growing old was that other men stopped seeing you as dangerous. I’ve always remembered that, how being dangerous was sacred, a badge of honour.
See clip on YouTube.
Starship Troopers (1959)
- by Robert Heinlein
There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men.
Jordan Peterson
- Bestselling Author, Speaker, University of Toronto Professor and Clinical Psychologist
1. PhilosophyInsights Channel on YouTube, Published 04 Oct. 2017
The culture I come from, which is northwestern Canada, is a rural culture, a hunting culture, and people take their guns seriously there and it definitely is part of their lifestyle. …
I think the right to bear arms is one of the markers of a free society. I don’t think it’s reasonable that only the police and the army should be allowed to be dangerous.
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I think it’s an important right. I believe that the individual should be allowed or even encouraged to be dangerous but controlled, so along with that right is a responsibility.
2. Interview with John Stossel of Reason.com, Published 17 April 2018
Peterson: It’s very helpful for people to hear that they should make themselves competent and dangerous and take their proper place in the world.
Stossel: Competent and dangerous? Why dangerous?
Peterson: There’s nothing to you otherwise. If you’re not a formidable force, there’s no morality in your self-control. If you’re incapable of violence, not being violent isn’t a virtue.
People who teach martial arts know this full well. If you learn a martial art, you learn to be dangerous, but simultaneously you learn to control it because it’s the alternative to being weak. … Even weak and harmless, which is what young men are being encouraged to be.
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Life is a very difficult process, and you’re not prepared for it unless you have the capacity to be dangerous.
Stossel: By dangerous, that implies I should be ready to threaten someone, to hurt somebody.
Peterson: No, you should be capable of it. But that doesn’t mean you should use it.
James Morganelli
- Jordan Peterson’s Right That You Should Become Dangerous, and Here’s How
- The Federalist, 27 April 2018
Pacifists, who believe life is so sacred no violence should ever be visited upon it, contradict themselves if they are unwilling to protect or defend themselves or others from harm. For if life is truly sacred, then it ought to be protected and defended even by violence.
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Thus in the training and usage of violence to become a “dangerous” person, the application of justifiable force must be carefully studied and, more importantly, inculcated throughout. Without it, techniques, tactics, and the strategies that rule them are merely hammers looking for heads.
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This is why I would advocate to define Peterson’s “dangerous” as acting as an honorable and vigilant protector of self and others, including the enemy, if at all possible. Protecting self and others can certainly be challenging, but protecting an enemy is absolutely the most difficult and dangerous thing anyone can attempt. Doing so doesn’t just speak to expert competency, but also to a moral maturity, by a remarkable willingness to self-risk for others, because there is no higher ethical standard in using violence than to subdue an enemy without killing him.
True wisdom results from the ethical use of knowledge. So becoming a competently dangerous person ought to be affixed to a protector-driven physical philosophy so one is able to do the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, for the right reasons.