how can we be dangerous to man
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how can we be dangerous to man
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
There’s a quote that I came across a lot of you are probably familiar with, and it’s from Jordan Peterson. He says, “A harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very dangerous man who has that under voluntary control.” That quote stuck out to me. I think it’s stuck out to a lot of guys who have heard, repeated it and shared it. So, I thought we could talk a little bit more about that today, specifically what it means to be a dangerous man. Then, how to make ourselves more dangerous, and why this is important in the first place. I’m going to take this in a slightly different direction than maybe you would think because, obviously, we think about martial arts or firearms training. Listen, I’m not undermining that, it’s critical. I participate in martial arts, specifically Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I’ve done a lot of firearms training. I’ve been in the military. Situational awareness is huge. When I’m out to dinner with my family or society in general, I’m situationally aware. In fact, I’ve got a firearm with me 99% of the time.
However, what I want to talk about today is how we utilize what I would call, ‘soft skills’ to make ourselves more dangerous. The reason I want to share this with you is that I think it’s something that we overlook a lot of times when we think about masculinity. We think about being tough and strong and athletic and capable. When it comes to martial arts and firearms training, we think about that stuff. And again, that’s important, but very rarely do we think about these softer, interpersonal communication and dynamic skills that I’m going to address with you today. Again, the quote is “A harmless man is not a good man.” That’s the first part of it. Let me break that down for you. I think there is too much emphasis in society on being a good man. If you’re a good little boy, according to your society standard, it might just be that you’re weak. Jordan Peterson says, “A good man is a very dangerous man who has that under voluntary control,” meaning he has the ability to be dangerous, and yet voluntarily and consciously decides not to be dangerous or, probably more accurately, use that dangerous skill set that he has in a controlled environment, in the right situation, when it’s appropriate.
We see a lot of men who don’t have this under control, specifically, because they haven’t had the male mentors, role model, coach, or fathers to teach them how to harness this raw masculine energy that’s coursing through these young boys veins. Then it comes across as violent and tragic and horrific in a lot of cases as well. It’s our job as men to learn how to control this ability to be aggressive and competitive and violent at times, so that we can use it in a controlled manner that it will be more effective and that will be using it appropriately, so doing that for ourselves. And then also teaching our young men and the people that we have responsibility for, how to harness those same characteristics to produce effective outcomes for themselves, whether that gets them out of a dangerous situation of violent encounter, or to face some sort of natural disaster, or even a car wreck, or even just something as simple as competitive sports with some guys around town, a pickup game of basketball, or softball or whatever it is you’re doing by those ways to harness, harness the power that you have within you.
That makes you, according to this, a good man. I don’t use that term necessarily because I think again, it comes back to morality only and that’s important but if it’s only morality, we’re missing this critical component of it, which is capable. We’ve got morality, good man, then we’ve got our proficiency at skills, which makes us capable. Good men don’t change the world. They might be nice to talk with and women might like them for a short period of time or put them in the friend zone. But the men who change the world are the ones who are capable. So, when I think about that word, capability, and I think about dangerous, I think those two things go hand in hand. If you want to be a capable man, capable of providing, protecting and providing, which is our motto, and not just motto but our way of life, then you need to be willing and able, willing and able to be dangerous in the right set of circumstances.