Quote:
Michael Hackett wrote:
Mary, I think you misread Brian's post. You emphasized a couple of words and I think you have misinterpreted what he said. I will paraphrase what he wrote from my understanding. If Bad Person acts out physically towards Victim Person, then Victim Person has crossed a real or imaginary line. Victim Person can choose not see see staring someone down as aggressive, but Victim Person would be incorrect in his assessment. In other words, staring someone down, maddogging them, may not be intended as an aggressive behavior, but may well be viewed as aggressive by the subject of the staring and may trigger a violent reaction. Context is everything of course, but usually staring down a young male in particular is a poor idea.
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I think
you misread
my post - not sure why else you insist on seeing the entire problem within the context of an imagined incident that has a very specific meaning and intention for you. Try to step beyond that for a moment and generalize, and look at your statement again:
"If Bad Person acts out physically towards Victim Person, then Victim Person has crossed a real or imaginary line."
Okay. So, what line did Victim Person cross? Let's leave your Young Male "staring down" Other Young Male example, and the question of how "real" that line is, and look at another. Let's say instead that it's Malala Yousufzai who "crossed the line" by going to school, and got shot in the head. Do you say she was "regulated"? Do you?
Please don't treat me like a five-year-old; I understand quite well the distinction between cause/effect and transgression/justified response. My point, made several times already, is that I dislike the use of the word "regulate" to refer to the capricious and sociopathic acts of a powerful person just as much as I dislike the use of the phrase "ethnic cleansing" to refer to genocide. Call a sociopath a sociopath and be done with it.