Stand up to acts of aggression

In the classroom in downtown Dubuque, where shots are heard each week in a nearby neighborhood, a young mother talks about beatings and fear, about anger and her reluctance to leave her boyfriend.

At what point, indeed.

The question craves an answer.

Within our values, beliefs and attitudes a definition has to be known. Without a clear understanding, who can say 'That's enough!”

Almost everyone I ask responds that aggression is a positive facet of a man, especially a man, but it's OK if a woman pushes back, too.

The aggressive salesman succeeds. The aggressive politician wins. The aggressive supervisor creates order. Isn't aggression an ideal?

The debate begins with a definition, with the Golden Rule, with what the philosopher Immanuel Kant called the categorical imperative. We have a moral obligation to treat others as we would be treated. It's mentioned in all the great religions.

The point where we intercede, that place of action, is with our knowledge of harm. Since we are staked to war and peace, what do we mean by the first step, the step that escalates, the point we do something?

Invading the diffuse boundary of identity is aggression.

It happens when you intrude upon my being with an insult, when you invade my personhood. Either by insult or dismissal, the emotional jab begins the dance.

All trash talk in life, outside that rule system of games, is aggression. It bullies. It seeks to overpower.

If we are passive, holding back our feelings, doing nothing, we are doomed. If we return aggression with the same, the moment escalates.

Here, we must understand assertiveness as the defining characteristic of healthy behavior. It may define civilization. Assertiveness stands up and states the issue. It is honest. 'I feel angry, threatened, insulted.” It moves against aggression respectfully.

Aggression seeks to control, to harm. We know it when we feel it. We are obligated to stand up to it.

The passive person hides, walks away, says it's OK, what does it matter. Passivity compromises integrity. It's dishonest to hide how you feel. It makes us into door mats.

Assertive people understand that saying something in that moment, that first moment and every one that follows, about how they feel, is the point. They do not invade or intrude. They have not blamed, degraded, pushed or tossed a fist.

No one is promised that by assertiveness you will reap rewards or that only good consequences will follow. But we can say there are great differences in aggression, passivity and assertiveness.

Aggression invades, intrudes, bullies. Passivity hides, is dishonest. Assertiveness stands up, respects, validates oneself.

We act at that point of understanding, at that time we were invaded. It is a point of integrity and honesty that makes us who we are.

l Tim Trenkle teaches at Northeast Iowa Community College. Comments: trenklet@nicc.edu.