>"Steel, you mention sport but my question is why, if being verbally aggressive is so normal and acceptable, are players sent off the field when they are verbally aggressive toward the referee or coach?"

Depends what sport you are talking about. Sometimes it depends on whether the sport is being feminised into bland, uninteresting sludge. Other times it's simply the rules and part of the character of the game. Or both.

Antiseptic –I’m sorry, but I’m pretty confused now.

1). My original entrance into the thread was to disagree with the proposition that aggression was a normal and healthy state for young men, yeah? Your rebuttal was to discuss the bottling up of anger – a different emotion - and then to refer to the two emotions anger and aggression interchangeably. Which is when I sought clarification, and provided a couple of dictionary and psychological definitions for both.

2)You then agreed with Celivia that a person who couldn’t control anger was an emotional and social cripple but seemed to be arguing that “mere” aggression was the lesser of two evils. And responded to me only concerning the interpretation of the word mastery.

Which is when I assumed we had semantic differences all round.

3). You replied however that this was not so and “I'm specifically differentiating an aggressive attitude from physical aggression or threats”. I guessed that by then you had left aside your defense of aggression as normal and healthy to turn instead to the question of whether your specified definition of aggression warranted incarceration?

Until then I don’t think anyone had introduced incarceration – wasn’t it all about when to call in police? Whether to diffuse the situation, calm people down or whatever?: And weren’t the subjects Hara’s nieghbours?

4). Your next post agreed that police intervention was o.k. but not incarceration. ( No argument from me). However, you seemed to be linking this to your own case now and not Hara’s neighbours?

So I’m not sure at all now where we’re at now. Sorry, not trying to be obstructive or anything, just totally balllsed-up.

But as to the word “mastery”?
In the given context the word obviously referred to the meaning as• “one who controls or rules” and not “one who possessives consummate skills” ( On-line Dictionary)..

Romany: "refer to the two emotions anger and aggression interchangeably."

That's obviously the first point of confusion. I didn't conflate the two at all. One may be angry and not aggressive, or aggressive without anger. It seems you were right about the semantic issues, so please accept my apology.

Romany: "wasn’t it all about when to call in police"

Yep, which I suggested could be appropriate if it was only to issue a warning against escalation to all parties. Up here in Qld the Police will happily send a couple of coppers to "keep the peace" if they get a request. Read everyone the riot act and buzz off. There is no "intervention" from the State, however, unless an actual threat is made, although the lady could probably get an AVO for the asking.

My own anecdote was to illustrate the point that one may be both angry and aggressive and yet controlled and non-threatening and that the law recognises that fact, thus preventing the knee-jerk response chain of "she's being fearful, he's being aggressive, he's a b@stard, lock him up".

As to the use of "mastery", I disagree that the context you gave represented what you claim. "A self-expressive drive to mastery" would perfectly describe any of the great figures I mentioned. I don't know how self-expressive organising a genocide or running a dictatorship can be considered...

Was there something else in the text that changes that?

Antiseptic I can empathise with your comments about aggression being a natural reaction to some situations without necessarily indicating loss of control. Trouble is an outsider to the situation cannot necessarily make that judgement about a person they do not know very well (in the context of Haralambos' first post). And as your rightly state 'aggression' can come in many forms including manipulation by an ex-partner with an agenda.

You can see what a dilemma these situations pose for police. A wrong judgement on whether to attend can lead to complaints about police interference. Conversely failure to attend a complaint might lead to accusations of police negligence and complacency.

Police are not psychic and they are not able to assess over the phone (in most cases) where an act of perceived 'aggression' may escalate into harm to another party.

Haralambos most of the time police will respond to a domestic dispute because it is known to be one of the most dangerous sitations for both police and the people involved. Tempers and emotions are heightened and if you throw alcohol or drugs into the mix there is even greater risk.

I am talking in general terms as none of us know the exact nature of your neighbours dispute nor the intensity of emotion.

We should not underestimate aggression or rage to escalate which is plainly becoming a greater problem in our stressed out society - even road rage has led to murder on numerous occasions worldwide.

Celivia, Pelican - yes, it can be difficult for the police to make determinations about the seriousness of a situation, but that's their job after all and they are (hopefully) well trained to do it. There are political moves to make laws that give the police little latitude to make their own decisions, but make it mandatory to remove men from their homes in the event of a domestic incident, regardless of the circumstances. Those laws would no doubt find favour with the original poster (unless he happened to be the one involved in the domestic, of course). I suspect that many police would do so anyway, if confronted with a "fearful" woman and an "aggressive" man. In reality, of course, the two states are both sides of a coin, yet the "fear" engenders a protective response from others, where the "aggression" is likely to do the opposite. Some use this response to expressed "fear" to manipulate situations or people to their advantage. "Passive aggressive" behaviour is sometimes of that nature, when a person uses their "fear" to get someone else, often a policeman, to take action against a third party. Having been on the end of just such a situation, I'm very much aware of how much harm can be done.

Celivia, in the case of your anecdote about the shop assistant, I would have called security as well in that situation, because an actual threat had been made. That is not an acceptable way to behave, regardless of the situation. I think I made my own abhorrence of threats designed to intimidate quite clear in a recent thread, as well as my own preferred way to deal with such bullying

Antiseptic -

Thank you for taking the trouble help to sort that out.

As I said I only came in on the issue of aggression being normal and healthy thing. Now that the thread has, quite correctly, gone back to addressing the original query I'll back out.

Seeya elsewhere.