What is a Dangerous RAT?

The original inspiration for the title of Dangerous RAT's came from a posting by Jay Lorenzen entitled "The Danger of Non-Autonomous Thinkers",where he illuminated the dilemma of organizations that are overly focused on "creating team-players". It turns out that the desire to create team players might actually undercut the creative power of teams...The best companies (or movements) champion autonomous thinkers, who, while being part of a team resist being “team-players” in the organization.


My immediate mental image of an Autonomous Thinker was overwhelmingly positive....undoubtedly because (in my normal state of delusion) I would like to count myself among those who have an expanded capacity to think outside the mainstream. Ultimately, I recognize that very few people would concede that they are non-autonomous thinkers. But realistically, there is a continuum, and some people are more susceptible to groupthink than others.


So the question left begging is, "what is the antithesis of the non-autonomous thinker that Jay has correctly identified as "dangerous"? And is it possible that, in a different (good) way, autonomous thinkers are also dangerous?


The R in Dangerous RATS has at least three meanings. The first is random. Before you conclude that random thinking is all bad, consider the court jester. Although the role of a jester in medieval courts was partially to serve as comic relief, they in fact had a more serious role. In societies where freedom of speech was not recognized as a right, the court jester - precisely because anything he said was by definition "a jest" and "the uttering of a fool" - could speak frankly on controversial issues in a way in which anyone else would have been severely punished for, and monarchs understood the usefulness of having such a person at their side.

They specifically valued the "random" nature of a jester's thought process, knowing that every once in a while a jester would say something so unique (or crazy) that it would encourage a whole new direction in their thinking that would have never occurred to a group of really smart sane people.

The second meaning is ranting. The blogosphere has become fertile ground for the communication form known as the rant...but not all rants are equal. Most "rants" are merely a crude display of cathartic verbiage revealing the lack of emotional well being of the "ranter". There is a more noble rant, however, that was part of the ongoing dialogue Jesus had with many of the religious elites of his day.

This type of rant is rooted in a healthy dissatisfaction with the status quo. It is what Jesus said to the money changers (with accompaniment from his whip) as he was kicking their butts out of the temple.

The third meaning is religious, because most of the RAT's likely to traffic here are fellow followers of Jesus.

So Dangerous RAT's is a place for those who can appreciate randomness on many levels with comedy being perhaps the most important level. But hopefully also because a crazy, random person just might (like a broken clock) be right a couple of times a day.

It's also a place where ranting is allowed regardless of your emotional well being, but preferred if it is inspired by righteous zeal.

Mostly it's a place for religious autonomous thinking.

My belief is that random, ranting, religious autonomous thinkers can be dangerous. Sometimes to themselves. Occasionally to the organizations they are bucking against. But, hopefully, mostly to the forces of evil.