The Hazard of Force

By Jean-Philippe Gabriel — frameworklove.com | January 9, 2026

Another shooting. Another life lost. And almost immediately, the familiar pressure returns: choose a side. Justice or injustice. Us or them. Innocence or guilt.

But sometimes what we are witnessing is not a battle of good versus evil, but something far older and harder to accept: tragedy.

Tragedy is different from injustice. Injustice implies intention—malice, corruption, or willful harm. Tragedy speaks to the reality that life is dangerous, that power is blunt, and that human beings—acting within systems larger than themselves—can collide with irreversible consequences.

The ICE officer who fired the weapon did not wake up that morning intending to kill someone. The woman who was shot did not wake up intending to provoke death or risk her life. Both likely woke up believing they were acting in the name of justice—each seeing it from a different angle, each trusting a different story.

That is not a justification.
It is a recognition of humanity.

Law enforcement is not a gentle presence; it is the state’s coercive power, and it is inherently lethal. It is trained to act under threat, to respond through procedure and reflex rather than personal judgment. Where force is present, death is always a possibility.

This is not a moral failure but a physical reality—where there is force, there is risk; where there is confrontation, there is danger; and where power meets fear, tragedy is never far behind.

This story, then, is not a lesson about blame. It is a lesson about hazard—about chance, chaos, and worlds colliding. It asks us to shift frames: from morality to tragedy, not from morality to justice.

And that is the deeper failure of our moment. We have forgotten how to speak about misfortune. We live as though everything can be controlled, as though the presence of the state places events outside the reach of chance or imperfection. We expect certainty, safety, and moral clarity—as if placing fate into institutional hands makes power infallible.

But nothing is outside chance. Nothing is outside chaos. Life remains unpredictable, and systems—no matter how structured—still collide. Sometimes the storm comes, and if we are in its path, we are swallowed whole.

And tragedy does not arise only from nature, but from ourselves: from fear, emotion, imperfection, compounded actions unfolding faster than intention. We discover, painfully, that we are not sovereign masters of events, but participants within forces larger than us.

That is why there is wisdom in avoiding storms. In not chasing confrontations. In recognizing cliffs before we climb them—not out of cowardice, but out of humility. This is not resignation; it is awareness.

Tragedy reminds us of what we share, not what divides us. It reconnects us to an ancient truth: human life is fragile, and the world is not fully within our control.

And when we learn to see events not only through the lens of good versus evil, just versus unjust, righteous versus unrighteous—but through the lens of tragedy—we find something rare: healing. We find community. We become more careful with one another. And, paradoxically, more just.