What is Dangerous? - an excerpt from Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

Read the text and think about the point of this story.

What is Dangerous?

            “I don’t like snakes.”

            “Prejudice again. Most snakes are harmless, useful, and fun to raise. The scarlet snake is a beauty – red, black, and yellow – docile and makes a fine pet. I think this little fellow was fond of me. I knew how to handle snakes, how not to alarm them and not give them a chance to bite – even the bite of a non-poisonous snake is a nuisance. This baby was my prize. I used to take him out and show him to people, holding him back of his head and letting him wrap himself around my wrist.

            “I got a chance to show my collection to the herpetologist of the Tampa zoo – I showed him my prize first. He almost had hysterics. My pet was not a scarlet snake – it was a young coral snake. The most deadly snake in North America. Duke, do you see my point?”

            “That raising snakes is dangerous? I could have told you.”

            “Oh, for Pete’s sake! I had rattlesnakes and water moccasins, too. A poisonous snake is not dangerous, no more than a loaded gun is dangerous – in each case, you must handle it properly. The thing that made that snake dangerous was that I hadn’t known what it could do. If, in my ignorance, I had handled it carelessly, it would have killed me as casually and innocently as a kitten scratches…”

(Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land)