2016, KJS, DC

It feels like anger is everywhere but we can’t talk about it.

Where does anger come from, how do we contain it and what is it good for?

This paradox consumed Aristotle and is central to literature throughout time. The angst, the ramming of vigor and passion into socialization and grace, constant throughout our experiences, and the certain level of frustration we are allowed to exhibit, or express.

You can’t get angry, it is threatening.

What if I’m angry for a good reason.  

Nothing gets achieved through anger. it’s threatening and raises alarms.

What if no one is doing enough about the thing worth getting angry about, and what if I can’t stop. We’re supposed to not be angry because it makes others feel uncomfortable? That can’t be true, how can that be? 

If you are angry no one will really listen to you, even if you are right. Find another way. 

There’s a lot to be angry about these days. Or maybe there’s not. Maybe it’s just me and how I’m interpreting the world.

One feature I can’t understand is the apparent relationship between maturation, or development, and containing anger. Anger doesn’t go away, it may refine but it doesn’t get less hot until its soothed.

Many social scientists will tell you you seek to create an illusion of control where you feel none and anger is the byproduct. Is it always a reaction to a lack of control, or an emotional reservoir?

Philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues, for instance, that: The focus of anger is an act imputed to the target, which is taken to be a wrongful damage…conspiring to produce a state of exasperating helplessness.

It is a hard and long process remaking a cultural environment where no one can be irreparably damaged by another persons words or outbursts – and it seriously limits the diversity and flow of information that can happen. If it does free some it represses so much else at the same time – are we really free?

In addition to re-making a less sensitive society, don’t we also want to be growing thicker skin and tolerance so we can be who we are, for that’s not going away.

Can we ever have a world where everyone feels comfortable and anger is not known? In a no-anger realm, will we all just accept everything, blend together to maintain a universally user-friendly culture?

Do we over-think anger because we fear its unpredictability. Is it a disguise for fear? Anger is seen as a vestige of our primitive selves, yet we condone pornography, debasement of women, organ and human trafficking, extreme poverty, etc, etc.

Without anger are we not animals anymore? As we see with sex, revenge, compassion, love, jealousy, territoriality…anger is a base emotion. Like weeds it finds its way out no matter what society feels is acceptable.

Can anger possibly be extinguished? By always putting it aside or away, refusing it as functional, do we make it more vigorous?

Hasn’t anger also led us to victory – igniting passion and fury for good reasons? Doesn’t it sometimes bestow confidence in, and action from, others, resolving matters.

Mixed martial arts and unpaid activism aside, to make a career, most agree, anger is rarely an advantage. We need to manage it and not let it destroy our lives or others, for sure.

Ultimately, and its been proven, anger is more destructive than constructive for the person feeling it. It prevents us from processing deeper feelings and healing wounds.

But still, it’s obviously real. More needs to be done.

We can look at anger as pressure that needs to be redirected or alleviated from wherever it is currently being deployed. When governing (policing/foreign policy/parenting/teaching) it might help to operate with the general principle that anger only truly goes away with constructive outlets and discussions, an understanding of the conditions (not condoning the actions) and in some cases, making allowances. Of course you feel like doing none of that when confronted with anger, but that’s the shortest path to resolution.

To defeat anger one can ignore it exists, club it with a bigger stick or be tolerant, have depth and patience, learn from it and then adapt.

/ /