Good

by Dymphna Morrissey

Created on: December 30, 2010

Anger is a good emotion.  It indicates that there is something wrong in our environment.  The causes of anger range from being insulted or ignored to being obstructed in some way.  Anger expressed is liberating, but unpredictable. 

Yet, open expressions of anger are frowned upon in our society.  As a culture, we do not know how to handle anger, and actively discourage its expression.  This is because anger causes people to inflict pain and suffering on each other.  Wrath is extreme anger that leads to domestic violence and child abuse.  Anger also causes wars.

 So how can anger be good?  If anger causes violence and violence is bad, doesn’t it follow that anger is bad?

The answer to that question is not so simple.  While anger does create unrest in our society, it also is fundamental to our being.  To say anger is bad is to immediately pass a judgment on ourselves and the whole human race.  Something about our situation makes us angry.  We eventually come to terms with this, but the fact remains that anger is a reality.  After all, who expresses anger most readily?  A child.  Its face turns red and contorted and it stomps its little foot on the ground.  When the child does not have its needs met, you will know because it has not learned self-control.  The spontaneous reaction of anger in young children indicates that anger is very natural.  Sometimes they grab the toy that they want out of another child’s hand and sometimes they throw their food across the room.  They differ in adults only in the range of expression, not in their propensity to feel the emotion.  Adults have angry thoughts all the time, but have learned not to show them.  Adults seem to step back and see their anger, rather than be their anger.  Because of this, you do not see purer expressions of this emotion in public unless a person has been drinking or taking a drug that reduces their inhibitions.

We like to think that we are good and peaceful, but many times our hearts are filled with this insidious anger that we think those who are beneath us express due to their natural inferiority.  The very fact that we judge others as having a higher propensity to anger shows the anger we have towards them.  Our snobbery and contempt are only variations of the anger we find unacceptable in ourselves.

Although anger has no appeal to higher sensibilities, it is the most potent emotion.  This is because anger, above all, is an expression of the self.  Anger says, I am what I am—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and that’s final.  It does not say I am what I am, but I am going to be what you would like me to be or what this world wants me to be.  An angry demand is made on my own terms, but a civilized request will take into account how self-presentation can affect other people.

A healthy person can acknowledge his or her anger while still managing to come across as someone who considers the feelings of other people.  This is not an easy thing to do because anger is such a compelling emotion and the self has so many desires that if left unmet, may cause anger.  Additionally, you come into contact with people on a daily basis that have equally compelling desires, some of which oppose your own.  Moods change throughout the day in reaction to the environment you find yourself in and inner worlds collide with each other.  There seems to be a lot of truth that a sensitive person will take on the emotional coloring of his or her environment and will react to the anger of others with guilt.  The free range of expression of anger also sometimes has to do with who is most dominant at the time or who is more confident.  In this way, expressions of anger are connected to power, but if you have judgments about these expressions, you will find a way to legitimatize yours and view the expressions of others with contempt. 

While moods change throughout the day, there are certain emotions that depending on the character of a person, remain constant.  One may be temporarily angry at a person, at a teacher, at a friend, or at a stranger for saying something or doing something or implying something that is perceived as being offensive.  Or one may be stuck on a memory of a person or a situation.  One can be just as angry for the things others fail to do as for all of the small violations that occur to one’s ego on a daily basis.  Anger at a vision not met, or a secret hope that goes unrealized breeds long-term discontent.  Free-floating anxiety may indicate one’s reluctance or fear to examine what has failed them.  Until one does, the anger will color their world in murky gray streaks and the dismal slush of mediocrity.  There will be no movement or progress, but a passive resignation to one’s circumstances.

Stuck anger is bitterness.  Sometimes it comes across as passive aggressiveness and sometimes as simple indifference.  When one pretends to be indifferent, one is still active, but only in their attempts to frustrate the ones that claim to love them.  Anger is depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anorexia, and self-imposed alienation.  All of these expressions indicate that the person suffering from them does not wish to express their truest selves.  They know the real person beneath the social facade is angry and that we as a society cannot deal with the complications this causes.

Strains of anger lurk below the surface of the human psyche.  It may be ugly, but it cannot be denied.  Since it is good to acknowledge what is real, one ought see the angry, but for the civilized, one cannot always be the angry.  The more we recognize anger, the more we are equipped to deal with it, since sudden angry outbursts are usually the result of pent up frustrations which one is discouraged from expressing due to the denial and judgments of others.  For whatever reason, this is part of who we are, and the best way to avoid violence and conflict is to first see how it works in ourselves.

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