The Downside of Anger

The other day I saw an essay written by a man who has authored a series of blog posts under the rubric “Diary of a Mad Voter”. It got me thinking. Mad as Hell has definitely become a fixture of the political landscape in recent years. This year in particular anger, and its father, fear, are the dominant themes in politics. How else does one explain the popularity of Donald Trump other than to acknowledge that he foments anger and fear of “the other”?

Not only are people angry, but they are wearing their rage like a badge of honor, ignoring the fact that anger is not a particularly productive state, and they know it. Hey, no one is going to write under the moniker of "The enraged Father”, or  “The Bitter spouse”. But they will proudly wear The Angry Voter label.

I won’t spend much time speculating as to why so many middle class people, with health insurance, a roof over their heads and getting three squares are so angry. Perhaps it is the frustration of a changing nation, or the resilience of an elusive enemy. I don’t know. I will leave that to others.

What does political anger do for us and to us? Well, if the anger is appropriate and focused, it can be productive. Imagine angry citizens driving a corrupt mayor from office as an example. However, the sad fact is that anger has become perpetual on the political landscape and it is killing us.  Permanent Anger is destructive in ways listed below, in no particular order.

Anger fosters a binary worldview. Us/them, good/bad.  And a binary world view makes political cooperation and collaboration very difficult. I can’t work with that guy because he is not only wrong, he’s evil.

Anger and fear play to our dark angels. It causes us to turn our backs on those most in need. Anger corrodes the soul. It leaves one bitter and mean.

Anger closes the mind. It fosters orthodoxy over self examination, dogma over critical thought. Look at climate change, for instance. Denial of climate change has become the official team position of a major political party. Denial is the condition of admittance to the tribe. Anybody in it not expressing the appropriate amount of anger towards scientists will be in for a dose of anger – even the risk of being ostracized, “RINO” -  from their fellow tribal members.

Anger is the enemy of reason. It focuses entirely on what feels good at the moment. How else does one explain the hatred directed at all Muslims, a foolish act which ultimately plays right into the hands of ISIS, and will make our task infinitely more difficult and dangerous?

Anger leads one to forgo understanding a problem, and to focus exclusively on assigning blame for the problem.

Anger leads to oversimplification, even magical thinking. We demonize their guy, and beatify our guy. When faced with a complex problem we let our selves believe that the problem will go away if we could just get rid of “those guys” How do you balance the budget? Well get rid of Obama and suddenly all of those intractable budget woes just magically go away.

As the Christmas season approaches, I pray that America will emerge from this fever and once again find her better angels. We face serious problems. And whether the problem is ISIS, stagnating wages, the state of race relations, our aging infrastructure, or the condition of the earth itself, I can assure you that rage will not solve it.

Last edited by Goose (12/09/2015 5:35 am)