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Anger Management

thepointmag.com

21–30 of 35 posts

Re: Anger Management

#21
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thinking deeply on your comment, and appreciate it. Aren't these just degrees of the same? I'm not sure the value of cultivating positive view of the small manifestation, but then scolding it when it becomes big. Imho, yes it's understandable, but not a perspective we should value as part of our growth -- we should just work to will it out of our minds, and maybe someday succeed? Yours seems like a perspective th…

Not your parent poster, but I view the initial emotional reaction to an event as "an emotion that is to be observed, cannot be prevented, but must only reach the surface if the situation calls for it." Say you are talking in a small group of people. You perceive something that someone says to you as an implied insult. You _will_ feel a flash of anger, you should observe that you are angry as it bubbles up through you…

I think this is really thoughtful.

In mindfulness practices, I've heard it mentioned as "noting without judgement". Maybe this is all just a matter of labels :)

Re: Anger Management

#22
post #20

I made a couple of reads to try to parse out what was going on... and I just ended up confused. I think the following quote best shows the frame of reference I eventually came to. > Consider the conflict between the person whose sense of justice makes it impossible for her to give up on her anger, and the person whose sense of justice makes it impossible for her to become angry. There is a lot of discussion, but I do…

Funny. I found this able to put words on something I've struggled with. I found it pretty profound in its observation In my reading: This author is acknowledging that they're "not nice" in small personal interactions, but is feeling others are "not nice" in large structural interactions with groups and systems. And they're lamenting that others commonly praise a "water under the bridge" thinking about small person-to…

I definitely see that as one of many things the article talks about. There's a lot of ideas, but I don't see a narrative in it.

> Does that interpretation ring with you?

Not really. I have no frame of reference for understanding either group.

I struggle with extreme emotions all the time, to the point where everyone considers them to be inappropriate. For the safety of everyone, I've learned to read and accept my emotions while also letting them go.

I find their friend problem particularly irritating. All anger do is prompt me to logically double check my relationship with the person. Then I would determine if my anger is either justified. If it was justified, I would have to decide if I need to act on it or not.

For most people, this is not a conscious process and they spend a lot of time rationalizing after the fact. If I'm going to act emotionally, I don't need to justify it.

My therapist loves me... I'm not sure if that's good or bad. :)

Re: Anger Management

#23
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not your parent poster, but I view the initial emotional reaction to an event as "an emotion that is to be observed, cannot be prevented, but must only reach the surface if the situation calls for it." Say you are talking in a small group of people. You perceive something that someone says to you as an implied insult. You _will_ feel a flash of anger, you should observe that you are angry as it bubbles up through you…

I think this is really thoughtful. In mindfulness practices, I've heard it mentioned as "noting without judgement". Maybe this is all just a matter of labels :)

There’s also the issue of internal versus external. I’ve always been off the mindset that you never have to apologize for your feelings, but you should comport yourself so that you never have to apologize for your actions toward yourself or others.

Feelings are tricky to control even after you’ve noticed them, and maybe even after you’ve evaluated them. Therefore spending energy on them is not always judicious. However, every action is a choice, and letting your feelings drive you to doing something regrettable is, well, regrettable.

Re: Anger Management

#25
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny. I found this able to put words on something I've struggled with. I found it pretty profound in its observation In my reading: This author is acknowledging that they're "not nice" in small personal interactions, but is feeling others are "not nice" in large structural interactions with groups and systems. And they're lamenting that others commonly praise a "water under the bridge" thinking about small person-to…

I definitely see that as one of many things the article talks about. There's a lot of ideas, but I don't see a narrative in it. > Does that interpretation ring with you? Not really. I have no frame of reference for understanding either group. I struggle with extreme emotions all the time, to the point where everyone considers them to be inappropriate. For the safety of everyone, I've learned to read and accept my emo…

I hear that. Thanks for reply. Very different from my experience, but glad to understand.

> My therapist loves me... I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

Yay for therapy :) Just had my first session today

Re: Anger Management

#26
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Buddhism anger is viewed as a poison. Over the years I am agreeing with this more and more. It seems lately it has become very fashionable to constantly being "outraged", "angry" or similar. Sometimes anger can motivate people to change things but usually it causes a lot of friction and prevents finding solutions to problems. Anger can also easily be exploited by political leaders.

I've seen the phrase "Anger is a good servant but a terrible master" used to encapsulate some of this. The idea being that if you control it but get energy from it then it can be used positively, but if you become angry and lose control then that will lead to bad things. I don't know if this can be squared with the Buddhist view however. Is seeing it as poison meant to say it's bad in all measures, or is there an app…

There is a “wrathful Buddha”. As far as I understand he is angry at the state of the world and uses this anger as motivation to reduce suffering.

In the end I think most important is to keep perspective on things and don’t get stuck at anger which so often seems to be the case.

Re: Anger Management

#27
I used to get angry all the time. Really angry.

One day my counselor said to me “listen, here’s what I want you to do. When you’re starting to feel angry, just ask yourself ‘does this really matter?’. If it matters, go ahead get angry. If it doesn’t matter then why bother getting angry?”

I rarely get angry now because almost nothing actually matters enough to get angry, once you start to ask yourself the question.

Re: Anger Management

#28
In this article:

* People are angry about different things. Maybe different kinds of things, but a taxonomy isn't important to the exploration.

* Telling people they SHOULD NOT be angry and should calm down is common.

* Telling people they SHOULD be angry (about some injustice) is also common.

* These are both kinds of the titular "anger management".

* Anger seems to involve moral insight: e.g., one is (at least sometimes) angry _in response to_ "reasons to be angry" that one perceives.

* Anger seems to involve a corruption of moral vision: e.g., revenge and maltreatment of the offender seem good when one is angry.

* Callard (the author) has an impulse to resist both kinds of "anger management" and believes others do, too. (And that we're not exactly wrong to.) Why does one not experience the call to calm down as help to dispel the corruption of vision, nor the call to be angry as help to see truths about injustice?

* Callard argues we are split in our ability to respond to [in]justice: "the more perfectly one attends to the gravity of the wrongs done, the less sensitive one becomes to the gravity of the wrongs one is poised to commit in response. The perspective of the angry person is sharply divided from the non-angry one: each can see only the side of justice they are looking at."

* "This anger divide lies at the heart of our political predicament, and structures our interactions with one another at the deepest level. And yet, for this very reason, it is itself difficult to recognize."

* We can understand the society level anger divide better by considering the anger divide in oneself.

* Personal story beginning with "A few weeks ago" illustrates the incompatible values of the angry self and the non-angry self: we can't really rank the values or even hold both at once, only switch between them.

* No wonder people angry about issue A can't see eye to eye with people not angry about A. "There is no rational way to adjudicate their conflict—the best a third-party mediator could do is flip back and forth between who they want to side with."

* "The anger divide is frequently experienced as a political disaster: How can we ever hope to get everyone on the same page? Why are people so impervious to having their minds changed, anger-wise? ...it is because they are rational, and care about justice, that ... [they] are refusing to allow others to banish them from their property, the truth."

* There is truth in anger and in not-anger. Justice may be "something on the wrong scale to be taken in by a single human response." Instead of wanting (and trying to make) everyone to feel the same way, we should recognize we are not individually emotionally complete and be glad that others cover our blind spots.

* Callard's personal story dilemma was resolved in favor of love, away from vengeance in part because her son was around, and she would have felt ridiculous explaining her vengeance to his impartial position.

* "The very presence of other people can make us better, even when they don’t make us more like them, or change us, or even understand us. Sometimes other people help us exactly by not feeling what we feel, exactly by remaining resolutely who they are."

Re: Anger Management

#29
"Experience"; "respond": Is it not the involuntary nature of anger that gives it value and nobility? "Choice": but our autonomy gives us dignity. Can this conflict be resolved, or is it in the interplay of these things that lies meaning?

Re: Anger Management

#30
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thinking deeply on your comment, and appreciate it. Aren't these just degrees of the same? I'm not sure the value of cultivating positive view of the small manifestation, but then scolding it when it becomes big. Imho, yes it's understandable, but not a perspective we should value as part of our growth -- we should just work to will it out of our minds, and maybe someday succeed? Yours seems like a perspective th…

Not your parent poster, but I view the initial emotional reaction to an event as "an emotion that is to be observed, cannot be prevented, but must only reach the surface if the situation calls for it." Say you are talking in a small group of people. You perceive something that someone says to you as an implied insult. You _will_ feel a flash of anger, you should observe that you are angry as it bubbles up through you…

You have discovered: Spinoza's "Ethics," which, in an essay bouncing between the Bible (where I stopped reading every word) and Aristotle and Plato, is notably missing.

That said, she doesn't say that she acted on it (and only implies that she didn't), so a lot of this thread reads as melodrama.

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