Function: Anger is a protective circuit. What are the trigger mechanisms? Utility: Anger offers the mind focus on the source of the anger, and provides urgency regarding its resolution. It can allow feats of strength or mental accuity that could not be performed while lacking the focus/motivation for resolution anger provides. Pitfalls: Anger becomes an issue when it goes beyond a certain threshold in a person to where it becomes self-sustaining, or causes focus on something other than the true source and thus urgently attempts to resolve something unrelated to its resolution. If it is self-sustaining, its utility is co-opted to serve a perspective that is constantly skewed by anger. No time to delve at the moment. Any playas in da house?
Unjustified anger and justified anger should be dealt with seperately dont you think? Is it possible that they can both serve the same function? peace c20
They are both anger. Who determines the justification? I don't think they should be dealt with separately no, they are the same thing. Unjustified anger really comes from either lacking information or comprehension of whatever scenario is in question, an inability or refusal to relate to the others involved, or the self-sustaining anger thing that co-opts your lense on reality. I think that should all fall under this thread. No?
Well I guess if we are discussing trigger mechanisms then yep you are right. This isn't the Moral/Ethics/Justice forum after all. Should be interesting wes. Have to go now but will check it out later Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! peace c20
Hmm.. now that I think about it, I don't think there is such a thing as "unjustified anger" in subject we're discussing. In the person experiencing the anger, the fact that they are angry implies directly that they feel justified in being angered.
Anger is essentially a storm in a kettle. Some people like to pretend it is a hurricane of global dimensions. Anger "protects" our misunderstandings from becoming clear to us. Anger is triggered by our misunderstanding of a situation, whereby this misunderstanding is based on particular beliefs that we have. Those beliefs are mainly our ideas about how things should be (like, "the world should be perfect", "people should treat me kindly", "I am never wrong, others make mistakes", "this shouldn't happen"). The utility of anger is that it seems to make us intellectually sharp, pointed, confident, powerful, special, certain of our identity. Thus, anger seems good for our intellectual pursuits. But the downside is that anger invariably makes us unhappy. We may accomplish a certain action in anger, and we feel fullfilled -- yet not happy, we are tense. If problems are continually solved by the use of anger, this tension slowly builds up into a constant state of stress, and we become physically sick.
They surely *feel* justified in being angered. Whether they *think* they are justified in being angered is another matter.
Anger can be usefull. It causes biochemical changes in the body which can be used for productive and good purposes. But it is like TNT. The usefull is the thin slice of possbilties; the destructive is much more common. Using TNT can be productive, but the user has to know the strengths and weaknesses of the material for it to be effective in achieving the set goals. The uneducated can set off TNT easily, but the chances of them blowing their own hand off is much greater. Therefore, while I maintain that anger can be a tool, I must first warn 99% of the wolrd's population away from attempting to use it. They will more than likely end up injuring themselves or thier loved ones in the attempt. As for triggers, it seems that desire and fear are the most common triggers for the generation of anger; also for the release of it in destructive ways.
I like this, but would modify it somewhat. In this context I think anger protects what we understand. It sheilds that understanding from aggressive challenge. Whether is or is not actually a misunderstanding doesn't necessarily correlate. That one is angry doesn't mean they don't understand something, it just means they're protecting the understanding they have.
But it is still a misunderstanding. Have the person justify their reasoning once calm, and they'll come to the concluision that they acted irrationally when they were angry.
You have stated that it's impossible to act rationally while angry. Justify this. I'll allow you the generality if that's all you're getting at. Generally I agree, most don't utilize their anger constructivley. It's not necessarily so though, as I've seen any number of rational acts conveyed from anger. I generally agree with River-wind's comments above, and mostly with your own... but there are many instances of productive anger. Would you say that anger greases the wheels of action? I suppose that might be generally true, but depends greatly on the invidual.
Can I suggest that you include in the question the two types of anger : That being 1] directed at self and 2] directed at others. Anger at self has the potential to be constrictive like: "Shit I made the same mistake again" type anger. However anger at others is IMO never fully rational. There is also a difference between being "firm" and angry. Anger is in most cases irrationally justified and acted. Anger at others is also usually premised in a sense of injustice.
Anger makes for very poor decision making. It also makes a person reliant on anger to continue to support such decisions. There is a good yardstick. If you can't continue to support a decision when you have a clear head, it was wrong. It is better when you don't use anger in the first place.
Anger is not to be confused with decisiveness and/or assertiveness. However, to a point, they can appear together, and this is why it seems that even though appearing angry (or even thinking oneself angry, one can always be victim to false, conditioned misperception of oneself (which is another anger trigger)), a person still can act rationally. But take a person while being angry, tape them. Later on, when they are calm, sit down with them, watch the tape, and logically analyze the arguments they have made while they were angry. Normally, the person will admit that they have made illogical, irrational arguments while they were angry, arguments based on irrational beliefs. But the reasons behind getting angry are always irrational, of the kind "This should not happen". * * * Thank you!
One cannot stop from becoming angry only try to redirect that anger somehow by using logic to see the anger for what it is. When logic can win out over anger then reason sets in and calmness prevails. The problem is that the anger blinds us from our own logic and that's a very bad characteristic of humans. Anger sometimes causes humans to become unaware of what they are doing and lose control of themselves cauing catastrophic results at times.
Here is a true story. I worked hard in a department of an insurance firm. It was a new department and I was taken on as a junior with one other girl. This girl and I made the department into something quite special and we both got pay rises accordingly. We had no direct line manager because none had 'yet' been hired. I think the company wanted to see how it went before commiting to pay someone a manager's salary. Anyway, one year on the company decides that it needs a manager in our department and as neither the girl I work with or I have much ambition in that direction, they hire a woman who has recently graduated in business studies and finance and make her our manager. The woman did 'nothing'. She scorned the practices that we had put in place and yet suggested no changes. When we were really under pressure to deliver she wouldn't help. Her contribution was zero and there were more people in the office than just us that realised this. She became known as 'lazy' pure and simple. No one offered to make her coffee or get her lunch because she had a very haughty attitude with everyone. Then one day she had some sort of terrible panic attack. I dont know to this day if it was epilepsy or whatever but she thrashed around and struggled for breathe. As much as I didnt like her in a professional sense, my better nature took over and i went to her assistance. No-one in the office payed any attention. Rightly or wrongly my first instinct was to get her outside in the fresh air. She was intimating that this is where she wanted to go anyway. Not one person got up to help me help her. The total apathy of everyone in that office made me angrier than I probably have ever been and I literally screamed out 'you are all fucking useless, are you all such weak fuckers that you wont even help me???' No one moved. This was not the language to use in that environment. There were some relatively very senior people within earshot. I managed to get the woman outside eventually and reception phoned an ambulance. We never saw the woman again but she was alright I think. From that moment on I lost all respect for my collegues and they thought my outburst was hypocritical given that I clearly had no respect for the woman which just made me more angry. Eventually I left that company but the image of me trying to get this almost dead weight out of the building and everyone elses apathy still makes me get angry. I dont think I would have ever sat down afterwards and refered to my anger as a storm in a teacup or irrational, however by others it was viewed as irrational even though they knew the woman needed help. this kind of brings me back to my first point about anger being justified. Was I justified to be angry? peace c20
Why did you think that the air outside was "fresher" than the air inside? And what made you think that, even if it was, that the "fresh" air would help? Anger is seldom, if ever, really justified. Oh, but we "justify" things all the time, don't we? We lie to our own kids, telling them that there's a Santa Claus, but we justify it by saying dumb-ased things like, "Oh, that's just a little white lie, it won't hurt anyone!" Yet that's when the kids learn to lie, ain't it? And do we like it when our kids lie to us? Baron Max
This woman was a parasite and the rational thing to do is to let her sink if she's going to sink. The caring thing to do is to get her the help that she needs, and it is the right thing to do. A lot of us have taken too much from too many such beings to really care what happens to them. To appear to be human you have to show some genuine empathy for the people you work with, and you certainly don't want to be beating on them all the time. The apathy you see is induced by the kind of person that you described the manager as being. A lot of people perceive this apathy as the result of what such a manager wants. A lot of us would just as soon see her live with that result if she can. Nothing else seems to work, not hints, persuasion, going over their head, not anything, and attempting to be helpful can get you fired or make the rest of your tenure unlivable.
