A little background

Although anger is a natural emotion, many experts have begun to wonder whether society isn't now boiling over with rage. The social expression of anger has increased many-fold in the last few years. In the US alone, airplane rage incidents have increased from 1000 to 5000 in the last three years. Road rage has left over 12,000 people injured in the last five years. Workplace violence - virtually unheard of until the 1970s - now costs business about $36 billion every year. Certain sports events are so dangerous that they must be cancelled. Last month an ice-hockey referee was beaten to death at a school sports event. The abuse of millions of women, children and seniors is also on the rise. All of these events indicate that something serious is happening.

What is happening in society?

What is happening? We would think that when times are better people would feel better. Actually, it is the reverse. When times are better there is greater dissatisfaction. The greatest agitation seems to develop around civil rights in communities where minorities have made the greatest gains. Civil unrest due to poverty is in those areas where people have more income than they ever had before. Once people get a vision of what things could be like, they become very angry and enraged about how things actually are. This process causes nightmares for politicians who believe that if they make small improvements in social welfare, the recipients will be pleased and grateful.

What is happening to individuals?

Some people can never get angry. Aggressive and angry people can easily take advantage of such people because they just back away. They don't fight back. This is self-imposed victimization. Thus they make themselves helpless and become anxious, afraid, and depressed. Other people are always angry and irritated and cause everyone around them to become fearful. Most of this behavior is learned early in life. If one comes from a home that is generally tumultuous being angry becomes a way of life. Sometimes children learn that the only way to get what they want is to start a fight or be very angry and the parents will give in and respond to keep them quiet.

There is some evidence that temperament is established very early in life. Newborn babies arrive with very different responses to fright. Even a small delay in feeding routine is enough to cause some youngsters to become frantic. For most of us, learning about anger starts in childhood.

There is a kind of anger that is both normal and rational. If someone is trying to burn your house or hurt your family, the suitable response is to be angry, aggressive and take some appropriate action. Rational anger is the result of someone doing, or threatening to do, something hurtful to you.
Irrational anger, on the other hand, is when you find yourself being very angry when no one is doing anything to you. You get mad at a spouse, a friend, public officials, your priest or pastor or any even strangers who somehow do not meet your expectations.

How Anger and Anxiety go together

At first glance it hard to accept that anger is caused by some kind of threat or fear. Sometimes the threat is so obscure that it hard to recognize. If your children don't behave properly, why is this a threat? It could be that your self-image includes some notion that you can control your children. When you can't, your self-image of having control, being effective, etc. is endangered. Not many people take the time to wonder about these obscure sources of anger. But, with a little help, most people can figure it out and then wonder why they have to be in control all the time when everyone knows this is impossible. Even in our prisons its impossible to control people who don't want to be controlled. When it is tried we have terrible upheavals, like the prison riots at Attica.

The steps from being passive to being angry

The opposite of passive is not aggressive. The opposite of passive is active. Active people say what is on their mind and say it clearly. You usually know where you stand with active people.
Aggressive people move toward some objective in the presence of opposition. Unless people are a little aggressive they never discharge their responsibilities or get anything done in life. Once in a while the situation demands that you push a little in order to convince others that your position deserves attention. Angry people just jump to angry outbursts at the slightest provocation and skip being aggressive or even active.

Often angry people who want to overcome their problem wonder if they could just "have a tantrum" for a couple of hours, and then they would be fine. Unfortunately, this doesn't work. Sometimes people ask about being hypnotized or given some drug that will allow them to be angry in isolation. This doesn't work either. The reason these approaches to anger don't work is that the chronic sources of anger build up more rapidly than they can ever be discharged.

Chronic sources of anger

The most chronic source of anger is to have expectations of people that are unreasonable. Even over time, when other people consistently behave in a way that is contrary to our expectations we still get mad rather that re-evaluate our expectation. This gap between expectations and reality widens with time and the person becomes even angrier. Another chronic source of anger is when a person has expectations of the world around them. Sometimes a person feels that he/she knows the right way for everyone to behave. When people don't meet these expectations there is usually an angry outburst. It is no wonder that there are a lot of people out there who are chronically angry waiting for the slightest provocation to sound off. When two such people get together there is usually a confrontation of some sort. Some of these incidents result in injury or fatalities.

What to do about it?

If there is someone around who knows enough and cares enough, you can ask for their help. If not, you can take a deep breath and have a little talk with yourself. You can say, "Children act angrily and do hurtful things. Adults should be able to talk about being angry." If you haven't learned how to do this then it isn't too late to learn. You can also wonder to yourself why you give away so much power to other people.

Why do I give away so much of my responsibility?

In this culture the standard approach to anger is, "He/she made me mad." In fact, no one can make you mad unless you allow it - it's a learned skill. The inclination is to always make the other person, or event, responsible for your anger. It is as though "I am helpless. I just respond to whatever happens in whatever way is automatic for me." In fact, the other person is the way he/she is. You or I have a choice as to how we respond to that person. This is true even when the other person is doing something to you that you don't like.

It is easy to see that when you allow someone to make you angry when that person isn't doing anything to you, you are transferring a lot of power over your well-being and mental health to another person. With irrational anger, good mental health habits require that you examine the situation carefully. You can talk to yourself about the reality of irrational anger. It may hurt or injure another person. It doesn't help you at all. Being irrationally angry solves nothing. You are just indulging yourself with a childish temper tantrum. Temper tantrums not only diminish your well-being but the effects can last a long time. Sometimes angry people do not recover emotionally for several hours or even many days after having an outburst. What is at issue is "Why did I allow this insignificant event to destroy my well-being?"

Sometimes you have to rethink a situation that is created either from internal thoughts or external events. For example, you may see a customer in a restaurant being very obnoxious to a waiter. You find yourself getting very angry with the customer. Actually, you don't know the circumstances, but you get angry anyhow. Most people would say, "I feel sorry for the poor waiter who is getting verbally beaten up." That's a socially acceptable explanation and generally people would agree with you, without knowing anything about the situation. But, then you can wonder why you get anger. With a little thought you might begin to see that your anger at the customer may have a different explanation. The customer may be getting away with something you would never allow yourself to do. Even if a waiter dumped a bowl of soup in your lap, you might apologize to him for getting in the way. Some people can't stand to see someone else doing something that they would never do themselves without getting punished.

This process of getting angry when someone gets away with something you can't let yourself do is so common that is should have a name. In a social context it is the basis of prejudice. The racist says, "I can't stand being around those people. They are so lazy." It is highly likely that the racist hasn't taken a day off in many months or years. He grew up knowing that wasting time was a terrible thing to do. So, he doesn't do it. And, he can't stand anyone who does. Conservative women and men, who allow themselves little sexual freedom, can't stand those people who are sexually promiscuous. There is technical term for this process. It is called projection. It is used here to describe the process by which we read into the other person some part of ourselves we can't stand, and then berate, injure or degrade that person for being that way.

Someone who uses this defense mechanism to cope with internal stress can easily become arrogant, pompous, and self-righteous.

Everyone knows you can't always control how you feel. But, everyone knows you can control your behavior. And, everyone can make an effort to be responsible for his/her actions towards other people. Sometimes displays of anger are tied to a macho image. Reputations are built on being able to demonstrate savage behavior. In our society, this notion is supported by television, movies, and novels. The hero, in one way or another, is seen as a victim of circumstances over which he has no control. When he brings up his fists, or pulls a gun, it is as though he had no choice and was not personally responsible for his actions. The motives of revenge or pay-back against real or imagined evil are glorified.

This is a social problem that is constantly being addressed, with, unfortunately, little effect. The exploitation in the media of rage and savage behavior gives permission to thousands of viewers and readers to express their own rage and ignore personal accountability.

The most helpful thing anyone can do is to start learning to talk about angry feelings - either with themselves or someone else. You have to ask yourself "Do I want to be responsible for how I behave?" If the answer is yes, then you can learn to train your intellect to quickly spot those times when your thinking is irrational, and when you are surrendering personal responsibility. You can practice this skill on our discussion boards with impunity.

You can see from this brief article that anger is a complex subject. Also, it is easy to see that anger and fear are very closely associated. It is not possible to cover all of the associations in this brief introductory article.