Friday, December 15, 2017
Being angry
I've been so angry lately about so many things, from the mean-spiritedness of my new cat-hating neighbors to the killing of net neutrality. And then there's Trump, his Republican henchmen, and their evil tax bill.
Sometimes I'm so angry I feel almost sick, and there's the guilt ... that little voice in my head saying good people aren't judgemental, aren't unforgiving, aren't angry. Hey, it's even one of the deadly sins. I have to forcibly remind myself that anger can be a positive thing and that even Jesus got angry ...
And here's a bit from a psst article by Philip Endean SJ on wrath ...
[...] At the outset, we need to make a distinction. Christian tradition, perhaps mirroring civilised society as a whole, is ambivalent about anger. Angry people are disruptive; by definition they want things to be different, and are prepared to be anti-social and disagreeable until they succeed. To the extent that Christianity reinforces social norms, it finds various ways of marginalising, even condemning anger. But to the extent that Christianity is an agency of change and conversion, both social and individual, anger is an important source of positive energy. The perception of unmet needs provokes responses that can be termed angry: if the perceptions are correct, then the anger is righteous, a hunger and thirst for justice that is to be sustained, not repressed ...
So it's ok to be angry? Maybe.
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What an interesting topic. I agree with you and with Endean - anger can be positive, even holy. Maybe we should distinguish between anger and rage. Rage, to my way of thinking anyway, is irrational and destructive. Anger, if properly channeled and used as a motivator, can lead to change for the better.
ReplyDeleteOf course, it's not uncommon for our personal emotions to intermix anger and rage.
Yeah, that article by Fr. Endean was about the deadly sin of wrath and he distinguishes between anger and wrath/rage. I just hope my anger doesn't go there.
ReplyDeleteSaw "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" last night. A movie about anger, rage and a lack of impulse control. I hope Commonweal has Richard Alleva or Rand Richard Cooper review it. For me, it was too over the top. Everyone was in extremis, everyone reacted with crazy acts of violence. There was a sort of reconciliation at the end which was crazy, too. I guess the country FEELS crazy like that now.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't heard of that film but I just looked up the trailer - a lot of angry people! I always remember an old movie called Falling Down, where the main character just snapped.
DeleteExcellent actors but, as angry as I've been lately, I kept asking "Why did they just do that?" The actions in service to their anger seemed all self-indulgent to me.
Delete"...actions in service to anger.." I think you're right about a lot of it being self indulgent. Self indulgent anger is kind the zeitgeist of our politics right now.
DeleteAmong the best movies I saw this past year. Acting great (Frances McDormand). Well written and produced (and fires, but no helicopter crashes!). Reflects at least a piece of what our media sees as the national mood. Then there's the sheriff (Woody Harrelson) who is not an angry character. Rational and generous to the end. I thought what lay beneath McDormand's anger was remorse...she was as angry at herself as at everyone else. The two angriest people in the movie take off at the end...their anger spent, I thought.
DeleteYes, the flashback showed things were dysfunctional even before the tragedy. I don't want to say more to spoil it for anyone else here. The movie was certainly relevant to our present national mood, though not political.
DeleteAnd there's the curious turn of "Dixon" pursuing the collection of DNA. I found that intriguing. The sheriff replacement! Who He? Does he tell Dixon the truth?
DeleteMartin McDonagh, the writer and director wrote "The Beauty Queen of Leenane". His experience at play writing shows up to the benefit of the movie.
Sorry....more than you want to know!!!
I heard about this movie, but sounds like it's more intense than I thought. Probably don't want to take an already-angry husband to see this.
DeleteMight get it out of his system.
DeleteSince writer/director McDonagh is an Irishman maybe this reflects Irish anger, not American anger...though it is an American, not Irish movie.
Made me think of this Sesame Street ditty.
ReplyDeleteIt Aint Bad to Get Mad.
One of the Beatitudes: "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied.
Must watch more Sesame Street :)
ReplyDeleteCrystal, I'm so sorry to hear about your neighbors. Few things are more of a downer than conflict with neighbors.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's very stressful. I'm already kind of the neighborhood pariah because my house is rotting away while the rest of the neighborhood is becoming gentrified. When my next door neighbor died a few years ago, his yard was turned into two mini mansions selling for half a million dollars each.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, the mortal-est of neighborhood sins: thou shalt not put a damper on my property values. The notion of the preferential option for the poor is a grand idea, but within sensible limits: it stops at the fence line dividing our properties. My Zillow record is sacrosanct.
ReplyDeleteRaber is so angry all the time, I can hardly bear to watch the news with him. It's beginning to get corrosive.
ReplyDeleteI vote, write my elected reps, draw my lines in the sand. Beyond that, I can't see killing myself from the inside by freaking out over what I can't control and focusing in what I can.
As a recovering control freak, this isn't easy for me. Getting sick isn't exactly a gift, but it forces you to get real about the limitations of your own influence.
All the early retirements, layoffs and firing at work this year drives home the fact that the world goes on without you, and leaving scarcely creates a ripple.
If I didn't have some ongoing personal responsibilities, I'd love to rent a cabin in the woods for a couple months. No phone, no internet, no cable or satellite, just books and a stock of food. I can only dream.
DeleteI would bring a geiger counter to let me know if our idiot president did something really stupid.
DeleteA nice place to wait out the apocalypse :)
DeleteWhy bother with the geiger counter? If that moron starts a nuclear conflagration, you aren't going to survive it. I'd just as soon not know when The Cloud is coming. Time to re-read "On the Beach."
DeleteI don't watch tv news, I get it from the newspaper. I also block offensive stuff on Facebook. I don't do Twitter. Life is too short to spend it on stuff that drives you crazy.
DeleteYeah, the only people who will notice I'm gone will be the cats and my sister. I don't like being angry because it does make me feel kind of sick. But I do think anger is the appropriate response to a lot of what's happening.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of anger at Trump and his minions, now they've banned seven words for CDC reports ... vulnerable, entitlement, diversity, transgender, fetus, evidence-based, and science-based.
ReplyDeleteI don't see how they can ban words. Has this happened under any other administration? If so I wasn't aware of it. I would think it could be challenged under freedom of speech. Or maybe that's part of the Bill of Rights they wanted to get rid of.
DeleteIt's probably neither enforceable nor constitutional. But I don't put it past those putzes to try to fire people over it anyway.
DeleteThat is right out of 1984. And to think we had a nice couple-of-days respite from cock-eyed, completely inexplicable dumbness emanating from the White House.
DeleteHere's more about it at Scientific American.
ReplyDeleteYeah,our governor tried that (after his old company had to pay back to the government more than $1 billion the Fifth Amendment genius overbilled) with the words "sea rise" and "climate change." Became the laughingstock of the country for 48 hours, but with Sam Brownbeck and Scott Walker out there, how long can a governor hold the laughingstock position?
ReplyDeleteStan wants a cabin in the woods. I am trying to talk my wife into the Outer Hebrides with a bunch of Corries CDs and some bottles of what is distilled there. Fact is, most of the country is angry, with justification, at what the perpetually angry president* is doing to everybody but Fifth Amendment governors.
The Outer Hebrides - I've never been there but it looks beautiful there Makes me think of World War Z - when the zombie apocalypse hit, Nova Scotia was one of the few safe places left :)
ReplyDeleteThe Outer Hebrides is where my Aunt Ellen was born. It is also where Trump's mother is from. He visits there. Find some other remote area. Maybe the Falklands. Or McMurdo Base.
ReplyDeleteSamoa, Tonga, Vanuatu; somewhere in the South Pacific.
ReplyDelete"Bali Hai will whisper..
Here am I, your special island..
Come to me, come to me."
But the bugs. Big bugs. Giant flying cockroaches. And centipedes. Eeeeeeek!
ReplyDeleteOf all the places I've been, I still like parts of California best. Some place like Pacific Grove or Napa could be really nice!
You have to remember, this woman has already nixed Prince Edward Island. My late barber, who visited every place in the world, liked Bali best. But it has a volcano erupting now. There are enough islands in the Hebrides that I could avoid the pudgy guy. Besides, he's heading to Siberia.
ReplyDelete