Anger: A Tool For Memory
Jan. 4th, 2010 09:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snousleThe subject of anger is of enduring interest. I've come to accept that I've got a lot of it and that this is not going to change. There are excellent reasons for this, which I'm not going to elaborate on right now. It's not actually a bad thing, but it is easy to destroy yourself with it. The key has been to understand that common provocations are not actually what generates anger; the source is generally something deeper and not necessarily tied to a specific thing.
Anyway, one perspective on anger that I've never encountered elsewhere is the idea that it is a tool of memory; expressions of anger are a very effective way of implanting strong ideas and associations in other people's minds. So when someone carelessly knocks over an expensive antique and you're angry at that person for breaking it, your anger is a means of ensuring that the association "expensive + broken = bad" is fixed in their mind, making it (hopefully) less likely that this will happen again.
If you're the kind of person for whom antiques are truly important, this is not a bad thing at all. The idea that anger should always be "managed" or "controlled" (which is really a euphemism for "eliminated") is, IMHO, quite wrong. People who encourage you to to suppress anger outright are trying to dis-empower you. It's a natural, genuine source of power that is there for your use, and I think it should be used (i.e. expressed), but it has some notable limitations.
It is useful to imagine anger as a squirt gun filled with ink. Use it a few times and you'll leave an enduring mark. But use it often and it will run out, so you'll be furiously pumping at the trigger while nothing comes out. Instead of leaving a mark, people will laugh at you for being an idiot.
The obvious conclusion about anger, then, is not to express it freely or stamp it out entirely, but to use it wisely. If you waste anger on foolish targets, it is no longer effective on more significant ones. What do you want people to remember about you? What principles are most important to enforce? That small number of things are what it should be used for.
Anyway, one perspective on anger that I've never encountered elsewhere is the idea that it is a tool of memory; expressions of anger are a very effective way of implanting strong ideas and associations in other people's minds. So when someone carelessly knocks over an expensive antique and you're angry at that person for breaking it, your anger is a means of ensuring that the association "expensive + broken = bad" is fixed in their mind, making it (hopefully) less likely that this will happen again.
If you're the kind of person for whom antiques are truly important, this is not a bad thing at all. The idea that anger should always be "managed" or "controlled" (which is really a euphemism for "eliminated") is, IMHO, quite wrong. People who encourage you to to suppress anger outright are trying to dis-empower you. It's a natural, genuine source of power that is there for your use, and I think it should be used (i.e. expressed), but it has some notable limitations.
It is useful to imagine anger as a squirt gun filled with ink. Use it a few times and you'll leave an enduring mark. But use it often and it will run out, so you'll be furiously pumping at the trigger while nothing comes out. Instead of leaving a mark, people will laugh at you for being an idiot.
The obvious conclusion about anger, then, is not to express it freely or stamp it out entirely, but to use it wisely. If you waste anger on foolish targets, it is no longer effective on more significant ones. What do you want people to remember about you? What principles are most important to enforce? That small number of things are what it should be used for.
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Date: 2010-01-05 10:59 pm (UTC)The use of anger within relationships where one or both parties have (at least in principle) something to lose by eliciting it is a much more complicated matter, and is something I have almost no experience & very little knowledge of. In particular, between lovers a fit of anger is colored (to a greater or lesser degree) by the threat of withholding love or ending the relationship. At one extreme, the threat may be carried out; at the other, it may not be taken seriously, or even amount to an expression of confidence that the relationship is immune to such attacks. In an asymmetrical situation, such as where the boss can lose his temper as a form of punishment in that the employee is humiliated by not daring to retaliate, all manner of nasty possibilities arise, and, as you say, one should get out if one can.