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> Anger ends up being destructive because we think we have to suppress it or neutralize it. This just increases its strength over time until it explodes out vio

> Anger ends up being destructive because we think we have to suppress it or neutralize it. This just increases its strength over time until it explodes out violently. Dunno. One are going to end up in alot of avoidable verbal and physical fights if ones anger is not suppressed. Just such a simple thing as the comment answer timer on HN helps alot.

Trasmatta 3y ago
Anger results in verbal and physical fights because it gets suppressed and shamed for long enough until it explodes out. A better route is understanding the anger and the underlying emotion it's protecting (often shame) before it becomes a problem.
jimkleiber 3y ago
Yes possibly there will be more fights. Anger is a fighting emotion. But that doesn't mean fighting is bad either. We often suppress fights and conflict, especially verbal ones, and avoid them until they accumulate so many facets and get so loud that we can't ignore them and then hit each other with years of grievances. I think it's not only ok to verbally fight but helps us resolve conflict instead of avoid it. And I think if we can resolve it at the verbal level it doesn't have to become physical. But I think the cultural suppression of fighting/conflict is even deeper than the suppression of anger. A friend just asked for our definitions of peace and I said I currently believe it's a mythical concept where conflict doesn't exist.
chaos_emergent 3y ago
The very fact that you believe that anger leads to verbal and physical fights proves OP’s point. When anger can be let out without the culture at large thinking of it as a threat that needs to be neutralized, and instead a charge that needs to be addressed, anger isn’t harmful, it’s constructive and instrumental. Anger normally points out a boundary that’s being breached in which valuable things to a self - like autonomy, comfort, connection - are compromised. That we have so many angry people and that our culture encourages anger management rather than anger processing points to its rejection writ large
- jimkleiber 3y ago
  And maybe it does lead to fights when it's let out but little and contextually appropriate fights, and then the people dig deeper and gain a better understanding of their situations. Anger can tell people that we want them to stop doing an activity and sometimes people don't even know their behavior is breaching those boundaries. One time an ex visited me in a park. I juggled the soccer ball then kicked it to her. She rolled it back and said she didn't want to play. I juggled it for 15 more minutes and then kicked it to her again. She stood up and kicked it with me for like 5 minutes. Three weeks later, she got angry and said "And you don't respect my boundaries!" And I was really confused. She said, "I TOLD you I didn't want to kick the ball and you still kicked it to me." I wished she had expressed more anger when I kicked it the second time. I wasn't trying to make her angry. Kicking the ball with her wasn't that important to me. I just didn't know that it bothered her that much and if I did, I immediately would have stopped.
  - chaos_emergent 3y ago
    totally. Smaller conflicts are much more manageable and keep people in connection so much more than repressing it.
    - jimkleiber 3y ago
      Exactly that, "keep people in connection." I love how you framed it. When we suppress the conflict, we distance more and more from each other and from ourselves, disconnecting more and more.

Trasmatta 3y ago

Anger results in verbal and physical fights because it gets suppressed and shamed for long enough until it explodes out. A better route is understanding the anger and the underlying emotion it's protecting (often shame) before it becomes a problem.

jimkleiber 3y ago

Yes possibly there will be more fights. Anger is a fighting emotion. But that doesn't mean fighting is bad either. We often suppress fights and conflict, especially verbal ones, and avoid them until they accumulate so many facets and get so loud that we can't ignore them and then hit each other with years of grievances. I think it's not only ok to verbally fight but helps us resolve conflict instead of avoid it. And I think if we can resolve it at the verbal level it doesn't have to become physical. But I think the cultural suppression of fighting/conflict is even deeper than the suppression of anger. A friend just asked for our definitions of peace and I said I currently believe it's a mythical concept where conflict doesn't exist.

chaos_emergent 3y ago

The very fact that you believe that anger leads to verbal and physical fights proves OP’s point. When anger can be let out without the culture at large thinking of it as a threat that needs to be neutralized, and instead a charge that needs to be addressed, anger isn’t harmful, it’s constructive and instrumental. Anger normally points out a boundary that’s being breached in which valuable things to a self - like autonomy, comfort, connection - are compromised. That we have so many angry people and that our culture encourages anger management rather than anger processing points to its rejection writ large

jimkleiber 3y ago
And maybe it does lead to fights when it's let out but little and contextually appropriate fights, and then the people dig deeper and gain a better understanding of their situations. Anger can tell people that we want them to stop doing an activity and sometimes people don't even know their behavior is breaching those boundaries. One time an ex visited me in a park. I juggled the soccer ball then kicked it to her. She rolled it back and said she didn't want to play. I juggled it for 15 more minutes and then kicked it to her again. She stood up and kicked it with me for like 5 minutes. Three weeks later, she got angry and said "And you don't respect my boundaries!" And I was really confused. She said, "I TOLD you I didn't want to kick the ball and you still kicked it to me." I wished she had expressed more anger when I kicked it the second time. I wasn't trying to make her angry. Kicking the ball with her wasn't that important to me. I just didn't know that it bothered her that much and if I did, I immediately would have stopped.
- chaos_emergent 3y ago
  totally. Smaller conflicts are much more manageable and keep people in connection so much more than repressing it.
  - jimkleiber 3y ago
    Exactly that, "keep people in connection." I love how you framed it. When we suppress the conflict, we distance more and more from each other and from ourselves, disconnecting more and more.