Anger: response

Dear Paul - I read your first version of the "Anger" article and liked it.

Two thoughts: first, your point that *true* anger is anger at injustice. Another way to distinguish this from the "feelings" of anger, is to call it "righteous indignation". People are rightly indignant that people are killed in useless wars, that human work is organised in a way that harms so many people's lives.

A second thing that might be worth saying. When we are listening to someone else's anger, and the grief or fear mixed up with it, we most often get confused and fearful ourselves that the person will turn their angry feelings into action. sometimes that is a rational concern by us, and then we need to take steps to stop anyone being harmed (very occasionally, that might mean physically stopping someone).

But most of the time, our fear that an angry person with do something harmful, is related to our own earlier experiences where anger actually led to physical harm, or expression of anger was mixed up with emotionally hurtful experiences (" this angry friend now is a bit like my angry friend at school who blew up at me then would never talk to me again. That made me feel hurt and rejected...etc.") We rarely make this association consciously, rather it happens in an automatic way, which interrupts our ability to listen with relaxed anticipation that our friend in the present will go some way to healing just by us listening and the person getting something of their chest.

The same thing means that in the "public world", expressions of anger are treated as very "serious" problems (especially in middle class workplaces, groups etc). When people can't see someone's anger for what it is, they often get "angry" back (saying that it's disrespectful, abusive etc.) In one way that's true - it's never useful to take out our feelings on others uninvited. But in another way, the reaction has the effect of men "bottling things up more".