Anger Mismanagement
The criticality acclaimed film “Network” hit the big screen almost a half-century ago, but it reflects our collective psychology as much today as it did then.
Movie buffs will remember Peter Finch’s Oscar-winning performance as Howard Beale, the anchor for a national news program, and co-Academy award recipient Faye Dunaway as the enterprising Chief of Programming, Diana Christensen. The unassuming Beale is about to be terminated due to his show’s low ratings, but before shuffling off into obscurity he goes on an unexpected rant: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore,” he screams at the camera.
His co-workers believe Beale has gone off the deep end, but then are shocked to realize that his outlandish performance has caused the show’s ratings to spike. The savvy Christensen decides to keep the “angry man” on the air, because clearly viewers liked what they saw. As Beale builds on his initial success, copycats emerge. People all over begin shouting from their cars, their balconies, their front sidewalks, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.”
Christensen now puts the “mad prophet of the airways” on primetime, but when Beale begins pontificating at length on the anger-provoking ills of contemporary society, viewers begin to tune him out. The explanations are boring; the catharsis of anger is all the masses want.
The same year “Network” made its debut, the British essayist Henry Fairlie penned a series of articles on the Seven Deadly Sins for The New Republic magazine. Reflecting on the prevalence of the Fifth Sin, Fairlie concluded that “We live in the age of wrath.” If that was true then, it’s true now in spades. As the Pulitzer Prize winning author Charles Duhigg observed in 2019, “The tenor of our anger has shifted. It has become less episodic and more persistent, a constant drumbeat in our lives.”
In today’s deeply polarized society there is anger aplenty on both sides: Donald Trump’s detractors are angry with him, and his supporters are equally angry for him. But Mssrs. Trump and Biden now feel like mere stand-ins for the deep antipathy people on either side of the political fence feel toward “the other.” Duhigg believes cable news and social media have contributed significantly to this state of affairs. “They have perfected the monetization of moral outrage,” he explains.
So, whatever happened to the “sin” of wrath? The fact is, it has always been a transgression that’s more honored in the breach than the observance. The reason for this may lie in the fact that the Judeo-Christian scriptures deliver a decidedly mixed message. “In the Bible,” world religions scholar Robert Thurman notes, “the angriest person around seems to be God.” His hapless victims include Adam and Eve, their oldest son, Cain, the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Egyptian first-born, and the list goes on. And…like Father, like Son. How do we explain (or excuse) Jesus’ petulant cursing of that barren fig tree? If it befits a divinity, it become all that much the easier to justify anger’s use against “mine own enemies.”
Sure, wrath remains one of the Deadly Sins, but for most people it is regarded much like a stop sign we can coast through, or a speed limit so loosely enforced that it can be safely transgressed.
To be sure, there is always a place for “controlled anger” in a healthy society. Martin Luther King once admitted that he relied on it to compose his powerful sermons. But King’s anger was modulated by his steadfast demand that we treat others with love (hence, his embrace of non-violent resistance). For too many of us, though, anger has become the default reaction when things don’t go our way – at the check-out line, driving down the highway, on the playing field, inside the courtroom, or in the political arena.
Some will undoubtedly argue that displays of anger are called for because otherwise people won’t take our concerns seriously. But that presumes we are skilled enough to employ it without poisoning the relationship. Unfortunately, that’ seldom happens. As the ancient Roman writer and statesman Seneca put it, “Anger almost always makes it harder to get things right.”
Is there an antidote for what ails us? The classic solution is to “count to ten” before letting it all hang out, which is just a colloquial way of saying “practice patience.” This is how we develop a clear recognition of anger’s authority over us, clouding the mind and inhibiting good judgment.
Patient self-observation also produces insight into the unique way anger manifests in our own lives. “In dealing with anger,” Roshi Nancy Baker instructs, “we need first to discover our own particular version of it.”
One doesn’t have to erupt in rage to qualify as an angry spirit. Less overt varieties – annoyance, irritation (my personal bane), indignation - can also create difficulties. The challenge is to put the reins on the anger lying just below the level of consciousness lest it become a runaway horse.
Buddhist psychology, with its focus on anger’s deleterious effect on the perpetrator, can also be instructiver. Because it hinders our efforts to achieve equanimity anger, along with greed and delusion, is classified as a “root poison” (more an addiction than a sin). According to the Buddhist sage Shantideva, “The mind cannot rest as anger stirs within, (such that) things that ordinarily bring you pleasure – even joy – immediately lose their appeal.”
Anger, then, is like a boomerang. We may think we’re “taking it out on them,” but the ultimate victim is more likely to be ourselves.
