Who "Owns" Old PC's?

[Wolv0rine]

Well, I understand that, but I KNOW that I will take action to stop wrong-doing without anger. In fact, I find that I'm better at stopping it when I don't let anger rule me. When I am calm and rational is when I am most effective.

Oh, I didn't mean to cast doubt that you would. For myself, at least if only for myself, I know that anger is my best, most likely path to action, and over 85% of the time the most successful. This doesn't mean charge in blind like a bull and killkillkill, it can be as simple as growing angry at a situation and not being able to stop myself from acting on it. But I do think that anger could be said to be 100% of "defensive" action. That could be debated, but I see defense as action taken due to anger at foreseen consequenses (okay, I have never put it that way, and probably never will again, but it sounds right, right now. hehehe).

I find this is true in the people I interact with. When someone wants something from me, their best bet is always to approach me with a straightforward request. People who rage at me only make me dislike them. Distrust them.

Here I can only agree. I do not respond to anger well either. I do not think that anger is to be used off-the-cuff, the situation has to warrent it in some manner. Psycho-gramma tries to poison the childrens' minds...anger warrented. Numbnuts driver cuts me off in traffic, putting my life and possibly my family's in peril just so he can get one car-length closer to the stoplight than I got to? That is a case of putting someone else into a situation of gambling their lives against the value of 1 car-length (in a lot of cases), without their consent or them having the option of not playing your life-or-death game. I think that warrents at the very least as much rage as you can vent at the abscentee jerk. He did put 0 value on your life a second ago, after all. If that's not worth a bit of anger, what is?

I'll try to illustrate what I mean about the maxi-level-event theory I mentioned earlier.

You see, the maxi-level-event isn't a case of superior ideology vs. misguided ideology. It's a case of my life vs. your life, my freedom vs. your freedom, my god vs. your god, my right to live as I please vs. your right to live as you please (in a situation where they cannot both co-exist). It's a case of "if you're right, then I lose all access to everything but your opinion forever. I become nothing but your mindless slave for the rest of my life, and the lifetimes of all my decendants throughout time". So, seeing if someone else's opinion - which differes from mine in a way that the two cannot mesh - is "better" or "more correct" or whatever is not an option. I know, the maxi-level-event is a hard concept to really convey to someone who hasn't thought of it. It's like taking an idea, or a conflicting set of ideas, and expanding the situations/conflict to it's biggest possible equivalent. The easiest scenereo I can think of to try to illustrate a MLE would be "If it were up for vote as a national law against my opinion", because that's a situation where one or the other will win, but which one is 'right' or 'better' won't likely have much effect of which one wins (meaning, the one that wins out will not neccesarilly be correct, just enforcable by armed police), and will have long-term, long-reaching effects into the life of everyone in the country. If you can grasp how two conflicting opinions can be extrapolated into that sort of situation ("What! His opinion won by 1 vote! We are all obligated by law to think what he thinks, and act in all ways at all times in perfect accordance with that?!" said Wolvorine, as the MLE exploded into horrible resignation), then you should be able to see where I'm trying to go with the idea of justifiable and logically sound subconscious reasoning behind betting angry at an opposing viewpoint. I mean small-time MLEs do happen all the time. Take prayer in the school-system (my opinion? If you want to make my kid pray, I get to break your legs), or book burning "If they hadn't burned the Library of Alexandria...*sigh*"), law-enforced seat belts (should be my choice, really, I think they're more dangerous than helpful in certain situations). All these show instances where someone who had a different opinion than mine tried to impose that opinion on everyone else. And that was a danger to my way of life. I'm not saying that this is a conscious thought-process in most people's minds, it's a theory on the sub-conscious thought-process that leads us to get angry at people who think differently from us.

I don't think that trying to increase understanding and wisdom is in any way sad and pathetic. Thanks for making the effort. I am trying to understand, I promise.

I just meant that I'm still sitting here replying in this thread! LOL

Fears, insecurities, shames and sobbing are silly? Why do you think so? Surely they are painful. If they were not they would not be fears, insecurities, shames and sobbings. Surely we all of us struggle with these things every day. From childhood to death we try to soldier on in the face of so many voices and pains and fears telling us we'll never succeed. Or maybe it's just me. Oh, and Shakespeare. Oh, and Homer. Oh, and Akira Kurosawa.

*chuckles* Yes, completely silly. Entirely silly. Laughably absurd. In this context, mind you, not in-and-of-themselves. Fear's scary, insecurities are paralyzing, shame burns, and sobbing cleanses the soul. But I don't think any or all of these things are always the cause of anger. And that was your original arguement, that this was always the case, for everyone, everywhere on the planet. And I stand smiling, hands on hips, in disagreement of that supposition.

For me, the fact that an action is wrong, harmful or detrimental is signal enough that I must rally against it. My anger isn't in it. My understanding is. Can't you make that determination regardless of your anger?

I think it is anger that ignites rallying. Righteous indignation, rage, intolerance of something (rightly or wrongly), what have you. Anger has many forms, many names. I think it's what causes action against a percieved wrongness.

Survival is more reliably found by testing one's ideas and seeing if they are correct or not, rather than angrily defending them against all comers.

But if my definition of right falls before your definition of right (between which there is likely no such thing as all-encompassing, all-definitive right), then it doesn't matter if I get to use your right, I lost mine and thus I die. It's a win/lose 1/0 kind of binary concept. It's admittedly very rough, and translates really badly... but if I can get the idea across, I think you'll go "D'oh! Yeah I see!"

So, your notion is that anger is a signal that you need to fight against Bad Stuff. Thoughts, actions, what have you, that are wrong, hurtful or detrimental. And further, that in being so, anger is NOT a sign that you have problems or issues that remain unresolved. That is, that anger cannot be both. Well, I have a few objections to this argument.

You had it pretty much right up until the "can't be both" part. Of course it can be both, that's part of my arguement. I know these things tend to drift wildly, and I've jumped in and out of the flow of conversation a couple of times through the thread, but you said that you felt that there was this thing about anger that was always true, of everyone.

One: anger is a signal you need to fight against Bad Stuff. I disagree. I believe anger is one type of reaction to the realisation of Bad Stuff. That is, I propose that what actually happens is that I recognize something as Bad Stuff and THEN become angry. That is, the signal is recognition, not the anger. The anger is a result of the recognition. My proof for this is that people have varied reactions to recognizing Bad Stuff and not all of them become angry. Therefore, there must be a recognition that is not anger but precedes the anger, even if only by a minuscule amount.

But what IS anger then, save for the will, desire, and determination to put yourself against something that you've identified as Bad Stuff? When you identify something as Bad Stuff as lack the will or confidence to put yourself against it, then you have Fear.

Two: anger is NOT a sign that you have problems or issues that remain unresolved. I disagree. I think you'll find most anger management systems disagree with you on this as well. Not many hold the same opinion I do on anger, I'll admit, but all of the ones I've investigated do certainly consider anger a sign of unresolved issues within the person suffering from the anger.

This is true. I also consider such a source (anger management systems) to be the highest form of bunk. Right up there with 100% of all psychiatry, most of psychology, and every form of 'mental and emotional therapy'. All - in my rocksteady opinion - definitively incorrect past, present, and future. I once told a very locally well-respective psychiatrist (indeed, I've told many, all of whom I took the time to prove could not do what they claimed they could do) "Anyone who claims to know how the mind works is wrong, and a fool for having said they knew". Now I really dig theorizing, but it's like Shroedinger's Box, you can't collapse the probability waveform without disrupting the waveform itself. One day we'll know how the brain works, biologically. But I've never believed we'll ever know much about how the Human Mind works. Guesses on top of guesses.

Further, I'll point out that unresolved issues are usually so because they are not conscious to us. They affect us indirectly -- for example through the emergence of anger. My previous posts to jdavis have outlined many of my thoughts on anger and so far I have not seen you offer any rebuttal other than the term "silly", which I believe I disposed of above. If you have any other rebuttals to my idea I would be pleased to hear them.

I hope I managed to point out earlier in this post that by silly I meant "it's silly to say these are the cause, here, I think it's obviously not". I'd never wish to cast those emotions as silly in and of themselves.

Three: anger cannot be both. Why not? What prevents anger, should it be discovered that it is in fact a signal of things to fight against, from also being a signal of things to resolve within ourselves? I don't see any inherent contradiction here. Many of our emotion responses come from a multitude of sources, so why not anger?

And what prevents anger from being one OR the other? I disagree that anger has much to do with "unresolved issues", which in my opinion is a psycho-babble BS phrase with little meaning. Unresolved issues, like as if anyone has ever had none of those. Imagine an entire life lived, and at no point was there ever a regret, never a case where that person could honestly say "I could have done that better" or "Choice B was superior, and I chose A", because even if you don't feel sad about those 'mistakes', they are still less-than-optimal outcomes that you had the chance to do better, and that's an "unresolved issue" too. Anything that could have been better is one, and we all have hundreds. Also, an Unresolved Conflict does not, in fact, have to be something you're unaware of. It's just something you have not yet either come to terms with, or something you have not fully faced, or confronted, or admitted it's full importance. It's anything that has an affect on you from within, that you haven't solved. I'll go to my grave with unresolved issues about height, I'm nearly 32 and I don't think I'm getting any taller than 5'6" by this point. But I don't feel anger over that issue.

I enjoy debate very much, Wolv0rine, and I am often so eager in my desire to advance my arguments that I speak harshly or more heatedly than I intended. Please believe that if I have done so in this post, it is not out of contempt or a desire to offend you but only from my excitement in having my ideas explored by thoughtful folks who can expose the weaknesses in my thoughts. You have proven to be a thoughtful folk and I look forward very much to your responses.

Ditto here, I'm something or an extremist (even among extremists!), and sometimes in my zest to get an idea across, I spill out generalities and babble around a point until I lose sight of it, trying to show it to someone else. Hopefully it's all about the joy of sounding really intellectual and shining our big words in the monitor-light, playing mental tag in the wee hours. hehe

No doubt I missed issues I meant to reply to in here, I've been taking hours and hours to reply in this thread, and that leads to broken and forgotten trains of thought and all.

 

[barsoomcore]

Oh, I didn't mean to cast doubt that you would. For myself, at least if only for myself, I know that anger is my best, most likely path to action, and over 85% of the time the most successful. This doesn't mean charge in blind like a bull and killkillkill, it can be as simple as growing angry at a situation and not being able to stop myself from acting on it.

It's possible we are dealing with different definitions of the word "anger". It seems like you are defining anger as "that which makes me take action against Bad Stuff." Which is different from my definition, which is something along the lines of "that which prevents me from acting rationally." So maybe we're not quite talking about the same thing.

But I want to point out that in the above snippet you said "85% of the time (anger is) the most successful." Below you wrote:

I do not respond to anger well either.

Why do you think it is successful for you dealing with others when for other people dealing with you it would not be successful? Is it because you are different from most people -- such that for MOST people, getting angry at them is the best course, but for yourself it is not? Or have we switched definitions somewhere along the way, so that what you are referring to as anger in the first statement is not quite the same sort of thing as in the second? I am referring to the second definition, if that is the case.

I do not think that anger is to be used off-the-cuff, the situation has to warrent it in some manner. Psycho-gramma tries to poison the childrens' minds...anger warrented.

Warranted or not, does it do any good? Any more good than action not spawned from anger? Keeping in mind that I don't believe one has to be angry in order to be firm and courageous against Bad Stuff.

Numbnuts driver cuts me off in traffic, putting my life and possibly my family's in peril just so he can get one car-length closer to the stoplight than I got to? .... I think that warrents at the very least as much rage as you can vent at the abscentee jerk.

To what end? What good does that rage do? Rage like that contributes to all sorts of vehicle accidents and tragic incidents. Far better, I believe, to simply not be angry at that person. Just to drive safely, and report unsafe drivers.

If that's not worth a bit of anger, what is?

Nothing, of course.

You see, the maxi-level-event isn't a case of superior ideology vs. misguided ideology. ... It's a case of "if you're right, then I lose all access to everything but your opinion forever. I become nothing but your mindless slave for the rest of my life, and the lifetimes of all my decendants throughout time".

What? What? Forget about who's right. Just worry about what is true or not.

Your freedom of thought has NOTHING to do with the opinions you hold. NOBODY can EVER take it away from you. Can you offer a single example of this actually happening -- a situation in which you discover that what you thought was true was in fact false, and you therefore became a mindless slave? Or have you been correct in every opinion you've ever possessed in your entire life? Have you NEVER been wrong?

I am wrong constantly. Being wrong is my default state. I assume every opinion I possess is wrong -- and therefore set out to prove it so every chance I get. Once I discover that it IS wrong, I've learned something.

Do you think that I am someone's mindless slave? Have you ever met a mindless slave? Or a descendant of one? What?

I'm not saying that this is a conscious thought-process in most people's minds, it's a theory on the sub-conscious thought-process that leads us to get angry at people who think differently from us.

So maybe what you're saying is the reason people get angry when others disagree with them is because they're afraid they'll be forced to adhere to someone else's mental domination? Okay, they're afraid and their fear is making them angry. With this I can agree. Anger comes out of our own fears -- especially our fears of helplessness. I've said it all along.

*chuckles* Yes, completely silly. Entirely silly. Laughably absurd. In this context, mind you, not in-and-of-themselves. Fear's scary, insecurities are paralyzing, shame burns, and sobbing cleanses the soul. But I don't think any or all of these things are always the cause of anger. And that was your original arguement, that this was always the case, for everyone, everywhere on the planet. And I stand smiling, hands on hips, in disagreement of that supposition.

And yet your big point above, your long argument about how it's about defending one's freedom, only proves my point. Anger comes from fear.

But if my definition of right falls before your definition of right (between which there is likely no such thing as all-encompassing, all-definitive right), then it doesn't matter if I get to use your right, I lost mine and thus I die. It's a win/lose 1/0 kind of binary concept. It's admittedly very rough, and translates really badly... but if I can get the idea across, I think you'll go "D'oh! Yeah I see!"

Well, I think you've gotten the idea across but I have trouble believing that ANYONE considers this question (on the origins of anger) to be a life-or-death sort of proposition. Do you seriously believe that if you agree with me you will die? That you'll just magically fall to the floor, clutching at your heart as it stops beating?

And I object to the whole notion of "definition of right". I'm not interested in definitions of right. I'm interested in what is true. If you're not, that's okay with me, but then why are we discussing this?

You had it pretty much right up until the "can't be both" part. Of course it can be both, that's part of my arguement.

Wait a minute! WAIT A MINUTE! You're the one who said, "if you're right, then I lose all access to everything but your opinion forever. I become nothing but your mindless slave for the rest of my life, and the lifetimes of all my decendants throughout time". Now you're saying, no problem, we can both be right. If we can both be right then what on earth are we arguing about? Okay, so we're both right. Anger is a signal to fight (I haven't been convinced on this one yet, but never mind) and anger comes from our own failings. Yay. We're done. Aren't we?

But what IS anger then, save for the will, desire, and determination to put yourself against something that you've identified as Bad Stuff?

Anger is none of those things. Those things are themselves. Anger is anger. Losing your temper. Pounding at the temples, driving you crazy. THAT'S anger. Will, desire and determination are what they are. This is why these words are different things.

This is why I'm beginning to suspect we're caught in a semantics trap. You're using a different definition of the word anger than I am. Now, that's all fine as far as it goes. I don't really care how you define the word for your purposes, but there's no point in us arguing about what anger is if we don't agree on what, er, anger is.

That made more sense when I started it. I hope you understand.

So for me, just to be clear, when I talk about anger, I am talking about a loss of rationality to a greater or lesser degree due to, let us say, rage. I am not talking about a strongly-held conviction that Bad Stuff should not be allowed to exist.

Perhaps we should be using the word "rage" instead of anger? I am indifferent to the terminology -- I'm only interested in the ideas themselves. So does that change your stance any?

When you identify something as Bad Stuff as lack the will or confidence to put yourself against it, then you have Fear.

When you identify something as Bad Stuff and lack the courage to understand it or express compassion towards it, you are a Coward. When you lose your temper and lash out at someone because they have frightened you, you are a Coward.

Confidence and will have NOTHING to do with anger. They MAY coexist to some degree, but neither relies on the other.

Guesses on top of guesses.

But some guesses are better than other guesses. Some guesses provide better explanatory power than others. Some guesses prove more helpful than others. I can guess that my brain is made out of special space cheese. That is clearly a less true guess than some others might be.

I can call those guesses "truth" if I want. And so they are, unless someone can prove to me that they are false. So far, on this issue, nobody has.

And what prevents anger from being one OR the other?

Well, only your insistence that you would die if you agreed with me.

I disagree that anger has much to do with "unresolved issues", which in my opinion is a psycho-babble BS phrase with little meaning.

I'm not fond of it myself. Suggest a better one and I'll use it.

Imagine an entire life lived, and at no point was there ever a regret, never a case where that person could honestly say "I could have done that better" or "Choice B was superior, and I chose A", because even if you don't feel sad about those 'mistakes', they are still less-than-optimal outcomes that you had the chance to do better, and that's an "unresolved issue" too.

Man, this would be a lot easier if you'd write shorter sentences!

I have no regrets about my life. There is not one moment in my past where I wish I had done something else. To wish you had done something else is to wish that you were not yourself, for what are we if not the sum of all our experiences -- the good and the bad (they're all good, really, but that's a secret)? To wish that you had behaved differently in one moment is to wish that the memories that compose you were different -- to wish that you were not you, in effect.

And I like me. I've gotten very attached to me. I don't want me to change. I don't want me to cease to exist in favour of some other, unknown me who made a smarter choice about that girl or this car. That guy? I don't even know him.

I'll go to my grave with unresolved issues about height, I'm nearly 32 and I don't think I'm getting any taller than 5'6" by this point. But I don't feel anger over that issue.

Many people do get very angry when teased about physical qualities they can do nothing about. Unresolved issues, sounds like to me.

Regrets often spawn anger. Feelings of inadequacy, of helplessness. These are the roots of anger. Learn to overcome them, learn compassion, and you can defeat it.

I very rarely get angry these days. When I do, I consider it very carefully. Anger nowadays is like a gift to me. It tells me there's something wrong inside me, something I need to pay attention to and understand. Something that's holding me back. Your anger is the same thing.

 

[Wolv0rine]

It's possible we are dealing with different definitions of the word "anger". It seems like you are defining anger as "that which makes me take action against Bad Stuff." Which is different from my definition, which is something along the lines of "that which prevents me from acting rationally." So maybe we're not quite talking about the same thing.

But I want to point out that in the above snippet you said "85% of the time (anger is) the most successful." Below you wrote:
Why do you think it is successful for you dealing with others when for other people dealing with you it would not be successful? Is it because you are different from most people -- such that for MOST people, getting angry at them is the best course, but for yourself it is not? Or have we switched definitions somewhere along the way, so that what you are referring to as anger in the first statement is not quite the same sort of thing as in the second? I am referring to the second definition, if that is the case.

Okay, you've seen a connection here that I hadn't intended to make. I find that anger is nearly always the most successful method of overcoming my own inertia. If I need to begin or end something, anger is the most likely way to see me do it. When I get angry, I act. This means that the best way for me to deal with myself, usually (if I want results) is to become angry. Now if someone else comes in angry at me, that won't work at all. I'll just become angry back and stonewall over the principle of the thing. The difference is when it is Me dealing with Myself, then anger is an effective motivational tool. I don't resent following my own orders.

[/b]Warranted or not, does it do any good? Any more good than action not spawned from anger? Keeping in mind that I don't believe one has to be angry in order to be firm and courageous against Bad Stuff.

[/b]

Even keeping in mind that you disagree that anger prods us to fight or protect, raging against that driver who cut you off reduces stress. It's not the only way to reduce stress, but it's a completely natural way to reduce stress. Most every animal does it, mankind does it until he starts over-thinking his every thought. Sitting in your car, that guy never hears you or sees you, but you get to have your say over his, and you get the last word. From your POV you have exerted authority over the situation, which is neccesary because that jerk just put your life in danger in a situation where you did not have any say over whether you lived or died. And now your mind requires a little display of authority, of being in control (of your life or death), of not being a helpless victim. You can theoretically untie the entire knot by saying "I don't need that", but I suspect that everyone does, those who say they don't much moreso than the rest of us.

Your freedom of thought has NOTHING to do with the opinions you hold. NOBODY can EVER take it away from you. Can you offer a single example of this actually happening -- a situation in which you discover that what you thought was true was in fact false, and you therefore became a mindless slave? Or have you been correct in every opinion you've ever possessed in your entire life? Have you NEVER been wrong?

Nonono, you’ve misunderstood completely. I’m not saying that if I agree with you I’ll die, or if I’m wrong my life will cease. I was attempting to explain a conceptual construct and the rules it imposes to play in it. The Conceptual Construct I’ve called ‘The Maxi-Level Event’ is entirely binary, only win/lose, only live/die. There is no right or wrong within the MLE, because it presumes to operate on a level where it is thought even the human psyche does not understand those as concepts.

Of course I’ve been wrong, I’ve been trying to answer the old question “Why would you get angry because I think something different than you?” And I think that it’s because the subconscious mind automatically play the situation out on the maxi-level scale, automatically sees the Worst-Possible-Extension of the conflict, expanding it into a situation where it’s no longer about different opinions, but becomes an issue of life or death. And it’s upon this background that the mind says “This is unacceptable”. This is my proposed theory.

So maybe what you're saying is the reason people get angry when others disagree with them is because they're afraid they'll be forced to adhere to someone else's mental domination? Okay, they're afraid and their fear is making them angry. With this I can agree. Anger comes out of our own fears -- especially our fears of helplessness. I've said it all along.

Close...close. I think people get angry when others disagree because they can sense the potential for the other person’s differing viewpoint to be imposed on their lives. Someone else’s opinion now forces me to wear a seatbelt or be ticketed. Someone else’s opinion makes certain substances found in nature are illegal to possess by law. Someone else’s opinion nearly made it law that myself (when I was in school) and my children pray to a god, while I am an atheist. These are real-life situations where what can only have started as a disagreement between two opposing opinions became something bigger, something more sinister (in my eyes, at least), something that gained the power to command that I follow it’s will, or be imprisioned. So that is where I’m drawing real-life examples to base it upon. Minor versions of the idea do happen all the time, and the process of them becoming Law don’t have anything to do with if they are just or right. Usually they have to do with who paid which senator or congressman, and how much. 
But fear? I don’t think it’s fear, persay. I think it’s awareness, that this could happen. Because it does happen, just not quite as black and white as the conceptual construct of the MLE uses.

And yet your big point above, your long argument about how it's about defending one's freedom, only proves my point. Anger comes from fear.

Ermm...but that wasn’t your proposal. Your proposal was that anger at others was really anger at ones-self. Anger, fear, love, hate, happy, sad.. all base primal emotions, and more than likely never far from each other. Yeah, fear plays a hand in anger (but I could never agree that one causes the other entirely, because I think they are all too primal for such a simple answer), and anger plays a hand in fear, hate and love are very similar, etc. Yes, I agree with that, if that’s what you’re saying. More often than not, I find my own anger rises at either frustration or disgust at something outside of myself. But I’m one of those weird “I know myself as well as possible” kind of people. Even when I lie to myself, I know I’m doing it. 

Well, I think you've gotten the idea across but I have trouble believing that ANYONE considers this question (on the origins of anger) to be a life-or-death sort of proposition. Do you seriously believe that if you agree with me you will die? That you'll just magically fall to the floor, clutching at your heart as it stops beating?

Within the rules of the Maxi-Level Event, yes that’s exactly right. In real life? No of course not, that would be silly. I’m just expanding to the extreme, for purposes of closer examination.

Okay, so we're both right. Anger is a signal to fight (I haven't been convinced on this one yet, but never mind) and anger comes from our own failings. Yay. We're done. Aren't we?

How can you not be convinced that anger is a signal to fight? I mean, “Fight or flight” is mostly accepted as a base instinct in and of itself. “Danger=((anger OR fear)=fight OR flee))” Or, when faced with a serious situation, kill it or run from it. If kill it, pump adrenaline to increase strength and reaction time, and lower reaction lag from reasoning. That’s pretty much rage. Rage is an extreme form of anger, which does not require such an extreme process.
As to the part I underlined up there, I disagree. Anger can come from our own failings. That I can agree with. That is a possible option. But it is not the only option. I get angry at other peoples’ failings easily more often than at my own.

That made more sense when I started it. I hope you understand.

The funny part is, every time I hit “Submit Reply” I think that exact thing. hehehe

Perhaps we should be using the word "rage" instead of anger? I am indifferent to the terminology -- I'm only interested in the ideas themselves. So does that change your stance any?

Okay. I will agree that an argument based solely on semantics is pointless and fruitlessly painful.  However a semantics argument within another argument can be necessary to establish common ground. So maybe it’s just as well in this case. 
So let’s use Rage instead of Anger. Rage is an extreme form of anger, afterall. Now rage bypasses the normal process of rational thought for very good reasons that we need not try to get into for this issue. For our purposes, let us only deal with rage in circumstances wherein you are not expecting to have to ‘fight or flight’. That actually puts the advantage much deeper into your court, becuase we’ve limited our view to situations that lean more toward your viewpoint.  That’s fair.

Okay, so rage. Temple-pounding, fit-inducing rage. The guy cuts you off, and you curse and scream. What did you lose in doing that? Maybe the people in the car with you are uncomfortable at your raging – or maybe they are raging with you and have no trouble with it. If they are raging at what happened too, then they would feel uncomfortable that you aren’t. That can go either way.
I really think the core of this arguement was the way you put forth your theory initially. You stated something was a universal truth, and there aren’t really such things. Children might find your rage unpleasant and sending bad messages. On the other hand children might find it normal and fine, and not bat an eye or give it a moment’s thought. I was one of the children who did the latter. Rage didn’t bother me unless it was directed At me. You’re asking what one gets out of raging, I’m asking what does one lose by it? You feel bad? I think you feel bad if you don’t rage, you’ve failed to have an emotional response to a situation that caused one (if it didn’t, you wouldn’t have to learn to control the emotion, natural response). Now I’m not saying that you should not learn to control your actions or responses, we all know that that’s part of becoming an adult. I think the question here is degrees of control, and when it’s needed or not. How much do I need to control myself, and when? I know that I feel better if I cuss that guy out, even if he never heard me. I know that if I’m watching a Utah Jazz basketball game, and the other team scores a gorgeous 3-pointer because there was noone guarding him, I get angry. Only for a few seconds, I wanted the team I like to win! If I didn’t have an emotional response, I would never have cared about the game to begin with. 
Okay, I’m officially rambling. I’ll look for the next quote and stop with this. 

But some guesses are better than other guesses. Some guesses provide better explanatory power than others. Some guesses prove more helpful than others. I can guess that my brain is made out of special space cheese. That is clearly a less true guess than some others might be.

Yes, this is entirely true. Some guesses are better than other guesses. Pat of my biggest problem with the mental health field is it’s assumption that years of “ book learnin’ ” can give someone some form of definitive knowledge of how all minds work. “I studied books about how certain people thought specific other people’s minds worked. So I know how all minds work”. It’s hogwash, and that presumption means that they are always wrong, because it’s reducing you to a set of pre-defined assumptions. It’s nothing more than what I used to do when I was working as a phone psychic. I am not a psychic, but I do know how to listen to people, break down what they say into it’s most generic parts, and repeat it back to them colored by my own opinion. And I’ve found that most mental health professionals tend to cut out the listening part in favor of just repeating back what their books say. Okay, that’s an entirely separate rant on my hatred of a professional field, I’ll let that die. Hehe

I can call those guesses "truth" if I want. And so they are, unless someone can prove to me that they are false. So far, on this issue, nobody has.

Ahh, but that’s a false definition of truth. Truth is true, stripped of all opinion or desire. (well okay, there is this theory that if everyone believed something completely it might become truth by altering a universal law of physics to conform to common perception, but that’s tres isoteric). You can call it truth, sure, but what you’re meaning is opinion. The closest you can come and still be genuine is “My truth”, which is a phrase coined just for such purposes, and should be familiar with all of us, because it is the root of the idea of “This is the way it works In My Campaign World.

I have no regrets about my life. There is not one moment in my past where I wish I had done something else. To wish you had done something else is to wish that you were not yourself, for what are we if not the sum of all our experiences -- the good and the bad (they're all good, really, but that's a secret)? To wish that you had behaved differently in one moment is to wish that the memories that compose you were different -- to wish that you were not you, in effect.

Like I said, you don’t have to regret it. All you have to do is be aware that if you have taken another course of action at some point in your life, made a different decision, chose a different path, that things might have turned out in a more beneficial way. If I had gone to college when I was offered a free ride, I might have a good strong career. If I had told that girl I was in love with when I was 18 that I loved her, we might have had something beautiful. I didn’t go to college, and now I’m a freelance illustrator without a penny to his name. I regret that, it counts for both. I never told that girl I loved her, but I told other girls that I loved them, and had something beautiful with them. I’ll always be curious how that would have worked out, but I don’t really regret it. It’s still an unresolved issue, it has no resolution, no closure. Because it never happened. Our lives are full of these, if we stop to think about them or not, if we regret them of not. They have no closure because they never happened.
I agree, the concept of “if I had done it differently, I’d be someone else” is fairly commonly known. But it does not in and of itself universally rule out what I was pointing out. 

Many people do get very angry when teased about physical qualities they can do nothing about. Unresolved issues, sounds like to me.

Yes they do, and yes it is. And in my case, I have no anger about my height. I will, however, never be able to change it (and being taller has more advantages than not being taller in everyday life). It’s still an unresolved issue, it will come up in situations constantly for the length of my life where I cannot reach something that most people can. The fact that I’m perfectly alright with my height regardless.

Regrets often spawn anger. Feelings of inadequacy, of helplessness. These are the roots of anger. Learn to overcome them, learn compassion, and you can defeat it.

/b]
True, all of that. Regrets can spawn anger. Now if you had said “Anger is really regret, for everyone, always”, I’d step up and say “Ridiculous!”

 

[jgbrowning]

Originally posted by Wolv0rine

Even keeping in mind that you disagree that anger prods us to fight or protect, raging against that driver who cut you off reduces stress. It's not the only way to reduce stress, but it's a completely natural way to reduce stress. Most every animal does it, mankind does it until he starts over-thinking his every thought. Sitting in your car, that guy never hears you or sees you, but you get to have your say over his, and you get the last word. From your POV you have exerted authority over the situation, which is neccesary because that jerk just put your life in danger in a situation where you did not have any say over whether you lived or died. And now your mind requires a little display of authority, of being in control (of your life or death), of not being a helpless victim. You can theoretically untie the entire knot by saying "I don't need that", but I suspect that everyone does, those who say they don't much moreso than the rest of us.

Here i just have to wonder.... why are you getting angry then? You've obviously thought about all this and know that getting angry is just symptomatic of other things. Why get angry when you can just remove the things you dont want? Anger is one of the least successful ways of dealing with anger....

Nonono, you’ve misunderstood completely. I’m not saying that if I agree with you I’ll die, or if I’m wrong my life will cease. I was attempting to explain a conceptual construct and the rules it imposes to play in it. The Conceptual Construct I’ve called ‘The Maxi-Level Event’ is entirely binary, only win/lose, only live/die. There is no right or wrong within the MLE, because it presumes to operate on a level where it is thought even the human psyche does not understand those as concepts.

Of course I’ve been wrong, I’ve been trying to answer the old question “Why would you get angry because I think something different than you?” And I think that it’s because the subconscious mind automatically play the situation out on the maxi-level scale, automatically sees the Worst-Possible-Extension of the conflict, expanding it into a situation where it’s no longer about different opinions, but becomes an issue of life or death. And it’s upon this background that the mind says “This is unacceptable”. This is my proposed theory.

Again, if you know this it what it is, why do you do it? Its pointless. Retrain yourself to react in a different manner. I honestly dont understand. If you know what your doing, instead of saying "anger serves a purpose" or "anger comes from this" just go "this anger's unessesary" and stop feeling angry.

There may be biological/environmental reasons "for" anger, but i don't think there is a reason "to be angry."


i think this threads turned out pretty nice, as well. 'nigh impossible anywhere else...

joe b.

 

[Wolv0rine]

Again, if you know this it what it is, why do you do it? Its pointless. Retrain yourself to react in a different manner. I honestly dont understand. If you know what your doing, instead of saying "anger serves a purpose" or "anger comes from this" just go "this anger's unessesary" and stop feeling angry.

I guess when it comes down to it, I don't think the anger's unneccessary. I mean, when all of this happens, you don't think it all out and finally, after weighing all the factors say "Right then, I'll be angry". Even if this happens on a deep subconscious level, You aren't going through the process consciously. I mean really, if we all did that kind of thing with our emotions, we would never love or hate, we would never be upset or sad, and I think we would all go entirely insane. Learning how to be responsible is all fine and good, but emotions work on a 'gut level' for a reason, I suspect.

There may be biological/environmental reasons "for" anger, but i don't think there is a reason "to be angry."

Hmm, that's really a core issue, and I don't think it can be reasoned out successfully. I guess when it all comes down to it, I think that our minds work the way they do because that's how we work. Our emotions operate the way they're supposed to operate, and if we tamper with that too much we 'break' ourselves. I don't think the hows or whys can be expressed. :/

i think this threads turned out pretty nice, as well. 'nigh impossible anywhere else...

I agree, it's been great fun. Although I think it's coming to it's logical end, because we're starting to descend into circles. I'm not saying "okay, I'm done now. Pack up my ball and go home", but I think we're winding down.

 

[jgbrowning]

I agree, it's been great fun. Although I think it's coming to it's logical end, because we're starting to descend into circles. I'm not saying "okay, I'm done now. Pack up my ball and go home", but I think we're winding down. [/B]

Yep, i think so as well. Its been nice...


joe b.
*yo, gimme my ball back, my momma's call'en...*

 

[Kesh]

Again, I agree. But I believe you can go further than that and in fact simply choose whether or not to feel the emotion in the first place. In fact, I believe that you ALWAYS choose whether or not to feel the emotion in the first place. You're just not aware of yourself choosing.

IMHO, it's unhealthy to try and 'turn off' these emotions. Control them, yes. However, as has been pointed out before, sometimes emotions are life-saving. Rather than choosing not to feel anger/fear/etc., it's better to accept and control them.

But, that's me.

Wow, I just keep on agreeing with you. This so right. And requires no anger whatsoever. Where does anger fit into this wonderful picture you've drawn? Calm and forceful, yer darn tooting.

Outwardly calm. Anger fits in, because humans are not inherently logical or rational beings. We can reason, but at our core we rely on emotions as a guide for a moral and social compass.

And like a compass, while it can tell you which direction is North (or how you interperet the situation), you can always choose to go a different direction to reach your destination.

What doesn't work is ignoring the compass entirely and trying to wing it. More often than not, you'll end up going in circles.

Well, maybe. I think a more accurate assessment is: in the first, you've made things worse, in the second, you've solved the problem, in the third, you've made sure your children turn into wimps. Or, more succintly: First -- Bad Stuff, Second -- Good Stuff, Third -- Bad Stuff. Do Good Stuff.

Yep. That sums it up. I think our primary disagreement is that anger is an inherently bad thing. Every emotion has its place, though some can be more destructive than others. I consider them all tools, to be used properly and under control.

Fear can be healthy. Only a fool doesn't fear dying when in a life-threatening situation. Learning why you're afraid, and how to deal with it, is a key to surviving the situation. Ignoring the fear can lead to ignoring the dangers.

Anger is the same way. Finding the source of your anger can lead to correcting the problem, whether it's internal ("I shouldn't be angry about that... why does it bother me?") or external ("Ohhh, you are not going to get away with doing that!").

On the flip side, it's good to recognize why something makes you happy or content. That makes it easier to repeat the experience in the future.

Nah. You never fail. You just don't succeed the way you thought you were going to succeed.

Chet Baker once said that great jazz musicians never say "Oops," when they don't play the note they meant to. They always say, "Interesting."

Life is jazz.

Heh. A nice philosophy, but I'm a bit of a realist. If you don't accomplish your goal, you failed that goal. Perhaps you achieved something different, which may be as good or better than the original goal. Still, the original target was missed.

Perhaps part of this comes from being raised by an ex-Marine. One thing I learned from him, that I will keep with me until my dying day:

"It doesn't matter if it's pretty. It just has to get the job done, and do it right. If it doesn't work, fix it. Nothing gets done by wallowing in your failure. Just get it to work."

Sounds harsh. But really, it works out. If something fails, find out why. Maybe you messed up, or maybe the goal was flawed. Either way, it's better to fix it than to just get stuck brooding.

 

[barsoomcore]

IMHO, it's unhealthy to try and 'turn off' these emotions.

And I'm not suggesting you should.

Control them, yes. However, as has been pointed out before, sometimes emotions are life-saving.

Well, and I've disagreed with that notion. My point being that the emotion is actually a response to the understanding of a life-threatening situation. You can choose a different response and still save your life. You'll probably have more luck, in fact.

My experiences with life-threatening situations have been that I suddenly become calculating, dispassionate and quick-thinking. In danger my response is quick assessment and immediate action.

Not emotion. Action. These are two different things, and it seems like both you and Wolv0rine feel that the first is REQUIRED for the second. It isn't for me.

Rather than choosing not to feel anger/fear/etc., it's better to accept and control them.

Why? Why put yourself to all that extra effort? Just don't be angry. Take the appropriate action, of course, but there's no need for anger.

We can reason, but at our core we rely on emotions as a guide for a moral and social compass.

Given that your emotions rise out of subsonscious desires and fears, they seem to me to form poor compasses.

What doesn't work is ignoring the compass entirely and trying to wing it. More often than not, you'll end up going in circles.

Which is why paying attention is so important. More reliable than "This makes me angry so it must be bad."

That sums it up. I think our primary disagreement is that anger is an inherently bad thing. Every emotion has its place, though some can be more destructive than others. I consider them all tools, to be used properly and under control.

If it's a tool then surely you can choose whether or not to pick it up. The whole point of something being a "tool" is that it is under YOUR power. So with anger. Choose to feel it or not. If you think it will help you then go for it. Get angry. I've nothing against that. I don't find that it is helpful very often but knock yourself out. Just don't pretend you don't have a choice.

Learning why you're afraid, and how to deal with it, is a key to surviving the situation.

I would say the key is noticing the danger in time and knowing how to avert it. Whether you're afraid or not.

If you don't accomplish your goal, you failed that goal. Perhaps you achieved something different, which may be as good or better than the original goal. Still, the original target was missed.

So what? What makes the "original target" so important? Because you made it so? Unmake it. That's easy enough.

Now we're getting into the question of ego and how do we separate our ego from our ideas or desires.

"It doesn't matter if it's pretty. It just has to get the job done, and do it right. If it doesn't work, fix it. Nothing gets done by wallowing in your failure. Just get it to work."

I think this Marine and Chet Baker would get along just fine. Chet doesn't care if the tune turns out the way he expected it to, as long as it's musically successfully he's happy. Likewise your Marine doesn't care if (say) the bridge doesn't look the way he thought it would, as long the trucks can get across the river, who cares?

Don't knock yourself out because you didn't do what you thought you were going to do, is the point. Just get done what you NEED to do.

Wol0rine: Forgive me for dropping out as our debate was nearing its peak. Or, possibly, becoming mired the old point-counterpoint of messageboard debate. A little break is a good thing, sometimes.

I'm going to try and resum our disagreement, if I may, rather than carry on with the bit-by-bit arguing we were involved in earlier. I'll be stating my understanding of your position, so keep an eye out for where I'm not getting you!

I said something along the lines of "Anger has only one cause and that is anger with ourselves. When we express anger towards others, we are in fact kidding ourselves since our real object of anger is ourselves."

You disagree that anger has only one cause. While some instances of anger may conform to my model, you think that there are some that do not. We had some examples: the cranky grandma, the obnoxious driver and the MLE-type thinking. The idea is that in none of these examples is the anger in fact self-focused.

Now I feel like I've refuted those three examples, and let me quickly run through my refutations again:

Cranky Grandma: CG is making us angry with ourselves by playing on our helplessness in the family environment. We feel helpless to take action against her, and become angry with ourselves for being such helpless schmoes. Anger erupts within us, and rather than seek a solution we direct our anger at Grandma.

Note that a solution can be sought and even found without any anger being required. If my Grandma is being rude or tedious (I find constant complaining and insults more tedious than anything else) then I can easily find a way of dealing with that without getting angry at her.

Obnoxious Driver: OD makes us angry with ourselves by reminding us of, again, how helpless we are. We hate to be helpless. It's not too extreme to say that helplessness can cause panic in people -- panic which often emerges as anger.

Again, anger is not required to solve the problem in question. If sudden maneuvering is needed to avoid the driver, I find that I take the actions first, and then begin to curse and holler at the driver. While I'm desperately steering out of the way, my mind is cold and logical. Once I'm safe again, my anger strikes.

MLE: Of course this is a classic case of anger with oneself. The idea is that people feel an overwhelming need to defend their ideas out of a fear that they will be destroyed if they agree with someone else. This is a childish, egocentric worldview that treats all others as threats. It's based on fear. Fear of losing control. Anything that reminds us of how frightened we are makes us angry with ourselves for being such fraidy-cats. We don't want to admit to others that we feel this way, of course, and so we express anger towards them.

So we see that in all three cases, what looks like anger with others is actually anger with ourselves.

Huh? Huh?

I also want to add my agreement with those who have put forward their satisfaction with the way this discussion is proceeding. I'm enjoying this immensely. ENWorld totally rocks.

Dude, seriously.

 

[Wolv0rine]

Sorry, double post.

 

[Wolv0rine]

[COLOR=royal blue]The following is likely harsh and a bit antagonostic. I've been without smokes for a day or two now, and I haven't been trying to quit smoking, just poor timing. Bear with me. :T[/COLOR]

So what? What makes the "original target" so important? Because you made it so? Unmake it. That's easy enough.

No, that's nothing short of a cheap cop-out. The original target is "so important" because it's the goal, it's the point, it's the target.
If I take a bb gun out to the woods and point to a distant branch, and say to you "I'll bet you $500 right here and now that I can hit that branch", and then I shoot the bb gun, and hit something entirely different (or hit nothing even), then turn to you with a smug grin and ask for my $500 because "I unmade the target and remade it to what I did hit, you owe me $500 bucks, buddy!" I'm sure you'd agree that it's suddenly a cheap cop-out.

Wol0rine: Forgive me for dropping out as our debate was nearing its peak. Or, possibly, becoming mired the old point-counterpoint of messageboard debate. A little break is a good thing, sometimes.

True, true.

I said something along the lines of "Anger has only one cause and that is anger with ourselves. When we express anger towards others, we are in fact kidding ourselves since our real object of anger is ourselves."

You disagree that anger has only one cause. While some instances of anger may conform to my model, you think that there are some that do not. We had some examples: the cranky grandma, the obnoxious driver and the MLE-type thinking. The idea is that in none of these examples is the anger in fact self-focused.

Now I feel like I've refuted those three examples, and let me quickly run through my refutations again:

Cranky Grandma: CG is making us angry with ourselves by playing on our helplessness in the family environment. We feel helpless to take action against her, and become angry with ourselves for being such helpless schmoes. Anger erupts within us, and rather than seek a solution we direct our anger at Grandma.

But really now, if you’re not angry with CG, then what do you care what she does? How could she ever, no matter what she does, ever bother you in any way? And I am quite seriously including such things as “CG grabs a butcher knife, raises it over her head, and drives it into your 3 year old child’s face”. I mean really, if you have no anger at all over this you have no reason to respond with anything other than a yawn. Love? Reason? Intelligence? Love is an emotion, and ¾ of this thread has been about if we can count emotional reactions as something to be embraced, or something to be stomped out, so all emotional responses may as well be ignored. Reason (knowing that such acts are ‘wrong’) will only prompt you to sit there and contemplate the action. No, I say that it is the fact that this makes you angry to begin with that is valid. I have yet to hear a suggestion as to what course of action you might take in the face of this CG which does not originate with anger. I have also yet to hear anything that leads me to believe that I am angry with myself in this situation. Being “angry at myself because I do not do something” is, respectfully, a silly proposal at best. No, grandma does something we know (or feel as a collective society) to be wrong. That such a closely blood-related family member is doing such a thing is abhorrent. At no point do I feel angry with myself (unless I fail to take physical action, and my not taking physical action is even then never blamed upon Me, but upon the rest of the family AND society as whole, because that is who will not allow me to kill the abhorrent theoretical woman). So you see, there IS no anger at self, only at others here. My opinion is that you are trying to shoehorn the situation to fit your argument – with a crowbar.

Note that a solution can be sought and even found without any anger being required. If my Grandma is being rude or tedious (I find constant complaining and insults more tedious than anything else) then I can easily find a way of dealing with that without getting angry at her.

Okay, like what? Don’t go to see her? What if she comes to see you? Or calls your house a lot? What if the rest of the family en masse begins demanding that you make appearances? You are free to stop answering your phone (cutting you off from everyone in the world via telephone), stop answering your door (similar), don’t let her in your house in specific (in which case she may start convincing those blood-relatives of yours, Your Family, that you are a Bad Person). You could tell the entire family to kiss your arse, but you’ve just burned every bridge to your entire family right there. And I can say from a real life example: If you burn your bridges with your family, there is a very good chance they will never even try to forgive you. What I’m saying is, yes you can take some form of action, but if you weren’t angered by Grandma why would you bother? And if you take a “calm, removed” action, you may in fact be making it worse for yourself if your family is an important entity in your life.

Obnoxious Driver: OD makes us angry with ourselves by reminding us of, again, how helpless we are. We hate to be helpless. It's not too extreme to say that helplessness can cause panic in people -- panic which often emerges as anger.

Again, anger is not required to solve the problem in question. If sudden maneuvering is needed to avoid the driver, I find that I take the actions first, and then begin to curse and holler at the driver. While I'm desperately steering out of the way, my mind is cold and logical. Once I'm safe again, my anger strikes.

Again, I think you’re forcing a fit here. To begin with, anger doesn’t “solve” any problem here, because there is, technically, no problem to solve. You were never anything but an endangered bystander in the event, which is likely over before you truly even registered it. Yes, we hate to be helpless, but are you really reacting to a feeling of helplessness? Is it possible that what you are really feeling in that case is hatred for a faceless person who obviously places no worth on your life (as shown by his placing it in danger, without even so much as paying any attention to that fact)? Because really, that’s how I interpret road-rage; anger at someone else at not being courteous or considerate. And there just IS no way to make that anger-at-self.
“Once I’m safe again, my anger strikes” you say. But every time I’ve used this example, I’ve referred to the anger occurring after the event itself. You swerve, you’re alright but it was close, and “You sonofabch! #^&*@!%#&$Y&$^#@^%^&!$#^!^@&!^@^!&@^!!!!!!”, you grumble a bit more, and then you forget about it. So your anger strikes afterwards, that means it does indeed strike.

[/b]MLE: Of course this is a classic case of anger with oneself. The idea is that people feel an overwhelming need to defend their ideas out of a fear that they will be destroyed if they agree with someone else. This is a childish, egocentric worldview that treats all others as threats. It's based on fear. Fear of losing control. Anything that reminds us of how frightened we are makes us angry with ourselves for being such fraidy-cats. We don't want to admit to others that we feel this way, of course, and so we express anger towards them.

[/b]

How can this be seen as anger with oneself? I mean, even in the farthest stretch of the imagination, I can’t see this as anger with self. I see this as threat to self, but not anger at self.
Now, it seems to me that you are insisting on seeing the idea of the MLE as a real-world-view. It’s not. Such cases do exist, it can be and has been real, but the MLE is a “for argument only” idea. It has rules that you have to accept to play in it (and we are gamers here, we should understand about The Rules of the Game). Some of the primary rules are: Black and White only, NO shades of gray. Agreement is never allowed, because if an agreement is reached, you’ve already exited the game. You are correct and right, they are wrong.
These are basic presumptions you have to walk in with, because they hold it all up.
It may be childish (which is not a bad thing inherently, much as people act like it is), it’s definitely egocentric (it has to be), and it states blatantly that everyone else is a threat (and they can be, at any time, in the real world). It’s based on history, example, and a very simple form of extrapolation.
You can call it fear of losing control, but I think you’re wrong. There is fear there, yes, don’t let me make it seem as if there’s not. It’s fear of self-control – freedom - being taken away. Not losing control, because losing implies you had a hand in its loss. The anger is the logical response to someone threatening to make sure you are not able or allowed to have your own opinion or beliefs (and that’s what the entire MLE is about – the chance that through extreme, if unlikely, circumstances you will lose your freedom to have your own opinion of beliefs, and have someone else’s imposed upon you). I have no problem with others knowing this scares the hell out of me, it’s much worse than death. But I still cannot fathom any form of anger at self involved. Only fear and self-protection. Or are you proposing that fear is a form of self-hate instead of the awareness of the chance of failure and/or defeat?

So we see that in all three cases, what looks like anger with others is actually anger with ourselves.

*shrugs* I just don’t see it, so I can’t agree with it.