Calm vs anger

[Grand Moff Muffin]

The calm voice of the pilot about to crash-land in the Hudson river

versus

Christian Bale kicking off (explicit audio here).

Is it ever acceptable or good to blow your top in the workplace? If so, under what circumstances? Is it productive or counter-productive? What factors in a person's upbringing lead one to be profligate with the f-word? How can you tell genuinely calm and patient people from those who are just bottling it up and would do better to let rip now and then or risk going on a killing spree? Or is that question just a feeble excuse to justify the behaviour of those who yell and swear at people?

Discuss.

Martin

[Hero]

When I had a full-time job: working with difficult kids (and sometimes alongside difficult adults) required calm restraint and that was tough. Weekend wrestler training (when I could afford it) was a great outlet.

The workplace is certainly the last place to lose temper as it really does reflect badly on you later on. Christian Bale is probably feeling like a fool right now, especially if he is aware that loads of people are witnessing his tantrum in cyberspace.

If your workplace involves working with the public, you especially have to keep face as much as possible.

I've had anger management issues growing up and had nobody to council me and tell me what's right and wrong. I had to learn consequences later on in life and also learn that losing your temper and shouting means you've 'lost' completely.

Thing is, school was a survival period for me. "Kill or be Killed" was my philiosophy and that philosophy in one of the roughest schools in Bristol did'nt do my record any favours. Irony is that I ended up working in a school helping those certain class of kids that the toffee-nosed teaching staff could'nt care less about.

Over the years of being married, I've dumbed down and become more docile. Big softy I know but I'd rather not be that angry, unforgiving, rage-filled teenager I once was again. I think that calming down has resulted in me having a better future or present rather to show for it.

I get angry still sometimes, but I bottle it up if I must or persuade myself to calm down. Usually stroking a cat, cuddling a wife, or doing something that makes me happy helps.

Swearing for me has only just started to dumb down too, although the odd F-Bomb comes out on reaction.

Great thread Martin, this sort-of relates to a 'forgiveness' thread I was pondering about starting last night.

I may have calmed down, but I still am a work in progress and its a assuring having people around me who remind me how much I've grown up over the years. A lot of the positivity I've built up from others is another ingredient to that calming down.

===KEN

(Note: Sorry for the slight detour)

[grahamthomson]

I don't think it's ever acceptable to lose your temper in the workplace. Or anywhere else for that matter.

I think we're all still violent animals deep down, no matter what "politeness programming" society has granted over the years, so controlled outbursts (in the form of exercise or screaming into pillows) are healthy I should think.

I am not sure that the BBC are being fair in their comparisons, however. Pilots are trained very comprehensively to remain calm under the most stressful and dangerous of situations. An actor playing a role in a Terminator film has probably been so wound up already by the director before the cameras role (since it'd be impossible to act angry/scared enough to a "special effect will be added later") so it'd be difficult to remain calm/calm down quickly. I suppose it's like poking a Rottweiler in the eyes with a stick for several hours before letting it look after a baby.

But regardless! Anger needs to be vented sooner rather than later.

As for "swear" words and the use thereof, I think that's an entirely subjective matter. I am not offended but any such words, they are just words after all, and admit to using them quite liberally. But only in normal conversation. I would never use them to insult/attack someone. But then, I am not one for directly insulting anyone anyway. I'm pretty docile and placid when all is said and done. I usually walk away from an uncomfortable situation before it escalates.

[jameso]

I've found that when, at work, a manager 'has a go at me' it's much more positive for me to fight my own corner. I don't mean rant and rave and use the F word, but whenever in the past I've just stood there staring at my feet it really eats me up for months afterwards. When I give as good as I get back I don't even remember the incident five minutes later.

[grahamthomson]

Good for you for sticking up for yourself.

In my youth, I never did in the work environment and it used to really get to me.

As long as you were calm and professional about it, then I don't see a problem.

[mewshkin]

I think there is a distinction thats been made here between "being angry" and "blowing your top". The latter may well be justified, but is rarely effective, usually counter-productive. But being angry just means you've realised you're being done, and can lead to being forceful, assertive, whatever you want to say, and that can be extremely positive. In my experience, a number of little hitlers have been entirely appropriately slapped down, by myself or co-workers, who've refused to take shit because of their anger. Theres obviously no substitute for intelligent evaluation (you can be angry and very wrong of course), but learning to trust one's emotions is essential to not being a robot doormat.

(I'd agree with Graham, the people in these examples are in almost comically different situations - who exactly are the pilots supposed to swear/be angry at?)

[Grand Moff Muffin]

By sheer coincidence, there was a rather thoughtful radio programme on the subject this morning. Listen to it on iPlayer here.

I think we're all still violent animals deep down, no matter what "politeness programming" society has granted over the years

I wouldn't agree with that, Graham. I'm more inclined to the Cherokee metaphor of the two wolves fighting in every soul, referred to early on in this programme, one of peace, the other of malevolence, and the one that wins is determined by which one you feed. The less you feed the violent animal inside you, the less a part of you it becomes, and likewise with the calm, patient animal inside you. (Both are products of nature, since patience is a quality essential to survival in the animal kingdom, as essential as the ability to fight or run.)

I think people who follow the teachings of people like the Dalai Lama genuinely come to have less anger inside them, and aren't simply learning to control or repress it. Likewise people who let anger have free reign encourage more anger to grow inside them.

Martin

[mewshkin]

I disagree with the psychologist chappy, where he says judgement necessarily precedes violence so not making moral judgements would reduce violence. This assumes any violence taking place is the result of the Self, not an Other (a necessary consequence of psychology's obsession with self). What if someone else has made an unfavourable-moral-judgement-leading-to-violence upon a third party? Will meditation help that third party? If not, would it be moral to not act, possibly violently, or are we just assuming that "everything would be nice if everyone was nice?"
More seriously it precludes the possibility of making important moral judgements oneself. A proposition: always make moral judgements, continuously, always accepting that the last judgement might be wrong. Thats more sensible in my opinion, since it gives you a basis for action if things come to a point. You may be wrong, you may be right, being a fallible human being, but in either case no more so than sitting on your arse.

The problem I think lies in the sentence "Both are products of nature, since patience is a quality essential to survival in the animal kingdom, <i>as essential as the ability to fight or run.</i>"
The assumption is presumably that anger is now obsolete. If anger leads us to fight appropriately (rather than passively acquiesce inappropriately), then less anger is only a virtue if the need to fight isn't present. Is that the case in the modern world? There are things to struggle for other than the perfection of ones own soul; and I think to only feed the peaceful wolf is quite astonishingly selfish. It effectively makes you useless to others who may need you to be angry, every bit as much as it is selfish to starve the peaceful wolf who may be a good parent or friend to someone.
A healthy person would keep both wolves fed. Its a stupid metaphor, as most metaphors are - they are both the same wolf, aspects of the same person. If we take the metaphor seriously, since a hungry wolf is more dangerous, logically one would feed both equally, if ones purpose was to not be dangerous. Or perhaps I'm not crediting the Cherokee with enough sense, and they wanted some hungry wolves. I wonder if the story comes before or after the time the Cherokee were sent on their "trail of tears"?

All of this is based on the idea that anger is bad (malevolent, "negative", whatever). It isn't. The Dalai Lama's argument is frankly a bit stupid. The argument is that since anger/hatred are counterposed with compassion/patience, one makes the other impossible. But, we are complex beings, capable of contradiction. We can be angry, but employ patience as a tactic; we might even be "cruel to be kind". Explaining human feelings in terms of opposites (like the stupid gym-teacher in Donnie Darko) ignores that these are feelings not words, and antonyms are not necessarily opposites.

The Dalai Lama's argument assumes that compassion and patience are always appropriate responses in a given situation, or that the given situation doen't matter. It is not hard to think of circumstances where being placid, passive is not only inappropriate but positively harmful to others.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

I think you're being rather quick to label people and arguments as stupid, Mewshkin. I haven't said that anger is always a bad thing, but it usually is.

The Dalai Lama has written:

"Perhaps there are two types of anger. One type of anger could be transformed into a positive emotion. For example, if one has a sincere compassionate motivation and concern for someone and that person does not heed one's warning about his or her actions, then there is no alternative except the use of some kind of force to stop that person's misdeeds...

On the basis of compassionate motivation, anger may in some cases be useful because it gives us extra energy and enables us to act swiftly. However, anger usually leads to hatred and hatred is always negative. Hatred harbours ill will...

Some people believe that to suppress emotions is not good, that it is much better to let it out. I think there are differences between various negative emotions. For example, with frustration, there is a certain frustration which develops as a result of past events. Sometimes if you hide these negative events, such as sexual abuse, then consciously or unconsciously this creates problems. Therefore, in this case it is much better to express the frustration and let it out. However, according to our experience with anger, if you do not make an attempt to reduce it, it will remain with you and even increase. Then even with small incidents you will immediately get angry. Once you try to control or discipline your anger, then eventually even big events will not cause anger...

Another question is that if you always remain humble then others may take advantage of you and how should you react? It's quite simple: you should act with wisdom or common sense, without anger and hatred. If the situation is such that you need some sort of action on your part, you can, without anger, take a countermeasure. In fact, such actions which follow true wisdom rather than anger are in reality more effective. A counter-measure taken in the midst of anger may often go wrong. Without anger and without hatred, we can manage more effectively."

I'm not a Buddhist, but I agree with all this 100%. I'm not saying all anger should be eliminated, but when I look around me at both the people I come into contact with on a daily basis, and world events, I think I see a world which has more than the optimum amount of anger in it, the vast majority of it causing harm rather than good, and a world with not enough calm and patience in it, and the vast majority of calm and patience working for good rather than harm. Would you actually dispute that?

I diagree with your suggestion that one should always be making judgements, for the simple reason that in many circumstances there are two sides to an argument, and both sides are right and reasonable (or both wrong) from where they are standing, so coming down on either side denies half the truth. I would suggest a counter-proposal, that one should always be seeking to understand a siatuation better, and where one has to make a judgement because one has to decide whether or not to act, then, as you say, acknowledge the uncertainties in your judgement, and be prepared to admit you were wrong if things don't turn out as you thought.

Martin

[dyrl]

A very interesting and difficult thread.

I will put my view this way:

I have had fits of righteous rage many times - and never was I proud of it.

I always hate myself for not being able to find a different way to resolve a situation. My girlfriend is a real angel on this count - she has taught me how NOT to resort to anger and use my brains instead.

Then again she is known as "Demon Woman" by her underlings at work

Ah well... the world goes round...

Pete

[mewshkin]

I think you're being rather quick to label people and arguments as stupid, Mewshkin.

Arguments yes, people no. I would never* say that the Dalai Lama, or a less exalted person, was stupid for saying a particular thing. Arguments on the other hand I tend to jump on, it is a personal failing, I accept. Mea Culpa and all that.

The Dalai Lama's argument is better served by your excerpt, my objection was primarily the simplistic positive/negative attitude to human emotion that I got from the radio program, as well as its sloppy use of anger/hatred/violence as interchangeable terms.

I'm not a Buddhist, but I agree with all this 100%. I'm not saying all anger should be eliminated, but when I look around me at both the people I come into contact with on a daily basis, and world events, I think I see a world which has more than the optimum amount of anger in it, the vast majority of it causing harm rather than good, and a world with not enough calm and patience in it, and the vast majority of calm and patience working for good rather than harm. Would you actually dispute that?

No, I would not. I'm arguing against any dogmatic labelling of emotions as good or bad without acknowledging the situation. I suspect we're in agreement. I question also the idea that such feelings are first causes, rather than products of a person's/people's circumstances. Once the emotions are acted upon of course those actions become part of the circumstances and we get the classic feedback loop; but viewing historical events as driven by 'bad emotions' is wrongheaded, I think.

On the question of judgements, we may simply have different definitions of judgement. I'm using judgement to mean the use of critical faculties. A person can't "seek to understand a situation better" without using judgement, so defined. We are, as far as I can see, in complete agreement on this.

I would say though, there aren't two sides to every story, there are many, millions if we talk about national events. Granular, I think is the word I'm looking for. I still maintain though that it is possible for fact to be biased, to favour one 'side', or tendency if we're being more precise; and even though no "side's" position is ever likely to be entirely correct or incorrect, it is foolish to think the balance is always (or ever) going to fall bang in the middle. Which means, an objective assesment of fact will cause one to take a side, or more reasonably take a position closer to one side than another.

The best I can sum it up, the power to judge the worth of a human being belongs only to a god I don't believe exists. The power to judge the rightness or wrongness of a set of circumstances, a history, a set of conflicting stories, belongs in all of us, if we cultivate it, because it is susceptible to reason and empirical fact (even if participants are not). We can judge situations, without making arrogant and necessarily ill-informed judgements of individuals involved. Our judgement of those situations may justifiably make us angry.

*may not actually mean "never"

ps, written under the influence of a bottle of red, edits pending

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Feb 19, 2009 23:13:28 GMT mewshkin said:

On the question of judgements, we may simply have different definitions of judgement. I'm using judgement to mean the use of critical faculties. A person can't "seek to understand a situation better" without using judgement, so defined. We are, as far as I can see, in complete agreement on this.

Yes, you're right. But I don't like to use the word judgement too widely, since in a court case you don't make a judgement until you've heard all the facts you're likely to hear, and have to make that final call, and the word 'prejudice' = 'pre-judge' implies the judging of something before you understand both/all the sides of it.

I would say though, there aren't two sides to every story, there are many, millions if we talk about national events.

Quite right.

it is foolish to think the balance is always (or ever) going to fall bang in the middle.

Also quite right, where there is such an objective thing as 'the balance'.

Which means, an objective assesment of fact will cause one to take a side, or more reasonably take a position closer to one side than another.

I agree up to a point, except that there is very often no such thing as a unique objective/reasonable position. It always comes down to values and personal philosophy, which should be open to continuous review. For example, when weighing freedoms against responsibilities, privacy against security, peace against justice, the good of the present generation against the good of future generations, the right to personal property against wealth redistribution, democracy against expert decision-making. Find me two reasonable people, and they will have completely different beliefs and biases on where the ideal balance should lie in these spectra, and have good stories to tell to back up their views. But they should listen to each other's stories and hopefully revise the moral weight they place on each virtue until the day they die, rather than be fixed and certain in there being one right answer in each given situation, if only we could deduce it through rational thought processes.

(I'm not really arguing against you here, just taking my thoughts off at a tangent. I suspect you'll agree with all that.)

We can judge situations, without making arrogant and necessarily ill-informed judgements of individuals involved. Our judgement of those situations may justifiably make us angry.

There is a downside to getting angry not yet mentioned, though, which is that it is very difficult to get angry and maintain your open mind. To get angry means to involve yourself emotionally. Yes, this can occasionally be productive, but once you've got to the point of anger there is something in you that switches off avenues to sympathy with the person you're angry with, or even the ability to rationally listen to their arguments.

Just think of trivial arguments that two family members can get into. One moment they are discussing things with open minds, but as soon as one gets angry with the other, the other will get angry in defence, walls go up, there is pride against backing down, and irrelevant accusations are brought in to justify each party as the one in the right. Before they got angry, they recognised each other as reasonable people and would have been prepared to recognise their own faults. As soon as you get angry, to justify your anger you must insist on the other person being unreasonable, and refuse to acknowledge any failings or unreasonableness on your own part. Because as soon as you do acknowledge that the other person might have some good points, or that you aren't perfect, that automatically leads to defusing tension and the anger going away.

Very hard to stop a war when the people fighting it are angry with one another, because anger usually precludes the acknowledging of the other side's grievances and one's own failings, that is needed to achieve reconciliation. Very easy to stop fighting one another if the anger goes away, because that allows you to see multiple perspectives again.

For the duration of his being angry, I suspect it was a psychological impossibility for Christian Bale to acknowledge that he had ever done anything in his own life as stupid or unprofessional as the guy who walked to check on those lights. Which he surely has.

Martin

[Grand Moff Muffin]

An alternative opinion

Martin