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Saturday, August 3, 2013

Anger is ALSO a Tool.

 Trigger Warning: Death

It can be, anyways. It's not the world's easiest tool to use, since there is a risk that acting too quickly in anger won't actually accomplish the thing. But it is a tool. It's not inherently good or inherently bad. (What you do with it can be good or bad.)
People talk about anger like it doesn't accomplish anything. That's just not true. Anger can be fuel to provide energy for activism. Anger can be how people realize something is wrong, that something needs to be fixed. (The thing that needs fixing probably isn't the person who's angry. Sometimes when it's a person being angry about other people getting rights they've always had, it is the person. But that's not what I'm talking about here.)
Anger can also be a healthy reaction. People like you being killed for being like you should make you angry. It really should. 
Anger is also a thing that people really don't like to see us express. "If I shout or swear, I'm angry about something. If Steven shouts or swears, it is challenging behaviour and new behaviour management plans need to be drawn up." (Neary.)
But. "It's not a good thing, not a bad thing, just what's so." (A Wizard Alone.) That's the thing. Anger is what it is. Deciding it's bad isn't going to make it go away. It might make you ashamed of being angry, but that's not actually helping anyone. (OK, maybe it makes life easier for people who want to "manage our behavior" but that seriously does not count.) Instead, "you might want to think about what results this kind of emotion has produced in the past. Or might produce again in the future." (A Wizard Alone.)
That's the counselor for one of the protagonists talking, there. He's a pretty good counselor, I think Except for the problem of being a fictional character. (She's seeing him at the moment because her mother died of cancer between the prior book and this one. We knew during the prior book that her mother was going to die, and come back after it has happened.)
The point he makes is important: It is what it is. You should think about what it does. That's how you use it. That's the sound of a tool, which can be used for good or ill. (Similarly, labels are tools.) And anger can be used for ill. People talk about those all the time, like it's inevitable or something. It's not, though. Because anger is just a tool. We can use it; other people can use it (that happens in 1984, they use fear and anger both as tools for controlling the population, which is one of the not-so-nice uses.) No, not everyone wants anger to be one of the tools they use. They're not obligated to use it. But it's a tool, and putting it in your toolbox is fine.
Get angry and change the world.

A later-ish note: Who tends to tell us not to get angry, that it will poison us? (I don't mean who came up with the initial philosophical ideas. I mean, who tells us this today?) It seems to be people who have comparatively more privilege. I find that... interesting.

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