Let's Dissect And Interpret The Anger Model.

Dear Fred,

I find myself repeating myself a lot around here, but, here i go again -- Anger is not an emotion.

Anger is a Behavioral Response to some Emotional or Intellectual Agitation.

Yes, there are usages in primitive and uneducated dialects of English which you can point to that show that a lot of uneducated people thought that Anger was an emotion, but are you really going to stick with that?

to say that anger is both an Emotional Cause AND its manifest Behavioral Result, well, how useful is that? One Thing can not be both Its Own Cause and Its Own Effect. It shows imprecision in both Logic and and Linguistics.

So, we should be clear. that if people become Angry, it is because they HATE something, or because they FEAR something.

So, please, do not talk to us here, on THIS ANGER MANAGEMENT SITE about what a blessing it is to be angry, which we understand to be --Ranting and Raving, Busting Up the Furniture and cussing-out those whom we feel our deepest attachments too.

when you say 'Anger' is so great, well, admit it, you might as well be saying that 'Hatred' is great, that Fear is great. and, yes, you are quite true there. We know to avoid Something if we Hate It. We know what to stay away from if we Fear it. Really not much Rocket Science in all of that, is there?

so you are essentially right, as long as you learn to stop using the Word Anger (which is a Manifest Behavior) to mean some deep and underlying Emotion.

anyway. I have responded to you before, and so i can expect from you exactly the same amount of respect and attention that I have gotten from you before. So, I wish to thank you for all of that right now.

Thank you Leo,

I'm happy you have anger figured out- thank you for sharing your thoughts! Could what you're depicting in your response have nothing to do with anger? Please check, but I never mentioned violent behavior. This post is more subject to positive interpretation of how to handle something.

So, I'm sorry I may have pushed your "I find myself repeating myself a lot around here, but, here i go again" button (I didn't realize you were the resident expert- sorry), but can you please share something more constructive in your response next time and share more of a "how to"? I personally live life as a verb, rather than a noun, so please simplify it for us people who need to take action and get results, okay?

You can look anywhere on the Internet and discover anger is a secondary emotion.

Please go to Google search and see for yourself. There's about 50,300,000 results that respond the same way, namely:

"Anger is often called a secondary emotion because we tend to resort to anger in order to protect ourselves from or cover up other vulnerable feelings." Would you mind sharing with us your "busting up the furniture and cussing -out" non sequitir and how that correlates? I never mentioned rage, did I? That sounds like rage rather than anger possibly? I don't know- I just use the dictionary to define words. There are more than one meanings, sometimes, so I do my best to go between all definitions them for the best interpretation, context, and understanding.

Thanks again for following my posts, and your gracious responses.


-Fred

thisisfredsmith wrote:Thank you Leo,

.... Could what you're depicting in your response have nothing to do with anger? Please check, but I never mentioned violent behavior. This post is more subject to positive interpretation of how to handle something...


Please go to Google search and see for yourself. There's about 50,300,000 results that respond the same way, namely:


Thanks again for following my posts, and your gracious responses.


-Fred

Hi Fred,

Fred, please don't misconstrue what I say, but for logical and linguistic reasons I really need to insist that Anger is not both its Own Cause and its Own Effect. I really don't see why my explanations haven't been able to reach you.

I brought up the notion of Violence because, well, Anger, understanding Anger to be a Behavior, IS violent. There is no reason to read between the lines there. I was not suggesting that either you or myself was being Violent. I was merely saying that violence is embedded in the very definition of 'Anger', when the word is used correctly.

and, yes, it is quite possible that 50 Million People, and then some, could be wrong. That many people voted Republican! Truth does not submit to popularity and numbers. If you focus on what my arguments are, that is all we need. I am right, and those 50 Million People are all just part of that Vast Herd of Humanity whom I am trying to correct. If I only thought what everyone else thinks, then what use would I be here anyway? Indeed, what IS your idea? That if enough people are simplistic or apathetic enough to let some silly popular notion stand, then we should all just stand back and let the nonsense go? You know, we actually had a discussion on these pages a while back, before you arrived, and this similar topic came up -- that Anger was an Emotion, and the fellow I talked to about it admitted quite frankly that it was a matter of convenience... that the Notion was being Dumbed Down so that ordinary people would understand it in their own terms.

But, Fred, this is a Specialty Page. The Regular People here should be cultivating an Expertise in this Field. There is no reason for us to Dumb Things down, especially when we are talking among each other. Don't you agree?

I couldn't agree with you more. I have not reviewed all of the posts in this forum.

All I can say is I understand your posts completely. I can only share with people what has worked for me, in my reality and in my world; and offer an energy from a different perspective.

That's the beautiful thing about having such a robust knowledge base within this forum. There's your viewpoint, my viewpoint, and other people's viewpoints. Somewhere, therein, lies the truth for the end-user, but it's still their responsibility to take 100% responsibility with this content we provide, and perform their own due diligence before application.

Thanks for sharing.

Thank you, Fred, that was very gracious and well put.

But I was thinking perhaps I really do need to explain myself a bit better about Anger not both being its Own Cause and Its Own Effect. There must be a better way to say it, because, well, so far I have found that people still don't seem to readily pick up on the Distinction I am trying to make.

so I came up with the Idea that a Definition should be a Utility for understanding something. Right now, in Common English, as you and others have pointed out the word 'Anger' is defined both as an Emotion and as a Behavior. Well, is that Useful? What is the Utility of that Definition? it basically comes down to saying "A person is Angry because they are Angry". it brings us no closer to understanding what Anger is, not if it is defined in terms of itself. It is like defining Red as being the color Red, or Tall as the property of being Tall, Fast as being Fast, Deep as being Deep. For Definitions to have any Utility at all, Words must be defined in terms of Other Words, and not just simply referenced back on themselves.... the Way Webster Dictionaries seem to define many a thing (the old Random House Dictionaries were far more professional and scholarly in this regard). People must remember that Webster is a Publishing House, not a University.... it should be forbidden to Scholars to use Webster dictionaries as a 'reference'.... we can see here what trouble that causes.

Thanks for you time, Fred.

Oh, yes, and you do make some good points... once one reads in the words Hatred or Fear for the Emotions that you now refer to as 'anger'. Indeed, Rosenberg did the same thing with his book "Anger A Very Good Thing" (did I get that Title right?), and there was this lady who wrote an Anger Management Book called "The Gift of Anger" (probably just copying Rosenberg's book). and the books just seemed misleading. people with Anger Control Problems were being fed a Linguistic Narrative that was in effect Praising and Supporting BEING ANGRY. Well, to the People in Anger Management Programs, to Be Angry is to Act Angry, and so these books ended up serving them very badly.

but if these Authors had published "Hate and Fear, Very Good Things", or "The Gifts of Hate and Fear", well, the books could have made their point without confusing the Anger Management Literature with elements of linguistic and logical inconsistencies.

Oh, thanks again.... I seem to be taking up too much of your time...

An emotion is the bodily reactivity that arises due to some issue.

Anger is an emotion. In healthy people it is the bodily response that arises when there is either an issue of injustice or when there is a violation, in which case aggression may be a defense.

In an unhealthy or toxic person anger is a personality trait. Toxic people use anger to justify their actions in many cases, They are also angered if they are opposed, and it doesn't have to be anything much, you only need to have a different opinion about the weather! That might cause them to fly into a rage. Toxic people are also a lot more insecure than they might appear on the surface. In that case anger may be a cover for fear.

I believe that you can use the high energy state of anger constructively by fighting for Justice instead of getting angry about injustice.

kyrani99 wrote:An emotion is the bodily reactivity that arises due to some issue.

Anger is an emotion. In healthy people it is the bodily response that arises when there is either an issue of injustice or when there is a violation, in which case aggression may be a defense.

In an unhealthy or toxic person anger is a personality trait. Toxic people use anger to justify their actions in many cases, They are also angered if they are opposed, and it doesn't have to be anything much, you only need to have a different opinion about the weather! That might cause them to fly into a rage. Toxic people are also a lot more insecure than they might appear on the surface. In that case anger may be a cover for fear.

I believe that you can use the high energy state of anger constructively by fighting for Justice instead of getting angry about injustice.

Again.

I know what you are saying.

But.

This is an Anger Management Page. We deal with anger here as our specialty. Now, a lot of us insist.... yes, absolutely insist it seems... to use the word 'anger' to mean two things at the same time -- they use to indicate the underlying emotion that causes the manifest problem.... so... we as Civilized and educated people are in effect saying "A Person gets 'angry' because the get 'angry'.

Please (god help me) but I cannot be the only person on this planet to see that a linguistic and semantic tautology is kind of ridiculous, being found, as it is, on a Page that is supposed to treat Anger as its primary domain.

and it is not as though I have not offered a good substitute word. People become demonstratively angry in their behavior out of reaction to emotions of Hate. Again, I've said this before, but NOBODY says 'this makes me angry'... 'that makes me angry'.... anyway, not while they are still in the heat of it all. They say "I HATE this...I HATE that".

Please, try to understand my purpose here. It is simply so we can be precise and not seem utterly ridiculous to foreign language speakers who will shake their heads and deplore the ridiculous limitations of the English Language. We do not deserve their contempt... not if we decide to act smart about these things.

Oh....

I thought of another reason why the word "anger" should not mean both the underlying causative emotion as well as the behavioral response to that emotion -- as in "the man got angry because he got angry".

It is because here on the Anger Management Page we try to teach people that there is no Necessary and Inevitable Link between the Underlying Emotion and our Acting out upon It.

But if you call the Underlying Emotion 'Anger', well, can't it be Assumed that the person will feel justified in acting out in 'Anger'.

To link Emotion inextricably to Behavior destroys everything we are trying to do here, on the Anger Management Page.

Just because we feel and emotion or have a negative thought does not mean we have to act upon it. But, apparently, people are BEING CONDITIONED by the very language they use to think that an 'Angry" Emotion is part and parcel -- one big monolithic ugly thing -- with nasty and obnoxious behavior that they allow to follow.

But there can be a separation. Especially if we recognize such a separation in the language we use. We do not get (demonstratively) angry because we get (emotionally) angry, no, we get Angry because we hate what is happening to us.

Now, yes, the next time somebody wants to just quote some dusty and sadly imprecise text book at me to show that some silly authority somewhere is apparently kind of dimwitted but is the authority none the less and that we should dutifully follow it like sheep to the slaughter.... well, just substitute the word "Hate" or "Hateful" in all the places that they are talking about an Emotion, and you will find that we don't really have a problem here, do we? We, here on an Anger Management Specialty Page, are simply smarter than those part time 'experts' who apparently did not give it enough serious thought.

You know, why is it so shocking that one of us here might be smarter than some of these silly 'authorities'. I find it almost kind of insulting and sad that some of us here can almost too readily infer, after all the thinking we have put into it, that our own lucid and cogent arguments mean nothing against those of complacent and half educated 'expert' dilatants.

Just read their explanations, and then read my arguments against them. I'm sure that as soon as you are willing to give me equal intellectual weight so something you have found in a book, written by some Money Maker, probably writing 'down' for the General Public, whom his Publishing Company insists are too stupid to appreciate fine logical distinctions... well, ... its NOT an opinion. There is no logical way I can be wrong about this.

Oh.... I might not have much of a background in Psychology, but I have a degree in Philosophy....

Leo Volont wrote:
to use the word 'anger' to mean two things at the same time -- they use to indicate the underlying emotion that causes the manifest problem.... so... we as Civilized and educated people are in effect saying "A Person gets 'angry' because the get 'angry'..
.............................treat Anger as its primary domain.

Anger is not two things. The emotion is the manifest problem, if you are going to call it a problem. If you don't deal with the underlying ISSUE then you can't treat the anger.

Leo Volont wrote:
People become demonstratively angry in their behavior out of reaction to emotions of Hate. Again, I've said this before, but NOBODY says 'this makes me angry'... 'that makes me angry'.... anyway, not while they are still in the heat of it all. They say "I HATE this...I HATE that".

Hate is not an emotion.

Leo Volont wrote: Please, try to understand my purpose here. It is simply so we can be precise and not seem utterly ridiculous to foreign language speakers who will shake their heads and deplore the ridiculous limitations of the English Language. We do not deserve their contempt... not if we decide to act smart about these things.

English has some virtues but it also has some poverty. It does not have any gramma worth speak of. I can use a very few words in Greek and say more than it takes a few sentences to say in English.. and then sometimes with ambiguity. You just have to accept it's limitations along with it's good points.. it's simple, borrowed from almost every other language on Earth so everyone can find some identity with it and it is becoming universal so you can talk to everyone.