According to the good book wiki:
"Anger is an emotional response related to one's psychological interpretation of having been threatened."
And from an online dictionary:
anger
noun
1.
a strong feeling of displeasure and belligerence aroused by a wrong; wrath.
Anger it seems is reactionary. It has a purpose. It is a defence mechanism. To be truly angry you are reacting to an attack.
Anger can be useful.
So what then do we think of anger that has no cause? Anger without threat? Anger that stems from nothing? Self perpetuating anger?
I suggest that there is no such thing as an anger issue, as anger has a purpose - there is an issue with aggressive and abusive behaviour.
If you are instigating the attack you are not angry - you are an attacker, an aggressor, an abuser.
Even if you initially react to an attack with anger, but then continue with aggression after the threat has been deflected this is not an anger issue, but again an issue of aggression.
I think here is lies the distinction where many of us get confused, and use "anger" as a crutch to justify immature, irrational and inexcusable behaviour.
And thus if you are attacking you should own up to attacking,
if you are abusing, you should own up to the abusing,
if you are being aggressive you should own up to that choice and use the appropriate words.
Anger should not be a stand in word to diffuse unacceptable situations.
The word anger has been given a bad wrap. And maybe prevents people from amending bad behaviour.
The only way to correct antisocial behaviour such as aggression is to understand it, accept it, own up to it, and approach it accordingly.
So it is very detrimental to society to use the word anger to cover up what are greater problems.
Thoughts?