The Anger Emotion: What is it Good For?

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Anger in the academic sense is defined as, “A strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility.” Some other words that are or relate to the state of anger are, “Rage, displeasure, irritation, indignation, annoyance, fury, wrath, outrage, ill temper, etc.” 

Anger tends to be an intense emotion and emotional response to some stimuli. It is often triggered by some perception of threat, provocation or what we call today as, “Being dissed.” If a person’s boundaries are threatened or actually being violated it can trigger anger. It comes at both times appropriate and times inappropriate to incoming stimuli. Where inappropriate it may be due to non-existent or inappropriate coping skills for such conflicts of varying levels. 

In my mind, anger - along with fear - are two dominant emotions of survival. It is said by modern psychologists that anger is, “A primary, natural, and mature emotion experienced by virtually all humans at times, and as something that has functional value for survival. Anger is seen as a supportive mechanism to show a person that something is wrong and requires changing. Anger can mobilize psychological resources for corrective action.”

There is, as symbolized by the yin-yang symbol and concept, a duality toward emotions such as anger and fear where one can survive when anger or fear are triggered according to the actions and reactions they stimulate while anger and fear, to include other emotions as well, have a negative effect, and affects personal and social well-being, on our bodies, minds and spirit. 

How one controls and utilizes anger makes a difference where modern professional experts believe that anger can be used as a manipulation strategy in conflicts. There are a few kinds of anger as follows:

Hasty and Sudden: This is our natural impulse for self-preservation and is considered episodic. When tormented or trapped in a corner anger, along with fear, mix and create certain survival and primal conditioned responses (dependent on training and experiences) that triggered provide the person a means to survive the situation/encounter. 

Settled and Deliberate Anger: Something we use, especially when other coping skills are non-existent, to survive according to an individual when faced with possible harm or unfair treatment from and by others. As can be determined in this description this kind of emotion is episodic. 

Dispositional Anger: This is about our  character, how we perceive ourselves; how others perceive us; how the group perceives us within the group structure, etc., resulting is irritability, sullenness, and churlishness. 

In short, “Anger can potentially mobilize psychological resources and boost determination toward correction of wrong behaviors, promotion of social justice, communication of negative sentiment and redress of grievances. It can also facilitate patience. In contrast, anger can be destructive when it does not find its appropriate outlet in expression. Anger, in its strong form, impairs one's ability to process information and to exert cognitive control over their behavior. An angry person may lose his/her objectivity, empathy, prudence or thoughtfulness and may cause harm to themselves or others. There is a sharp distinction between anger and aggression (verbal or physical, direct or indirect) even though they mutually influence each other. While anger can activate aggression or increase its probability or intensity, it is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for aggression.”

Read about passive and aggressive anger here: (note: fact-check required) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anger

An excerpt of the reference, “Six dimensions of anger expression: Anger expression can take on many more styles than passive or aggressive. Ephrem Fernandez has identified six bipolar dimensions of anger expression. They relate to the direction of anger, its locus, reaction, modality, impulsivity, and objective. Coordinates on each of these dimensions can be connected to generate a profile of a person's anger expression style. Among the many profiles that are theoretically possible in this system, are the familiar profile of the person with explosive anger, profile of the person with repressive anger, profile of the passive aggressive person, and the profile of constructive anger expression.”

Here is the rub I feel dominates in martial arts and karate self-defense, not many discuss anger or fear, especially fear, because like the discussions of SEX, many find to discuss such emotions is likened to admitting weakness and ignorance because we all should know, understand and have awareness to our emotions. 

If I had to guess which emotions tend to get folks into more trouble it would be anger. How to address that anger, what coping skills can be useful, especially in conflict and violence, to avoid or deescalate the conflict would be a great topic of discussion, lessons, training, practice and experience relevant to remaining within the self-defense legal square. 

It is also important to reference that, for many, anger is often triggered when someone senses some offense according to their belief system so in anger they respond in an approved manner to their belief system to communicate and teach, like the ‘Educational Beat Down” so the person learns their lessons. 

There is more, read the reference and fact-check, so I won’t waste time and space regurgitating that here except for those excerpts to convey my understanding and meaning in this article. You do have to take some action and initiative to learn about such things, all a part of the “Way” don’t you know. 

Anger, fear, resentment, etc., are all emotional survival tools of the species and in modern times one must seek out coping skills, etc., along with primal conditioned responses so that we don’t succumb to the monkey brain on adrenal drugs simply because we cannot cope with and govern our emotions, emotional maturity, so we can avoid, deescalate and remain within the legal, moral and social principles of self-defense. 

Bibliography (Click the link)

Can you see it building the critical mass?

Boom, talk about critical mass!

Looks a bit like the Socially Angry don't you think?

Up and in your face angry!!!