Why This Anger?

Great Debates
21

Is ‘going postal’ the issue raised by the OP, or is it societal anger in the main?

There is no question that American society prior to the late sixties was much more polite, considerate, and well-behaved…and less crass, classless and vulgar…than it is now.

It the permissiveness that grew out of the counter-culture movement of the late sixties, combined with the instantaneous anger and condemnation visited upon anyone who dares question any aspect of anything the left proposes with regard to its pet causes, that is responsible for the anger permeating society today (or to the extent that it does exist, that is).

Any number of people will be along shortly to allege: a. society changed all on its own with no leftie influence; or b. society had to be changed to eliminate racism.

Both are laughably incorrect.

Then you have the practice of the left wherein anyone not hewing unquestioningly to anything and everything proposed to correct societal inequities is subjected to anger, insults and even legislation to ‘bring them in line’. Look at the way people are reviled on this board for being prosperous, for driving SUVs, for disbelieving global warming. Nothing is up for debate or discussion when it comes to the left, it’s all my way or the highway - and fuck you if your way isn’t my way.

Now, with the advent of Limbaugh and Fox the right finally has a way to rally together and fight back, and, given both the breakdown of societal mores since the late sixties which has affected people in both ideologies, and the fact that it takes two to tango, the right and left are now at each others’ throats.

People simply cannot be allowed to behave any way they want (no man is an island and all that) in a civilized society, and yet the desire for virtually unlimited personal freedom is one of the key hallmarks of liberalism…and it is out of this belief in ‘personal freedom’ that so many people feel free to act like crass, vulgar, angry assholes today.

Or so it seems to me. :slight_smile:

22

If anything your version is more absurd than ITR Champion’s.

23

Shorter Starving Artist: “Get off my lawn, you dirty fucking hippies!”

Nice to know someone’s consistent…

24

Was it, now ? I’m intrigued by your rose-tinted glasses and wish to order a pair.

25

You haven’t encountered SA’s schtick, yet? It does entertain…

26

Yes, things were so much better back in the fifties, Starving Artist. “Nigger” was such a nice, polite word, that everyone used it.
(I didn’t even know the original version of “einie meinie minie mo” until my mother told me.)

People have been saying that society has been going to hell in a handbasket since the dawning of time. That’s one theme that’s consistant throughout history. Like death and taxes. EVERYONE thinks that their generation was the golden age, and the next is the worst. It was bullshit then, it’s bullshit now, and it’ll be bullshit to our great-grandchildren’s great-grandchildren.

27

There’s no objective reason to believe any of this, despite your claims and SA’s predictably fact-free rants.

28

[brackets and emphasis mine]

Hmmm…yes, quite indeed!

29

Geez, just look how everyone is just getting wrought up discussing this!

30

That’s not fair. ITR champion is unable to find cites for things not mentioned in Moses & Paul’s Book o Fables.

31

It does? I find it very annoying. The question the OP poses is interesting, or at least leads to interesting questions about human nature. Starving Artist’s nonsense will eventually drown out any consideration of the question as nonsense provokes people to shout it down. (Including me, I guess.)

32

Interesting. I suppose it depends on where you are, but my impression was that home ownership in the U.S. is at or near an all-time high and that communal living was on the downslide, meaning that people would have more territory to stake a claim to than in the past (if we’re going back to feudal times, few people would have had their own property). As for commanding respect, I would argue we have at least as much opportunity as our parents and grandparents did.

As for commanding obedience, you’re absolutely right. There’s not a whole lot of opportunity in today’s society for your average Joe to order people around.

I would argue that the atmosphere in today’s schools is far more open about emotion and feelings than it ever has been. I certainly didn’t have anger-management classes when I was in elementary school in the 60s, and I know my parents didn’t either. Your odds of getting the snot kicked out of you on the playground were far higher 100 years ago than they are now.

Sure there’s a question. You honestly think there were fewer hookers, barfights, boors, jerks, twits, racial jokes, insults, stabbings, shootings, and drunks in the 1930s than there are today? Really?

33

I just realized this is in GD and not the Pit. I apologize for insulting ITR in this form.

34

This thread has nothing to do with violence, so I’ve no clue why you’re mentioning that.

The concept of a hero in ancient Greece was quite different from the concept in pop culture today. The classical hero was a person with a tragic flaw, which leads to their death, or at least their downfall.

I would think that the evidence is clearly evident to those who look around, and compare what they see to what could be seen in important cultural venues three or four generation ago. Watch an hour of The O’Reilly factor and compare it to a Walter Cronkite broadcast. Or watch some show like 24 that exists only to indulge mindless, aggressive impulses. Compare it to an old movie where John Wayne exemplifies the strong, silent type, keeping his emotions carefully in check. Or compare the music of eminem to more or less any music from those times. The conclusion is obvious no matter what genre you look at, but if you want an academic study of the issue, there’s a good one written a couple years ago: Bee in the Mouth, by Peter Wood.

35

Seriously…we see the world so completely differently that I’m almost surprised I can actually comprehend your posts at all.

36

Back in the day, your John Wayne ‘strong, silent types’ got to shoot people. That relieves the stress, dontchaknow.
I think that the perceived increase in anger in the human populace is due to two things: more people, and more awareness about other people. Nowadays you can get on the internet and read about people doing mindlessly stupid things 24-7, back then there were twice-a-day news shows, and before that daily newspapers, and before that…well, you might hear about the angry drunk down the street now and then.

37

To address you three sentences in reverse order.

To the last sentence, this thread is not about violence. It is about anger.

To the middle sentence, I’m not asserting that there were anger-management classes. I’m asserting that anger-management, and self-control more generally, were an integral part of education.

To the first sentence, I’m entirely in agreement. The atmosphere in today’s schools is far more open about emotion and feelings than before, and anger is an emotion. Tht’s exactly what Too Many Cats is asserting in the original post.

38

I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to say here. In Ancient Greece, as in all societies, people experienced and expressed anger. Hence people wrote morality tales to discourage other people from doing so. Why else would they?

39

I’m not sure there’s really any appropriate argumentative response in GD to a position, like yours, that appears to be based on things you see on TV shows and movies, rather than things that actually happen in the real world.

If I may make a humble suggestion, you might want to reconsider the idea that John Wayne movies represent a scientifically accurate measure of the level of anger and hostility in scoiety at large. It is possible - I’m not making any guarantees, just saying it’s possible - that a weekend marathon of The Best Of The Duke is not quite the same as actual facts. Don’t get me wrong; I am not a sociologist, and I’m not pretending to have all the answers, but I’m going to ask that you consider the possibility that a John Wayne triple bill of “Rio Grande,” “The Sands of Iwo Jima” and “The Shootist” is not quite as pertinent to the debate at hand as documented, objective evidence of societal trends. I’m just throwing the idea out there.

40

We’re comparing examples of masculine-oriented pop culture, one from today and one from 70 years or so ago, and we’re seeing what’s true about each one handles the emotions of the protagonist. In both cases the protagonist commits violence, so that tells us nothing. What’s undeniably true is that the recent one celebrates fury, while the older one does not.

But again, that factor can be removed if we focus on a certain type of culture and compare older and newer examples. Compare news broadcasts today to those from two generations ago. Or compare action movies today to those from the 40’s and 50’s. Or compare popular music today to that fifty years ago. If we do so, we get a relatively good controlled experiment that more people and awareness won’t have any effect on.