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An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind... and destructive - Adapted from Mahatma Gandhi
A few facts:
- When people are angry, they don’t usually make the best decisions.
- Right or wrong, whether you agree with them on not, angry people have their reasons for being angry.
- You have a much greater chance of calming an angry person down if you ask and sincerely seek to understand what caused that anger than if you get angry back at them or tell them to calm down.
What lies beneath the anger of protesters?
There is a term that trainers of show dogs and thoroughbred horses know called, “Fearful Aggression.” That is the aggressiveness that they act with when those animals feel afraid. It is something that has to be trained out of them or they’ll never win best in show or a horse race. They act that way because when they feel threatened, they feel that harm is about to come to them.
The anger from most of the protesters against Trump being elected is also based on fearful aggression. They fear that if he carries out his threats that families will be ripped apart, racism and sexism will be encouraged and become more rampant and worst of all, if push came to shove in an escalation between him and North Korea or an aggressive and threatening Russia, that instead of merely Tweeting his angry comments he will use the nuclear codes.
If we were to create and then ask an avatar of the protesters what would they need to see and hear to become less fearful/angry, it might be if Trump were to admit that like many people he said many of the things he said in the campaign in the heat of frustration and anger, but has no intention of doing anything that would harm or threaten the immediate, near term or long term well being of all Americans and that in those areas where he lacks expertise, he will call upon, listen to and consider the counsel of those with much more expertise than him before he makes decisions.
Of course if he followed that course, he would then need to figure out a way to deal with the next group of angry Americans.
What lies beneath the anger of hate crime perpetrators?
There is a term in psychology, more specifically Freudian psychology, called, the “Return of the Repressed.” What he meant by this is that whenever we hold back on a strong impulse — often an aggressive or sexual one - we at first use a great deal of conscious energy to suppress our desire to act on that impulse. Over time that conscious suppression of those urges cross over into being repressed. When that happens instead of being conscious of wanting to act directly on that impulse it goes unconscious and expresses itself as a indirect symptom. When that happens, it uses less conscious energy, but the symptoms of repression increase.
For example, when there is someone you don’t want to face or confront, the thought of it turns into a knot in your stomach or tightness in your throat or throbbing in your head. You can then think your problem is in your stomach, neck or head when in reality it may be your desire to rip that other person’s head off which would feel “oh so wonderful,” but completely destroy your relationship, career or life.
Freud’s view is that the longer you suppress and then repress feelings and impulses the more the pressure builds up and you seek an outlet for them.
If we were to create and then ask an avatar of the hate crime perpetrators what their (unrepressed and now vented) anger is about, they might say, “For years our jobs have either gone overseas or to undocumented aliens who would work for wages that we couldn’t live on. For years the rich seem to get richer, when we can hardly survive. For years the rich have found ways to pay much less taxes when they have had much more money than us. For years, America has bent over backward making sure that Blacks, Hispanics and women were given special treatment to make up for how they were treated decades ago or they were hired over us because of all the pressures from affirmative action or diversity. And more recently, families of criminals who they couldn’t control and who have continued to break the law have gotten away with retaliating against police who are just trying to maintain the peace. And for years we have been looked down upon by arrogant, condescending elitists who laugh at us in front and behind our backs.”
If we asked such an avatar what they wanted to see and hear to take that anger away, they might say, “We just want to level the playing field. We want a government that will right the wrong of our jobs being taken away by going oversees or illegal aliens who will work for less than us. We want the wealthy 1% to pay their fair share of taxes. We want CEO’s in America to make a similar amount as CEO’s around the world. We want to not be afraid in our communities because law enforcement is increasingly hesitant to uphold and enforce the law now that the world can watch them on video in real time. We also want to be treated with respect as hard working individuals instead of being laughed at and ridiculed a ‘deplorables’ by the elite.”
I’m not exactly sure that I have accurately represented what makes protesters and hate crime perpetrators angry or would make it go away.
I am happy to be proven wrong and I promise it won’t make me angry.
However I do think we have nothing to lose by asking and seeking to understand what lies beneath the anger and what will make it go away.
And they have nothing to lose but their anger by telling us.
