permaculture

[Lee Flier <lflier@mindspring.com>]

Jack Rowe wrote:

>Righteous anger, eh? I don't buy it... seen lots of it, you bet. I grew up
>in an angry place and time far, far away... not so far in some terms,
>perhaps -- aeons and other worlds, in other terms. Funny thing, righteous
>anger comes in all colors. What fuels the bombers and terrorists of the
>right wing (or any wing), the Anti-Choicers, the racists? How do we
>distinguish our 'good' righteous anger from the 'bad' righteous anger of
>our 'adversaries' on other than some narcissistic or absolutist ethical
>basis? Why do we have the vast majority of the wars we have?

Sure.  Misapplied anger.  My point was that ANY emotional response -
including compassion and the so called "good" emotions - can be misapplied.
 That doesn't mean the emotion itself shouldn't exist or can't be applied
in a healthy way.  I also think there is a difference between healthy,
justifiable anger and what you are calling "righteous" anger in that the
latter is usually very focused and rigid.

>I've felt -- and expressed -- plenty of righteous anger myself (lots of
>interesting stories there), but the anger was never what moved me to
>creative action. Anger is useful for destruction, for tearing something
>down, when that is called for -- and surely sometimes it is called for.
>Most of the times that people THINK destruction is called for, however, are
>imaginary.

Again I think you are letting fear of anger determine what you think anger
is.  I don't feel that way at all.  Most of the times that I have used
anger it has been a motivating and creative force, not destructive at all.

>There are plenty of angry people out there, and I think that
>when they act through the anger they are by definition moving 'against'
>instead of 'toward'. To move 'against' is to allow the hated 'others' to
>set your agenda on a very fundamental level.

This indicates you are also confusing anger with hatred.  You can certainly
be angry with someone and still love them.  You also don't have to use
anger to act in opposition to someone or something.  Like any other human
emotion, how anger is used or abused depends entirely on the creativity and
ethics of the individual.

>What has kept me moving TOWARD something new and 'better', kept me working
>my ass off in a system which doesn't tend to support most of what I do, has
>been my passionate love of nature.

Me too.  But again, I think anger is often part of love.  If you love
nature you are understandably angry about destruction that is done to it,
and thus can be motivated to work your ass off even HARDER to defend it.
This doesn't mean you have to act in direct "warfare" with  Monsanto or
whoever you perceive as the destructor - although you could and this could
be helpful if that's your bag.  But you can certainly be so angry that you
go out and plant 20 trees instead of 10 today because you saw 100 get cut
down yesterday.  That is typically what it translates to for me and I've
seen it work for others too.

>On a personal level, yelling matches may appear to 'clear the air', but
>they do it with fire... the resulting smog may build up incrementally, so
>that you never notice it's there, but one day you look up and things have
>gotten kinda sooty. Ever try removing soot? A fundamental assumption behind
>relational anger is that the other person is hurting you purposefully,
>and/or won't respond with understanding if spoken to with understanding.
>Again -- been there, done that, don't buy it.

Again - these are assumptions.  If those assumptions are not there, then
the result will be different.  When I get into arguments with my close
friends as I mentioned, I DON'T feel they are hurting me purposefully.  Why
should I unless I have trained myself to expect that they are?  In fact why
should their anger "hurt" me at all?  If I consider anger to be normal and
can distinguish it from hurtful rage, it doesn't.  And why should anger and
understanding be mutually exclusive?  If we really explore the truth,
regardless if we are angry, genuine understanding does happen.

So I don't find that there is any "soot buildup" in this type of anger; in
fact my longest lasting close friendship (22 years and counting) is someone
with whom I have very frequent arguments, and he is probably the one person
I can honestly say I have no question marks about, that I know exactly
where I stand with him, that I have no doubts about his love and loyalty
for me, and that I know we have absolutely no lingering hard feelings or
grudges toward each other.   

I agree with Vicki that not every emotion deserves a response.  If we feel
angry we shouldn't just feel we are entitled to spew it in front of
everyone with no forethought.  But I certainly don't agree that anger is
always destructive or hurtful and can't be used to move forward.  In fact I
think that assumption is exactly why most people don't want to deal with it.

= Lee =