• 2 days ago
In this episode, I explore the complexities of anger, responding to a listener's inquiry about managing this often-misunderstood emotion. I begin by discussing how anger operates within social hierarchies, highlighting the contrast in expressions permitted between adults and children. I argue that suppressing anger can lead to vulnerability in manipulative relationships, drawing from personal confrontations with perceived injustices.
Through my experiences, I illustrate how anger serves as an essential alert system, prompting us to address exploitation and maintain integrity. I differentiate between constructive anger, which fosters resolution, and oppressive rage, which stifles dialogue. Finally, I encourage listeners to embrace anger as a catalyst for change and personal growth, emphasizing the value of self-reflection to navigate future conflicts more effectively.

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Transcript
00:00All righty, good morning everybody, hope you're doing well. It's Nathan Molyneux from
00:04Free Domain, freedomain.com slash donate. Your help is most gratefully, deeply, and humbly
00:08appreciated. Thank you for your support. As we cruise into, boy, it's coming up for 20 years,
00:16not all too long away. It's less than a year until 20 years. It's just wild. Man, in 2005,
00:28I published my first article on lewrockwell.com, The Stateless Society and Examination of
00:33Alternatives, and that was my entree, my debut, my debutante ball into the testicular manslaughter
00:43of social discussions of morals. Anyway, so got a message, a listener asked me,
00:51he said, I need a show on how not to become angry. How not to become angry? It's a great question.
00:59Anger is a very, very interesting topic as a whole. Now, I've got a show which I did in the
01:04past called The Joy of Anger, which you should check out, fdrpodcast.com, but let's talk about
01:11anger as a whole. So, the first thing to understand is that anger is hierarchical
01:22and directed. Anger is hierarchical and directed, and if this doesn't help you understand what
01:30COVID is all about, I don't know what will. So, when I say anger is hierarchical,
01:36I want you to, of course, think about when you were a kid in school, the teacher
01:45could get angry with you, right? But you could not get equally angry at the teacher. The teacher
01:52could snap at you, and that was discipline. You snapping at the teacher was rude, and you got
01:58in trouble. I mean, I don't know if anyone gets in trouble in school these days, but back in the day,
02:02you used to get in trouble. So, anger is hierarchical. Your parents can get angry at you,
02:11and that's just and fair discipline that's caused by your bad behavior, if they're dysfunctional
02:15parents, right? But you cannot get angry at your parents. That's being disrespectful.
02:20It's having attitude that needs to be adjusted, right? So, their anger is good, right, moral,
02:26just, healthy, and virtuous. Your anger is disrespectful, bratty, whiny, complaining,
02:33negative attitude, and needs to be fixed. I hope I'm not spoiling any or shocking you with any
02:42giant spoilers, but anger is hierarchical. And so, not getting angry is a mark of subjugation.
02:51The slave cannot be angry with the master, or at least cannot express that anger.
02:56The master can be as angry as he wants at the slave, right? I think we understand all of this,
03:03right? Nothing too shocking about any of this. So, if you say,
03:08Steph, you got to teach me how to not be angry, what you're asking for is to be taught how to be
03:16a slave, how to be subjugated. It's also, of course, hypocrisy, moral hypocrisy in particular
03:24is hierarchical. I mean, I remember when I worked in Thunder Bay, I deposited one of my paychecks,
03:32and the bank lost it. So, I had to go, and it took a while, and I had to go and find
03:41my deposit slip and go back and so on, and I demanded $100. Because I said, look, if I write,
03:48this took me quite some time to solve, and if I do things that cost you money, you charge me,
03:54right? Like if I write a bad check or things that cost you time and money, you charge me
03:59all the time. Now, you made a mistake. I have the deposit slip, you lost the deposit,
04:04so now you owe me money. I can't remember if it's 50 bucks or 100 bucks or something like that,
04:08but I had to spend quite a bit of time rooting around to try and find the deposit slip.
04:12I had to identify it. I had to go in and talk to them. They had to say, we need your deposit slip.
04:16I had to go back. I had to find this. So, it took me a couple of hours.
04:20I said, if I did something that cost the bank a couple of hours, you'd hit me with service
04:23charges up the wazoo. I passed along a list. I said, here's a list of all of your service
04:27charges for all the things that I can do that cost you time and therefore money. Now, you've
04:34made a mistake that has cost me time and therefore money, and so let's be reasonable here, right?
04:40And I had to take it all the way up to the, I think it was the, like it wasn't just this branch
04:46manager, it was the regional manager, and they wouldn't give me my money back. So, I closed down
04:51my entire account, and I said, I'm never doing business with your organization ever again,
04:56and I never did, even in the business world. And let's just say that probably over the years,
05:02they've missed out on more than 50 bucks, but that was just because then it's just a power thing,
05:06then it's not a principle that if you cost someone time and money, that you owe them money,
05:14but that's their principle with me. But if that's not my principle with them,
05:17then it's an exploitive relationship. So, and what was I, 20? 19, 20, something like that.
05:25But I guess I've always been into reciprocity and all of that. So, when it comes to anger,
05:33if you say, I need to find a way to not become angry, then you are ripping out the heart of your
05:42moral, intellectual, mental, mental health, and sanity defense system. Because you need anger
05:50to know when you are being exploited or violated. You need frustration, which is a component of
05:58anger. You need frustration to know when it might be worth walking away from a task.
06:06It might be worth walking away from a task. Persistence in the face of all obstacles is
06:12not healthy. It's not right. Because that in which you're most successful in life is probably going
06:18to come the easiest and the most pleasurable. The stuff that has really worked for me in life,
06:23programming, public speaking, reasoning, this sort of spontaneous speaking and so on,
06:29this is all stuff I did for years and years and years for free, sometimes decades before I ever
06:34got paid for it. And I really enjoy it. I really enjoy it. It's not, it doesn't feel like work.
06:39It feels like a sport. I mean, don't get me wrong. Sometimes it's not that much fun,
06:44but for the most part, it's very enjoyable. I miss it when I don't do it and I'm happy to do it.
06:50So if you're dealing with someone who is just not going to change,
06:55then frustration is your sign to find an alternate way of dealing with the situation.
07:03So when I was talking to the bank teller and I wanted the 50 or a hundred bucks,
07:06and she said, no, I said, I want to talk to the manager and then to the branch manager.
07:10And then I kind of gave up because then I was like, okay, this is an organization
07:14that is cheap and chisel-y and rips off people with one-sided approaches to business and value.
07:22So frustration is an important emotion because it can signal to you that you are not going to
07:30be able to get your needs met in a situation. I mean, one of the reasons I found it quite
07:38frustrating to learn other languages. Now I did have to learn to translate French for my
07:44master's degree. And I knew that that was not a thing that I was particularly great at.
07:49I'm not too bad at accents, the accent, but I'm not particularly good. And that's because my
07:55facility with English is so high that when I think about the amount of effort it would take for me to
08:01become proficient, like there's no point becoming like restaurant French or, you know, whatever,
08:05like je voudrais un croissant pour les deux, you know, like this is not where I want to be.
08:12So knowing how good I am at English, when I look at another language and I say,
08:18how long is it going to take me? 10,000 hours. Well, 10,000 hours is 5,000 philosophy shows.
08:24Would I rather be good at French or have 5,000 philosophy shows? Or to put it another way,
08:29is the world better off if I learn French or is the world better off if I do 5,000 philosophy
08:37shows? Well, I know the answer to that. There's lots of people who speak French,
08:41but not a lot of people who can do really good philosophy in a generally consumable fashion.
08:47So I looked at that. I didn't even feel, I felt frustration at my resistance to learning another
08:52language, but I had to do it for my degree. But I felt a sort of weariness, a kind of a despair
08:59and, oh God, forget it, right? Oh, forget it, right? Whereas learning another computer language
09:03can often be fun because they follow the same structure. I mean, I know that human language
09:06does as well, but it's a lot of memorization with human language. So it's not should you get angry,
09:15should you not get angry? It's what is the purpose of anger and how can anger be effective
09:25at making your life better? Now, of course, since anger is about asserting your preferences in the
09:34face of resistance, anger, like almost by definition, anger is inconvenient or negative
09:42to exploiters, right? Which is why, I mean, can you imagine like the teacher says,
09:47you can't use violence to get what you want and you say, but your entire paycheck is funded by
09:53coercive taxation. This entire system, the whole school, everything's built, everything's run on
09:57coercive taxation. Who on earth are you to say, don't use aggression to get what you want, right?
10:03Well, I mean, that would be absolutely unacceptable, right? So people who want to
10:07exploit you don't want you to get angry. Of course, right? Of course. So anger is inconvenient
10:15to exploiters. Rage is win-lose. Anger is aiming for win-win. So rage is when you just terrify
10:25someone in order to dominate their will and frighten them through the implied or explicit
10:31threats of escalation. It's when you seek to remove someone's free will and have them simply
10:36subjugate themselves to your will. So you model rage, you scream, you yell, you hit, you whatever,
10:43right? And you do that because that's win-lose. So the person who's raging wins. But with anger,
10:50it's actually aiming for win-win and anger occurs when you realize that win-win is not possible.
10:59And then you're tempted to rage to assert your will over the other person, but that entangles
11:04you in a win-lose relationship, which is a bad place to be. And it's a bad thing to have in your
11:11life, a win-lose relationship. Try to avoid, almost at all costs, try to avoid getting entangled
11:17in win-lose relationships. So I was frustrated when the bank would not reciprocate the principle
11:28of, if you cost me time, you owe me money, right? I said, they made the mistake. Well,
11:34it's not in our policies. Well, you know, it's not how we do things. Well, blah, blah, blah, right?
11:38And I said, but there's a principle of fairness, isn't it? Well, but it's not written down and blah,
11:42blah, blah. Okay. So I don't have any particular respect for positive law doctrines, right? Just
11:46because it's not written down. I mean, there's a principle of morality, right? You don't sign a
11:50contract to return the shopping cart, right? You don't sign a contract to do that, but you do it.
11:57You don't sign a contract. Well, you know, I didn't sign a contract to pay for my meal when
12:01I walked in and sat down and ordered my meal, right? I didn't sign a contract to do that.
12:07So this letter of the law stuff is exploitation writ large, right? Well, you know, if some woman
12:14cheats, your girlfriend cheats on you, right? And then she says, well, we didn't sign a contract.
12:20There's nothing written. We didn't notarize anything. We didn't get a lawyer to countersign
12:23it that that wasn't going to happen. I mean, maybe we had some conversations about it,
12:27but it wasn't formal. Okay, well, then just legalese is a way of avoiding the conscience.
12:37All that is not explicitly contracted is permissible. And of course, it's a lie,
12:43right? Because that's just do whatever you want to then complain that it's the other person's
12:48fault for not being clear about their preferences or requirements. So, yeah, so anger is hierarchical
12:55in that the urge to not become angry is to say, I will be the lose in this win-lose relationship,
13:02but at least I'll maintain the pretense of a relationship, right? This is sort of foundational
13:08to often dysfunctional parents and so on. I'm going to be the lose in the win-lose relationship,
13:12but at least this allows me to maintain the illusion of a relationship. So, anger
13:24is not something that a society can live without because anger needs to be directional. And what
13:30that means is that the rulers don't want you to be angry at the rulers, but they always need you
13:43to get angry, or to be able to get angry at the rulers' enemies. So, the king doesn't want you to
13:52get angry at the king, but the king always wants you to get angry at the king's enemies, right?
14:03So, I mean, we saw this under COVID, right? The rulers didn't want the population
14:11to get angry at the rulers for funding, creating, gain of function, restriction of rights and
14:19imposition of medical treatments. So, the rulers don't want you to get angry at them,
14:27but the rulers desperately need you, need you to get angry at the rulers' enemies, right?
14:35So, the ruler does not want you to get angry at him for starting the war, right? The ruler
14:46does not want you to get angry at him for starting the war, but the ruler desperately wants or needs
14:53you to become angry at your supposed enemies in the war, or at the people who are opposing the
15:02war, right? So, if the rulers make horrible mistakes and start a war, the rulers can't
15:12be having their population enraged at the rulers for screwing things up and starting a war.
15:20What they need the population to do is to get enraged at the enemy soldiers and domestic
15:27critics, right? Enemy soldiers and domestic critics. And of course, we saw this in the
15:35pandemic, right? Nobody was allowed to get angry at the people who had, in my view, of course,
15:43created and spread the virus, funded, created and spread this gain of function stuff. You weren't
15:48allowed to get angry at them, and you weren't allowed to get angry at the rulers, but you were
15:55directly encouraged to get angry at the people who had questions about what was going on. The
16:04people who were hesitant to take the vaccines. Now, those people you could get angry at. So,
16:11anger is both hierarchical and must be directional. And what I mean by that is,
16:16societies that weren't able to figure out or didn't evolve to allow anger to be hierarchical
16:21and directional probably didn't last very long in the, you know, hurly-burly nature-reddened
16:27tooth and claw of our evolution, right? So, the general purpose of anger is to appeal to the
16:36conscience of another person. The purpose of anger is to appeal to the conscience of another person.
16:46And anger is the sort of flip side of hurt, right? So, if somebody does something mean or bad or
16:54whatever, then you are hurt, and hopefully the hurt is enough to have the other person treat
17:03you better, right? But if hurt isn't enough to be upset, isn't enough, then anger is a way of saying,
17:11you have not noticed or care about my hurt. So, the last resort is anger, right? So,
17:20let's say, and anger, sorry, anger is when you realize it's not accidental, right?
17:26So, let's say that you are in a business relationship. Let's take a sort of typical
17:32example that you read over and over again. Like, I think two guys from Bad Finger killed
17:36themselves over this, if I remember rightly, but it happened to Elton John, happened to Billy Joel,
17:41happened to Sting, happened to Queen, of course, Death on Two Legs, where you're a musician,
17:47and you get ripped off. I'm sure it happened to Led Zeppelin, too, with the giant bags of money.
17:54So, if someone doesn't pay you what they owe you, it could be negligence, it could be
18:04confusion, it could be misunderstanding, it could be forgetfulness, like it could be any number of
18:11things, right? So, if somebody owes you 10% of something, and they don't pay you, then you're
18:19upset, right? You're hurt, you're hurt or you're upset. You don't necessarily immediately go to
18:23anger, because it could just be a misunderstanding, or a difference of opinion, or you could be in the
18:30wrong, right? In that you didn't read the fine print correctly, and you're not owed this money for
18:37whatever reason, right? So, let's just say it doesn't necessarily mean hurt or sad, but you're upset,
18:43right? So, when the bank missed or lost my deposit, I was annoyed, I was upset, right? I mean, not a huge
18:51deal. So, if you think you're owed a thousand dollars in a business transaction, and you don't
18:56get the thousand dollars, then you're bothered, right? It bothers you, and it should, right? Of
19:02course, right? It should bother you. So, you say to the person, I'm bothered because I think you owe
19:08me a thousand dollars. Now, if the person says, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, you're absolutely right,
19:16it absolutely slipped my mind, here's a thousand dollars. Like, I remember once when I was a
19:22roommate, I was doing okay financially, but I had a check that bounced. I think the one time
19:30in my life I've bounced a check, right? Bounced a check is when you write a check. For the younger
19:33people, you write a check, and there's not enough money in the account to cover it. And so, it was
19:39like the third or fourth month, and I kited a check, I bounced a check. And so, I showed the
19:48guy my bank book, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I wrote it on the wrong account, I'm so sorry,
19:52here's the account with all the money. And I wrote him the check for my rent, and I threw in an extra
19:59hundred dollars, because he was charged an insufficient funds fee, and there was hassle
20:05and time. So, I did something, I made a mistake, I did something that inconvenienced someone. So,
20:10I wrote them the check, and I said, you want to get it certified, which is where the monies are
20:15automatically deducted from your account already. So, I made it up to him, right? Because that's
20:22fair, right? So, on the other hand, it could be somebody who has no intention of paying you and
20:29is just going to try and last out as long as he can without paying you, and then you're in for a
20:36big bad ugly battle, right? So, you think someone owes you a thousand dollars, and it bothers you
20:41that you didn't get paid, right? So, what do you do? Well, you call the person up and you say this,
20:48and if they're like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, you're absolutely right to call me, you know,
20:52this completely slipped my mind, it wasn't put into the right place, and whatever, right? And
20:56then they cut you a check right away, and then you're like, okay, well, things happen, right?
21:01And maybe they throw in a little extra for your concern, but you know, whatever, right? I mean,
21:05even if they don't, they're just, oh, sorry, right? So, you're bothered, but not angry, right? You're
21:10bothered, like, hey, what's this money, right? And you call the person up, and if they're like, no,
21:14no, no, right? Now, if they say no, like, let's say you think you're owed 10% of 10 grand, and
21:23so you're owed a thousand bucks, and then the person says, I don't think I owe you the thousand,
21:29because, at least not yet, because I'm only supposed to start paying you after three months,
21:35and if you look at the contract, and you bring up the contract, and maybe you missed something,
21:39that the payments don't start until after three months, right? Okay, well, then you're like, oh,
21:45so sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you weren't paying me, I understand, and all of that, right?
21:52So, it could be any number of things. It could be that you misread it, you get paid $100,
21:58you thought you were owed $1,000, because you're in 10% of whatever transaction,
22:03but you misread $1,000 as $10,000, they send you $100, and you're like, hey, man,
22:08where's all my money? You owe me $900, and they say, no, no, no, because we're paying you 10%,
22:12it was $1,000, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I misread that as $10,000, my apologies, totally, right?
22:18Because you generally, if you think someone has not paid you, and you confront them on it,
22:22in a sense, I mean, and the harder you come across, like, hey, where's my money,
22:27kind of thing, right? You're ripping me off, right? This is why you go in with, you know,
22:30this is what I think, I just want to double check it with you, and like, because you don't want to
22:34be accusing people, right? You want to make sure, like, you don't want to be innocent until proven
22:39guilty, right? So, you're upset. And then, you call the person up, and if the person does,
22:48in fact, owe you the money, but is evasive about it, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll get it to you, blah,
22:54blah, blah, you know, it's like, okay, by when? Friday, man, yeah. So, if they, you know,
22:58and whatever, maybe they get it by Friday, whatever, right? But they're already on the
23:01back foot, they're already sus, right? They're already suspect, because they didn't call you
23:05and say, listen, I'm supposed to pay you this money, I have had a cash flow issue,
23:09I will have it Friday, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So, what happens is, you end up going from
23:17just being upset to being angry when you begin to realize it's not accidental, it's not
23:25unintentional, it's not confusion, it's not a mistake, they don't want to pay you, right? They
23:30owe you, and they don't want to pay you. I think I've only had one business transaction in my life
23:37like this, where I just wasn't paid. And it's, you know, I mean, it's fine, it's fine, it's still
23:48worth it. So, should you not get angry, right? When someone doesn't pay you, maybe it's a mistake,
23:55maybe it's confusion, maybe it's a misunderstanding, maybe you have different perspectives
23:59or opinions, or maybe there's a fine print you don't remember, so you call up and you say,
24:03you know, I'm expecting this, I could be wrong, blah, blah, blah, right? So, you're upset, maybe
24:08a little hurt, a little frustrated, but open to the possibility that you're in the wrong. Now,
24:14if somebody just keeps promising to pay you, and then doesn't pay you, then it's not, they've
24:20already acknowledged that they owe you the money, they tell you you'll have it Friday, they don't
24:24pay you, they keep putting you off, they don't answer their phone, they don't return emails,
24:29right? Then you're being ripped off. So, then you get angry. So, anger is when something that is
24:36negative to your interest is being consciously done to you by somebody who has already admitted
24:44fault. Somebody has already admitted fault, and they owe you the money, and they're not paying
24:51you, right? So, anger is when you are in the presence of intentional harm. It's not an accident,
25:01right? You know, what's the old line, please forgive me that I have shot, this is from King
25:06Lear, I think, please forgive me for I have shot, that I have shot an arrow, no, no, this is, sorry,
25:11this is Hamlet's Hilarities, how could I not remember this, and I don't have the line exactly,
25:15but it's like, forgive me, brother, that I have shot an arrow over the house and hit my brother,
25:19right? Just accident, right? Accident. You know, when kids and adults play fight every now and
25:26then, there's an elbow to the eye or something like that, right? And it's an accident, right?
25:33So, when someone harms your interests, and you're irritated, annoyed, hurt, upset, a little bit,
25:41right? Just because, you know, there seems to be something wrong. When you have confirmed that they
25:46know that they've done wrong, and they will not make it right,
25:50then you go to anger. And anger prepares you for conflict. It may not be conflict early on,
25:58right? You may just have misunderstood, or there's a three-month waiting period, or whatever, right?
26:01You may have misread the number, or missed the fine print. So, you're not in conflict,
26:06if your interest is being harmed, as you perceive, right? You're not in a conflict situation right
26:10away. So, let's say that somebody walks into you, sort of shoulder to shoulder, right? Somebody
26:19walks into you, it could just be an accident. They're watching their phone, they're doing all
26:24of that, and it's just an accident. And they hear you, hey, oh, sorry, man, sorry, sorry, right?
26:29But then if they come back and glare at you, and then hit you in the shoulder again, well,
26:35now you're in a combat situation, right? You're in a fight or flight situation, right? So,
26:40it's not an accident, right? It's not an accident. I mean, I'm sure everyone remembers,
26:45if you were around on 9-11, as I was at work, when I was Chief Technical Officer,
26:51and I was working on the code base, and a friend of mine I worked with came in,
26:56and said a plane just hit the World Trade Center. I'm like, oh, my God. I remember that a plane
27:02had flown, many decades prior, had flown into the Empire State Building. I was like, oh,
27:07that's bad, right? So, you think, oh, gosh, how could that happen? That's a very strange accident,
27:11and so on, right? And then, of course, when fairly shortly after, a second plane
27:16hit the World Trade Center, then you're like, okay, well, then it's not an accident, right?
27:22It's not an accident. So, anger is to get you ready for combat. And if someone has ripped you
27:30off, right? I mean, I remember many years ago, putting a deposit down on a place that I could
27:37move into with a then-girlfriend, and I was like, but if she's not here, if she doesn't like it,
27:43can I get my deposit back? Oh, yeah, no problem, right? And so, anyway, I ended up not getting my
27:46deposit back, so I had to take the guy to court, and so then you're in a combat situation, right?
27:52Or conflict, not necessarily combat, conflict situation, and anger is needed for that, right?
27:56So, the first pass of appealing to someone's conscience is to be upset. The second pass
28:03is to not so much appeal to their conscience and their empathy as to consequences,
28:08right? So, if someone steps on your foot, and it hurts you, you're like, ow, and he's like,
28:15oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry, my apology, like, then he doesn't want to hurt you, and you say,
28:21but if he keeps stepping on your foot, you're going to get angry. And you say, listen, man,
28:24if you step on my foot one more time, we're going to have a serious problem. So, then the fact that
28:29he hurt you is not enough to get him to change his behavior. So, when people don't have empathy,
28:36their behavior is restrained through consequences, right? So, the reason we don't steal from a store
28:41is UPB, and how would you like it if you were trying to run a store and people kept stealing
28:46from you, and if you steal, the store's not going to be there, and you won't have any access to
28:50these goods, or at least as easily, and so, you know, there's basic morality, then there's basic
28:55empathy, but then you stop stealing for fear of consequences. Like, if morals and UPB and
29:05thou shalt not steal and empathy, if none of that works, then you will not steal because you'll be
29:13prosecuted, and you'll have a record, and you'll have inconvenience, and you'll have a fine, and
29:20whatever, right? So, anger, so the first being hurt is like, well, does it bother you that I'm
29:26hurt, right? And if you do something to hurt someone, then it should, I mean, if you care
29:31about the person, and it's a moral relationship, then you should be troubled that you hurt someone,
29:37and you should try to make it right because you have virtue, morals, compassion, empathy,
29:41all of that kind of good stuff, right? But if someone hurts you or upsets you and doesn't fix
29:50it, in other words, they don't have empathy, they are exploitive, and manipulative, and immoral,
29:56and so on, well, then it's like, okay, well, listen. So, with the guy, it was like 900 bucks,
30:03right, for the deposit, right? So, I said, well, I'd like my money back, and he never got back to
30:09me, and then I said, listen, I mean, you did promise, right? I'm sure you're as good as your
30:13word, like you need to do the right thing here, give me the money back, blah, blah, blah, and then
30:17he still avoided me, wouldn't give me the money back, and then I just called him, I left a message,
30:20and I said, okay, well, I'll see you in small claims court, right? And then he tried to divide
30:26it in small claims court, but I had proof, and so he had to give me the money back and costs.
30:32So, I was angry with him because he was avoiding me, right? And so, anger, it's like, okay, then
30:39I'll get the money, I was hoping to get the money back from him, like, okay, I don't want to go to
30:44court, here's your money, but we ended up having to go to court, and he ended up paying up a lot
30:50more than the 900 bucks. So, that's just sometimes how things have to go. So, anger is, well, you're
30:58not going to do the right thing based on virtue, conscience, empathy, care, concern, affection,
31:04a sense of pride in your own morality, and so on. So, you're not going to do the right thing
31:11based on morality and empathy. So, now, hopefully, you'll do the right thing
31:17because of negative consequences, and the negative consequences have to be inflicted
31:22with empathy to the person's conscience, not to their will, right? So, if you're inflicting
31:29negative consequences on someone who's doing a bad thing, you're trying to, in a sense,
31:33jumpstart or, you know, those electrical paddles, defibrillators, you're trying to jumpstart their
31:39conscience with negative consequences. And even if you can't jumpstart their conscience, if, like,
31:43for whatever reason, they don't have a conscience, really, then at least they can be a, quote,
31:48slightly better person through fear of consequences. So, anger is when you try to
31:59reach someone's conscience or give them a better path through the infliction of negative consequences,
32:08and that's healthy, right? I mean, if you were abused by, as I may make this case a million
32:12times, right, if you were abused by your parents, then I think you should be honest with them if
32:16you're still in a relationship with them, and you should be honest with them, and if you're angry at
32:20how they mistreated you, you should be angry, and that hopefully will help. It will help you become
32:26more real to them so that they can have some chance of gaining and having and enacting empathy.
32:35And then what happens is, after anger, what happens after anger, right? So, you inflict
32:42the negative consequences, right? Whatever they are, right? You inflict the negative consequences.
32:48Well, and it could be violence, right? I mean, if somebody is assaulting you and you're in genuine
32:54fear of grievous bodily injury or death, then you can use up to lethal force in many jurisdictions.
33:00I'm no lawyer, so consult with your local jurisdictions, but my understanding is, in many
33:05jurisdictions, if you are about to be killed by a criminal, you can use up to lethal force to
33:09protect yourself. That's, well, you shouldn't be beating me up. The fact that it hurts me, obviously,
33:15is not a concern for you. In fact, you're beating me up in order to hurt me, so that's not a concern
33:19for you. So, the fact that you are beating me up, clearly, my pain is not a concern for you. Clearly,
33:26you don't have empathy because you've initiated the use of force against me, and so all I have
33:31is negative consequences. So, anger is when you are stimulated to a fight-or-flight scenario,
33:40right? To a fight-or-flight. So, anger means, anger doesn't mean not running away. Anger is when
33:45you realize that empathy and negotiation won't work. You're in a situation where empathy and
33:51negotiation won't work. If it's a situation of violence, in general, get out if you can.
33:56Just run away, get away. It's really not worth it. Violence is a very dangerous genie to uncork,
34:03and if you can avoid the situation, if you can get away, then get away. So, anger kicks in
34:11when you realize negotiation isn't going to work. I mean, the guy wasn't getting to be
34:14the $900 back, so I had to move to a different venue or environment, right, where he didn't have
34:20a choice to not negotiate, right? He can choose not to negotiate with me, but he can't really
34:24choose not to negotiate with the court. So, after anger, well, you win or you lose, right? You win or
34:33you lose. I took the guy to court. Either I was going to get my $900 back or I wasn't, right? So,
34:37you win or you lose. Now, if you win, then your anger dissipates, right? I wasn't angry with the
34:42guy anymore. I thought it was kind of a waste of time, but no big deal. It was an interesting
34:46experience and so on, right? So, I've barely thought about him in the 40 years since, right?
34:52No, 35 years since. So, yeah, I barely thought about him because the anger has done its purpose.
34:59I was harmed and I tried to negotiate and it didn't work. So, I escalated. I got what I wanted
35:05and then I moved on, right? So, anger had served its purpose. You don't stay angry, right, when
35:12anger has served its purpose. So, then what is the purpose of anger? Well, the purpose of anger
35:17is to put you in a state of conflict readiness. And again, conflict doesn't mean combat, right?
35:24And just conflict. It's what kicks in when negotiation no longer works. Like if you say
35:30to your parents, you did these harmful things to me and they just gaslight and lie and manipulate
35:35and avoid and insult, right? Then clearly empathy isn't working. The fact that they hurt you doesn't
35:41seem to matter to them relative to them protecting their own ego. So, then you're going to get angry
35:46because you're now in a situation of a conflict because trying to appeal to their empathy
35:53hasn't worked. Trying to appeal to their virtue, honor, dignity, like whatever, right, hasn't worked.
35:59Affection, parental bonds hasn't worked. So, then you're in a situation of a conflict and that's
36:05what anger is for. And then anger is there to help you to resolve the conflict, right? Anger is there
36:14to help you to resolve the conflict. Now, the conflict could be leaving the situation. The
36:20conflict could be an escalation to get what you deserve. It could be any number of things, right?
36:28And then the anger is there to help you resolve the situation, right? I mean, if you have a
36:34girlfriend and she cheats on you, you're hurt, you're angry and you have a conversation with her
36:40and generally, I mean, if she cheats on you, generally the solution is to leave the relationship.
36:45I mean, if it's just a girlfriend, right? So, you leave the relationship. So, your anger at having
36:50been mistreated and lied to, well, that is solved by leaving the relationship. And then after the
36:57anger, after the anger comes the self-criticism and it should. So, after the anger, right, so you've
37:05got hurt, upset. If that's not enough to get a person to behave better, you move to anger.
37:11And if anger, anger will resolve the situation one way or the other. And then you have self-criticism.
37:18So, the question then is, how did you end up in that situation to begin with, right?
37:24So, if you're a kid and you're, or let's say you're a teenager and you're out, I mean, I would
37:29cross train bridges at night with friends, right? And that was really stupid and dangerous, right?
37:36So, I was on a train bridge, the train was coming across, it was very dangerous and very bad,
37:40could have gone, I was like 300 feet off the ground, it was very bad. And so, I get a fear,
37:47I can't run, I get fight or flight, which heightens my perspectives, I do what's needed to
37:52survive that. And then I get the self-incrimination words, which is how stupid could you be
37:58to put yourself in that situation and I never did it again, right? So, the self-criticism, right?
38:03If you've been ripped off in business, then ripped off in business, then you have the challenge of
38:08saying to yourself, okay, so let's say I move heaven and earth and we go to court or whatever,
38:12resolve the situation in some way or another. And then your question is, okay, well, how did I get
38:18into the situation to begin with, right? So, that you can avoid having to get in that situation.
38:24And if you've been excessively criticized, then you lack the more rational course correction of
38:30self-criticism, right? You need that rational course correction of self-criticism and a lot
38:35of people will just defend themselves, right? You know, the woman who cheats or the man who
38:39cheats might justify it and explain it away and so on, right? So, in terms of don't get angry,
38:46well, that's not healthy. It's like saying don't have an immune system. Well, you're in the world,
38:51people are going to mistreat you, like it's going to happen. People are going to mistreat you.
38:56And the purpose, of course, is to act back against people who mistreat you and then afterwards have
39:04the post-review, right? The review after, right? The review after and say, well, what could I have
39:14done to have avoided the situation in the future, right? And do we say that's anger with the self?
39:22Well, it depends, right? It depends. But being angry at the self can be very helpful in terms
39:28of shocking you out of dangerous or complacent behavior. So, in terms of don't get angry,
39:33yeah. I mean, have people around you who treat you well and you won't get angry.
39:36I mean, honestly, I literally, literally cannot remember the last time I was angry with my wife.
39:41I have no memory of, I mean, I'm sure I've been annoyed, as has she, over the 22, 23 years.
39:48But I honestly cannot remember. Because, you know, you just have people in your life who are
39:53good and reasonable and care about you. And if there's a wrong done, it's accidental.
39:57And so, yeah, I mean, get angry for sure. And let anger get you to a place of safety
40:02and security by having you not repeat the behaviors that end up with you being
40:06harmed or hurt. So, anyway, I hope that helps. And I really do appreciate your time, care,
40:10thoughts, and attention. Freedemand.com slash donate if you find these and other
40:13conversations to be helpful. Thanks.