I have read on some psychology sites that anger is a masking emotion or an emotion that disallows us from confronting problems in life. Hence the OP?

I suspect anger to be an infantile response to some lack or desire unfulfilled. — Wallows

I suspect, though I’m no authority, that anger has a function.
If I look up the meaning of anger I find that it can be any number of things: passive anger, aggressive anger and assertive anger. Passive anger can be “giving someone the cold shoulder or a fake smile, looking unconcerned or "sitting on the fence" while others sort things out”. Wikipedia.

Looking for its function in that forest won’t be easy. So, as usual, we’ve managed to muddy the waters.

According to Anthony, a neurosis. — Wallows

All anger?

Looking for its function in that forest won’t be easy. — Brett

I'm thinking of instances where anger has been utilized by me or others in life. When I used to work jobs, I found that customers who get angry, get things their way. Our natural response to someone who gets angry is that they attain priority in maintaining a fragile (disrupted) equilibrium. Interesting, yes/no?

All anger? — Brett

Not sure, the common textbook/generic idea about repressed emotion is manifest in depression. Deep depression is when anger is also repressed, or no influence of anger on one's situation in some state of affairs.

Interesting, yes.

I don’t think anger can be parcelled up into the idea of neurosis.

My point about his comment on ‘professionals, is that generally I don’t see evidence of anger. They may definitely suppress their feelings of anger in certain situations, but I don’t see a display of uncontrolled anger. I don’t agree with defining aspects of human nature as neurotic. They may seem out of place in certain circumstances, but that doesn’t mean it’s neurotic. Possibly in today’s society anger management is important, but it’s not neurotic behaviour, it’s behaviour that’s now out of place in a highly populated environment.

What do you mean by 'category error'? — Wallows

I guess the idea that a portion of our natural responses could be unhealthy, hence the analogy with noses and skin. A particular pattern of anger could be unhealthy. Expressions of anger could be unhealthy. But since getting angry is what most healthy social mammals do as part of their repetoire it almost by definition can't be unhealthy.

Maybe more 'redundant' or 'irrelevant'? — Wallows

Do you mean anger or are you suggesting replacements for my use of 'category error'?

Deep depression is when anger is also repressed, — Wallows

Well that makes sense. Anger being a natural aspect of being human, but then regarded as wrong and neurotic.

Possibly in today’s society anger management is important, but it’s not neurotic behaviour, it’s behaviour that’s now out of place in a highly populated environment. — Brett

“Ira furor brevis est” (Anger is a brief madness). Those that behave irrationally get rewarded for their efforts.

Depressing; but true.

Maybe a good dose of anger returned might straighten them out. I don’t know if animals are angry when they square off (although they might show all the signs we classify as anger), but these displays of ‘anger’ remain that and no one gets seriously hurt. So I see our anger in a similar light. Maybe there is a neurotic anger, but maybe I’m talking about ‘healthy’ anger.

It's never about other people, it's always about our misguided expectations. There are always limitations (weaknesses) and failed expectations in anger. — BrianW

An early memory: another kid jumped on my back and pushed me down in mud. I got angry and rolled him off me, then I yelled at him for a moment, then walked away.

I just can't find anything wrong with that. I had well founded expectations that I not be treated like he treated me, rather than misguided expectations. He got some good real world feedback about boundaries.

There are so many instances and ways of expressing anger that one can find examples, of course, that are negative. But anger is one of our natural reactions and often just peachy.

Some of the Eastern religions and or interpretations of these have judgments of emotions. On the one hand they tend to teach us to accept things. On the other hand they often teach us not to accept emotions. This dualism is something I find problematic.

The Bhagavad Gita doesn't even condemn war, in fact it bases itself on a war backdrop and implies heavily that war is necessary in some circumstances. Wars are the behavior of anger acted out in the most violent ways possible. Sure, someone might go into the war, without anger, and this might all be a step on his road to enlightenment, but I see no reason to judge the kernal as bad when the most possible damaging husk can be ok.

"…if you are killed (in the battle) you will ascend to heaven. On the contrary if you win the war you will enjoy the comforts of earthly kingdom. Therefore, get up and fight with determination… With equanimity towards happiness and sorrow, gain and loss, victory and defeat, fight. This way you will not incur any sin." (The Bhagavad Gita)

There's a kind of tug-o-war between the pleasure principle and the reality principle. More than anger (which is partially caused by an over inhibition of the emotion driven primary process/psychosis=neurosis) primary process involves being irresistibly drawn toward the primal, dreamy, nostalgic memories of childhood satisfactions (we can go too far here obviously, my point was never that we don't at all inhibit the instinctual processes and its displacements in the psychical apparatus); a person stuck in the primary process of instinct would live in a dream world of early memory (possibly to the point of hallucination)and unable to care for himself and do the work of living (note: the work of living has a special connotation: we have primal needs which are decreasingly satisfied in modernity). As said, I have my own hermeneutic of Freud's theories, and at times he seems to have not fully unraveled his own ideas, or to have understood how they work together. Unimpeachably, the reality principle includes the primary process maybe even more than the secondary neurosis, which is a lot of what my interpretation includes; reality is supposedly handled effectively by the inhibitory governance of the secondary process, neurosis/ego, and so on. And the pleasure principle can easily be said to be the domain of ego and neurosis...plus, my notions of displacements and precipitations between preconscious and conscious processing is different than Freud himself understood it.

From the standpoint of survival...you can't argue we have to be alive to have any mental processes occurring whatever. Enter the modern world. How much of what we do these days has no direct relation to survival...must be filtered through idealist systems and technics invented by man post the advent of agriculture? Money is a construct of the mind, it's exclusively mental media, for example, you don't eat it or build with it and can't possibly be self-reliant with it, in essence, it makes you an infant before those who have it, as they had to be puerile in their relations to those who had it, in turn. We make executive decisions within a fictive world, essentially...so where there's mental processes so far removed from survival (equatable to playing a game, where winning at a game has nothing to do with surivial), or where using the rules of a game to win have been confused with doing the work of living/surviving to such an extent...primary processes definitely become as important as secondary ones: pleasure vs reality, dream vs reality.

The concept of reality in modernity is getting significantly diluted; or you could say that what most agree is reality exists in a plainly idealistic realm. In the final analysis, reality is what keeps you alive and what can kill you. When so much of what keeps you alive and what kills you - within the human system - has nothing to do with physical processes, but idealistic ones, the work of living isn't really the work of living and truly enters a dreamy confused state. IN this state, it could only be that the secondary process of ego-neurosis struggling to inhibit the primary process of dreamy psychosis, is being asked to do an extraordinary amount of damming back of emotion. The modern world is giving rise to either extremely emotional or extremely angry people due to this push and pull anent psychical discharges, displacements and precipitations, preconscious and conscious, primary and secondary prcoesses. Grow a garden, go foraging, go out in nature, leave the automated human system for a space...it helps in spades.

Anger being a natural aspect of being human, — Brett

What you describe is being stuck in an emotional state of development. It isn't natural to be stuck in a state of emotional unawareness. People who have alexithymia may have fell out of touch with their feelings at a very early age. Anyway, anger is synonymous with the same stupidity seen in all hysteria, it is absence of intrapersonal intelligence. It has a function? Maybe on a battle field where the enemy has been demonized. Demonization is usually the result of projection of internal conflict...if a war is seen in the external world, then the one inside one is justified.

Usually impulse control disease is associated with internal conflict. One component of the subject's mind is incommunicado, no feedforward to other components because it has been locked away in the dungeon of consciousness. Could be early traumas, or abuses, or delusions for some other reason (or lack of reason rather). When a person's own psychal apparatus is out of sync with itself...it probably isn't going to get along with other psyches very well. On that note, I've always thought kicking an inanimate object or buffeting a punching bag to be different than anger directed at other subjects.

What you describe is being stuck in an emotional state of development — Anthony

People who on certain occasions get angry are stuck in an emotional state of development? How do you know this?

Anyway, anger is synonymous with stupidity and hysteria. — Anthony

No, it's not. The definitions are quite different. Intelligent people can get angry, even be angry people. Hysterical people can be afraid.

It has a function? Really? Maybe on a battle field where the enemy has been demonized. — Anthony

Or even if they haven't been demonized. I would likely get angry during a long artillary bombardment, though fear would come up more. I would get angry if sent on stupid dangerous missions. As just a couple of perfectly natural not problematic humans reactions in war. People often get angry when their boundaries are crossed without permission. Parents get angry when someone hurts their kids. We can even get angry at ourselves if we notice we are not utilizing opportunities we should. In many situations anger can be a good motivation, which the emotions function as in general: whole system motivators, moving the body towards actions that are of importance to the individual. There is nothing wrong with the emotions per se.

I can't think of a single time I've acted out and not done something I regret. — Anthony

Maybe you have an anger problem. But notice you are using the pejorative phrase 'acting out' which means bad behavior. Well, of course, bad behavior, which you yourself judge as bad, you are going to regret. Anger is not necessarily acting out. Anger can be expressed without any action beyond the expression.

Nor can I think of a time where someone I know hasn't behaved irrationally when they've acted hysterically out of ire. — Anthony

Well, OF COURSE

talk about stacking the deck.

Someone acting hysterically out or ire (or love or fear or passion for fruit or whatever) must behave irrationally. I mean, it pretty much goes with acting hysterically.

Nor can I think of a time when someone I know hasn't felt unpleasant physical sensations when hysterically bending their joints in ways they were not meant to.

This doesn't mean Yoga must be a bad activity.

People who on certain occasions get angry are stuck in an emotional state of development? — Coben

No, he said anger has a function. This was the context of what I replied to. Anger is natural for toddlers, only. Maybe up through adolescence. Otherwise, it is a symptom of disease/juvenile, usually in the form of repressed derivatives.

Intelligent people can get angry, even be angry people. — Coben

For you. This is one of the criteria for unintelligent people for me, whatever they may present otherwise. Consistent self-control is a requisite for intelligence.

But notice you are using the pejorative phrase 'acting out' which means bad behavior. — Coben

Ok, then. Call it what you will. Acting out, hysterics, conniption, rage, anger, wrath, ire, crying, babbling. Give such a person a pacifier, that's literally what they need. Some have never come to terms with being born. Experiences in the womb (signals from the world outside) influence the person long after being born, I'm saying this as a context to the sentence before this one.

Having anger issues isn't associated with adulthood just as many other adolescent complexes aren't if they've continued into "adulthood" (society promotes adolescent behaviors, to be sure; anger, sexual deviance and narcissism are sanctioned). Usually, childish people are angry at life and haven't come to terms with it. Sure we all experience the perversion of violence rousing in us from time to time, it shouldn't be acted on or allowed to proliferate in us. When you experience anger rearing up...hold as still as ever...because you're about to do something really stupid. It's important to practice being consciously aware of anger when it arises, hesitate, be aware of it... Of course, my thesis rests on handling of these displacements and precipitations in a quiescent manner over periods of time. Someone who doesn't practice management of their inner space constantly won't succeed in vanquishing anger as soon as it arises and will be more likely to let it proliferate within him (it can be contagious to those around him, a concatenation of depravity released into the world). When accommodation has been made for the full spectrum of emotion all the time, anger doesn't exist anymore, as it shouldn't. Peace.

In psychoanalysis, the most important thing in accessing the subconscious is for the subject to suspend all goal oriented thoughts and motivations. Perhaps the type of person who can't relax and stop chasing carrots every day of their natural life is motivated by anger. And they are likely out of touch with themselves and their emotional gamut. We're subliminally taught by society to win, succeed, achieve, conquer, stop at nothing, etc....all which is a process fueled by violence, hate and anger...a runaway feedback system. Homeostasis between the primary and secondary processes require constant vigilance within. Saying anger has meaning is like saying you don't think there is a primary process to include at all...which is false and will definitely lead to stunting of emotional growth/alexithymia (precipitating in recurrent anger issues). There's moving parts within; everytime the mind moves it conditions your reality, conventionally. Yet the natural state of the mind is to be still, so its easy to confuse mental impressions for the mind itself. If one's lost track of the mind itself...trouble will follow.

The Bhagavad Gita doesn't even condemn war, in fact it bases itself on a war backdrop and implies heavily that war is necessary in some circumstances. — Coben

Not "necessary". War is portrayed as inevitable because the course had already been set in motion.

No, he said anger has a function. This was the context of what I replied to. Anger is natural for toddlers, only. Maybe up through adolescence. . — Anthony

Anger does have a function. It is present in most adults in every culture ever encountered. There is no evidence it is a juvenile phase only. This applies to humans and many social mammals.

For you. This is one of the criteria for unintelligent people for me, whatever they may present otherwise. Consistent self-control is a requisite for intelligence. — Anthony

Well, going by scientific measurements of intelligence or by accomplishments and success, intelligent people get angry. So, it's not for me as an individual. It is a widely held belief by experts in many fields and also by good old regular people. I understand that for you other measures of intelligence don't matter, someone is stupid if they get angry sometimes. This is an extremely rare position to take. But I understand now how you evaluate people.

Having anger issues isn't associated with adulthood just as many other adolescent complexes aren't if they've continued into "adulthood" (society promotes adolescent behaviors, to be sure; anger, sexual deviance and narcissism are sanctioned). Usually, childish people are angry at life and haven't come to terms with it. Sure we all experience the perversion of violence rousing in us from time to time, it shouldn't be acted on or allowed to proliferate in us. — Anthony

Again you conflate anger with certain behaviors, as if the emotion must lead to specific actions. One can get angry without violence. I certainly can. It would take a physical immediate attack on myself or someone I loved or potentially people I don't know but who are being victimized to lead me to act in anger violently.

When you experience anger rearing up...hold as still as ever...because you're about to do something really stupid. — Anthony

Perhaps in you every time you feeling anger you are about to do something stupid and that sounds pathological. I do not experience alwayss coupled with stupid action. In fact this was rare even when I was a child. It happens but it is hardly a rule. I notice people getting angry in all sorts of contexts and stupid actions are also the exception.

It sounds to me like you are conflating anger with violence and destructive acts. Certainly anger is present in those things, but anger does not have to be pathological like that and those are exceptions. People get angry in their everday lives without being violent almost as a rule.

I don't think your take on psychoanalytic theory is correct, but since it is based on this conflation of anger with violent forms of anger, it is a tangent. Further that you incorrectly believe that anger is only a phase in the early life of humans, you are confused about humans at a fundamental level.

You conflate anger with the perversion of violence, and honestly, that sounds quite disturbing. The only person I have ever met who viewed anger that way was horrifically sexully abused. And even she was working towards where she could express anger in healthy ways and part of natural adulthood.

I don't think further discussion between us would be useful for either one of us.

Not "necessary". War is portrayed as inevitable because the course had already been set in motion. — BrianW

By choices even including those of both sides. IOW you have to go to war with people in certain situations, even if and in fact because of the fact that you are good.

If going to war and killing people is OK, and Krishna encouraged Arjuna to go to war and not be cowardly, why all the fuss about anger. All the destructive aspects of anger are accepted, but not the emotion.

Accept anything outside yourself and you yourself can even be violence, but do not accept everything inside yourself.

Again, it is a dualism.

Again you conflate anger with certain behaviors, as if the emotion must lead to specific actions. — Coben

As always, it's a matter of definition. An act can be a thought or emotion, or a spoken word. As I'd said, any movement of the mind conditions it. Identifications with these movements or impressions in the mind, while losing sight of the mind as such (which always stands apart from its impressions and movements), can be the beginning of anger. How the mind becomes conditioned ultimately bleeds into the environment as a physical, sensible consequence of these conditioned responses. Behavior doesn't come out of nowhere.

For example, the most subtle violent act is to make another person feel inferior. Not that being thick-skinned isn't necessary in life, but you never know who you're dealing with. Also, we're all sensitive to the slightest metacommunications. If some one's tone of voice betrays pretension...it may affect you, and sets in motion retaliatory thought-actions. So in order to prevent a snowballing that could lead to physical violence...you wouldn't return the like; which again, requires self-awareness, and a desire to establish peace on earth, and also extensive training of the mind.

Don't you think the people around you know when you are angry? So what you're saying is you have no desire to keep from spreading anger into the world...when actually, a peaceful, tempered person takes responsibility to avoid destructive contagious emotions, by preventing them from arising, to the fullest extent possible, within him at all.

It sounds like maybe you confuse anxiety with anger. As you are right, anger=violence in my handbook, it is destructive. Kinda how the dark triad consists of related illnesses psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism, so anger, hate, and violence are related illnesses. I thought this was commonly known.

I don't think further discussion between us would be useful for either one of us. — Coben

Oh, ok. Hope you have a good day. Peace.

I read the Stoics to be saying that anger diminishes autonomy. That is not the same as training oneself to not feel it. The problem with anger is that it wants to take over all executive functions. Aurelius and Epictetus developed strategies to countervail against that principle of totality can exhibit and how fast the expression happens. The "apathy" being promoted is not deadening a sensation but repeating others to countervail its influence.

What Seneca noted as a psychological observation is in harmony with the first word of the Iliad being Wrath. The destructive power of a single person's anger has a life of its own. Especially when that single person happens to be really good at destruction. I think the Stoics were hoping more for a detente than a complete victory over the agency.

As a matter of psychology, as we "moderns" have come to use the word, autonomy is still a central concept but is expressed in various models of development. There is continuity to the Stoics in the idea that healthy characters come from the influence of healthy characters but the contemporary conversation is much more focused on how a person comes to be in contrast to competing models of development.

This is all a long winded way to say that caution should be taken when comparing the Stoics "agenda" with the way we now speak of drives, emotion (repressed or not) and efficacy of expressing such emotion.

quote="Anthony;302918"]society promotes adolescent behaviors, to be sure; anger, sexual deviance and narcissism are sanctioned)[/quote]

If some one's tone of voice betrays pretension...it may affect you, and sets in motion retaliatory thought-actions. So in order to prevent a snowballing that could lead to physical violence... — Anthony

These generalisations don’t help explain your theory, except to say that anger is evidenced in the smallest acts. Which is just a subjective view on your part, and consequently everyone is neurotic. Regarding pretensions: I imagine most people would probably be laughing inside rather than preparing to give someone a good thrashing.

Earlier I had asked you to address this view of yours. I’d still like to know.

Whether it’s suppression of repression, your thoughts are still that ‘Probably most high functioning "professionals" in the market society have anger issues.‘

You also said:

Anger is no emotion, it's the absence of it; the result of living with stored up repressed emotion. The sum total of repressed emotion=anger. People who get angry believe their emotions can't be trusted and hence deny them..
— Anthony

What do you mean by anger when you say ‘People who get angry’? — Brett

[

Puzzling. I always thought anger was a primary emotion. Children get angry all the time if things don't go their way. I suspect anger to be an infantile response to some lack or desire unfulfilled. — Wallows

Its funny many women won't respect a man who doesn't acknowledge that anger is necessary sometimes. And also women who don't like men who get angry actually will very often let their emotions spew out into anger contrary to their testimony. Anger should be carefully watched but to assert that it is wrong in every case goes against human nature and rational thought. Ocassio Cortez is a prime example.

By choices even including those of both sides. IOW you have to go to war with people in certain situations, even if and in fact because of the fact that you are good.

If going to war and killing people is OK, and Krishna encouraged Arjuna to go to war and not be cowardly, why all the fuss about anger. All the destructive aspects of anger are accepted, but not the emotion. — Coben

War and killing people is not ok. What Krishna taught is that you can't avoid the consequences of one's own actions. If good people don't fight off evil, then they're just as guilty for its outcome including those who can resist its influence. Imagine if, in WW2, most of the allied powers decided not to get involved since Hitler wasn't going after them? Then, eventually, they would be just as responsible for whichever outcome would have ensued both short and long term. However, by acting for the sake of those others who are part of the greater community, they determine the nature of the future for everyone and especially safeguard their own. (Hence Krishna's "this battle is like an open gate to heaven" speech.)

Also, Krishna teaches that even in such conditions, war and violence, we need to keep our reason and compassion and act with the highest discipline and integrity. Which is why anger would not be acceptable.

War is about protecting the good and attempting to stop (ideally, to save) the enemy from their own destructive impulses. Again, in WW2, once the instigating force behind the Germans had been overcome, they (the Germans) stopped fighting. We don't go around calling all Germans evil even though at one time they supported Hitler. (A case could even be made that Hitler was alike many other leaders in history - not evil, just really, really wrong in their convictions. Were the British monarchs who almost colonised half the world any better? The Romans?) The same could also be said of any other empire which sought to conquer and rule others.

War is often less about good vs evil than it is about progressive vs destructive energies. All Krishna is saying is that anger is a destructive energy, and it harms oneself as much as others.

Its funny many women won't respect a man who doesn't acknowledge that anger is necessary sometimes — christian2017

Evidence for this?

“ And also women who don't like men who get angry actually will very often let their emotions spew out into anger contrary to their testimony.”

Means, what?

“Ocassio Cortez is a prime example.”

Example of what?

considering this particular forum topic is on philosophy, i'm not going to go look for an article. Its based on observation. Do your own research, don't do your own research i really don't care. Its great when a person chooses to never get married because the world's best people don't get married: that being said, people who pander to women as though they should be put on some pedastal, in my opinion are some of the most vile people you will meet. Many women see right through this sort of thing.

Telling a women that she is perfect when in fact the guy just thinks she is really cute is not genuine respect.

I'm not going to look for an article on this. I really don't care if you agree with me on this. Good luck finding a mate other than that the world's best people tend to not get married.

:)

for other readers: that post that you quoted was to another forum user and not brett.

If good people don't fight off evil, then they're just as guilty for its outcome including those who can resist its influence. Imagine if, in WW2, most of the allied powers decided not to get involved since Hitler wasn't going after them? Then, eventually, they would be just as responsible for whichever outcome would have ensued both short and long term — BrianW

This doesn't contradict what I am saying. It is exactly what I am saying. I am not saying Krishna is wrong about this. I agree with this part. My point is if I can participate in a war, then I can also express anger, for example, at someone who pushes my child. Or a woman who sexually assaulted. Pushed up against a wall, can feel anger and push the man away and call for help.

If it is ok, even a duty to go to war agains Hilter - something that will lead to the death of innocent people even, for example German children, then I can certainly express some anger and feel some anger in the everyday situations that come up.

Even if I am on the receiving end of anger from family members and friends, I have on many occasions appreciated it. In two ways: 1) I want the people I love to express what they feel, even if it turns out they were confused, misheard, were being unfair...so that we know what is happening and can work it through. 2) Sometimes I have been insensitive, missed signs or even verbal requests to do something or not do something, for example. The anger gets my attention. I drop my everyday distraction or insensitive. My goodness, what is happening. I really listen. It is possible I get it.

Anger is one of the ways we feel. It can be pathological, just as thoughts or any emotion can get into pathological patterns. But it is natural part of life.

I find it bizzare that war can be justified but not anger. My argument is not that the allies should just have let Hitler take over Europe and the Pacific.

All Krishna is saying is that anger is a destructive energy, and it harms oneself as much as others. — BrianW

'And I disagree.

First, I don't think it is necessarily desctructive. It is often expressive. It is a great way, in many situaiton, to let the other person know that they have repeatedly crossed a boundary. It is certainly best if one can signal this, in lesser 'infractions' calmly, but when this is ignore or if the 'infraction' is severe, anger is perfectly appropriate and not at all destructive. Don't touch me like that expressed with anger destroys no one. And it is even good in many situation for the person who is on the receiving end. It can give them a wake up call that their is another person in there.

Second, destroying things is not always wrong. As in the very example you raise above. Here vast swathes of nature and civilization and people were destroyed and yet you argue above that it was the right decision to participate. There can be by comparison infinitesmally small destructions of unhealthy patterns or misunderstandings or abusive patterns between people, where an expression of anger can be helpful in changing it.

In nature funguses, vultures, bacteria are decomposers and necessary for ecosystems.

Some patterns, such as the rise of Naziism, need to be destroyed. Some smaller patterns need to be destroyed.

But destruction is a melodramatic term in most of these smaller situations everyday situations, Anger can dissolve. Anger can draw attention to. Anger can be part of achieving intimacy.

Not expressing anger can be destrucitive in relationships. Not being aggressive against evil - as in the Bhagavad Gita or as in the Allies in Europe can be destructive.

Allowing a boss to treat workers poorly can be destructive. Expressing anger might even save that boss more, from his perspective, destructive consequences, when the effects on moral or union activity or upper management firing him comes down the pike.

Of course one can have bad or even terrible anger with habits. Hitler certainly did.

But anger is not per se pathological.

These generalisations don’t help explain your theory, except to say that anger is evidenced in the smallest acts. Which is just a subjective view on your part, and consequently everyone is neurotic. Regarding pretensions: I imagine most people would probably be laughing inside rather than preparing to give someone a good thrashing.

Earlier I had asked you to address this view of yours. I’d still like to know. — Brett

As to your accusations of generalizations: I can't help but notice how many posters here conflate science for philosophy. Philosophy deals in generalities and contexts endlessly missed by the vast errors of reductionist scientism fallacies gone rampant. A particular by itself has no conceptual transferability, tells me nothing. Truth is not data you can run in a computer simulation. I'm not going to put a handle on my views here. If I give a detailed example (not that I can't or won't, only that it will probably cause you to miss the theme of my conceptual framework), you will try to induce what I'm saying, which is again, the error of scientists (believing they have the whole jigsaw puzzle put together with three pieces in place). Philosophy is mostly deductive, it stems from the totality.

All views are subjective, or at least have a subjective element. No two people see the same world or think the same thought.

Pretentious people are one of my challenges. As such, they do not "gore my ox" anymore, however, it has taken a lot of practice in mindfulness in dealing with them.

Everyone is neurotic, I never denied that...some are way too much so, though; this is increasingly so in modernity (the just world fallacy is popping up all over the place in this thread). I see that war is justified to some of the posters here. If you aren't anti-war...be careful you don't have anger, hate, and violence in you. It's true you have to be a dreamer to cultivate peace in the world. Aspects of consciousness are dreamy, though, and it's a mistake to think the mind isn't like a dream in certain ways.

What do you mean by anger when you say ‘People who get angry’? — Brett

Surgeons would be an example. Here is profession of high functioning individuals. They have to be automatons. Surgeons rather scare me, not because they cut into your body, but because of how much information of the primary process/instinct they have to deny to do their job (what if a hallucination should force itself upon them during an operation?...seems entirely probable, like a computer glitch). Every surgeon I've encountered was an unmixed asshole, frigid, cold, inhuman, nonliving, an algorithm. For me, they aren't as intelligent as most assume. Other high functioning professionals that likely have anger issues: lawyers, judges, CEOs, etc., are often psychos, and unintelligent just the same. Not making assumptive statements, here: yes, some of them haven't taken on more than they can handle and maintain composure (they may be the true masters of life, not a specialization). As an anarchist, I don't respect the incoherence of the statutes. If the law lacks internal consistency, it has broken itself before any human attempts to interpret it. It only makes sense people who get involved with jurisprudence would be of low intelligence..adhering to systems with little internal inconsistency and all. Only the individual's nous can possibly collocate a system of coherent thought...and it verges on esoteric, non transferable. A tangent, sorry.

As to the second paragraph you quoted of mine: not sure what to add. People who don't trust themselves, the plenum of emotion (also being referred to as primary process, psychosis, and instinct; with emphasis that emotion can be thought of as movement and behavior), have anger, hate, and violence problems sometimes. Alexithymia dug into them at some point in their lives for some reason...perhaps they had a patriarchal authoritarian father that beat them as a kid or verbally abused them or tried to indoctrinate them with legalism. This was bad with baby boomers....a generation of psychopaths that then went on and applied it to their own children. Authoritarianism is like the pure stupidity of military dressing down: your opinion doesn't matter, right? Conform to the group. This is like saying it isn't important to have a well-communicated psychical apparatus, and that you shouldn't worry about doing away with internal conflicts which can develop into destructiveness. But then the military psychology exists to make soldiers destructive. How much of military psychology has spilled into the market/industrial/technocratic society? A militant, aggressive posture is a part of social conditioning in the human system, thus blind, unexamined faith in norms can be concomitant with anger, hate, and violence.

What do I mean when I say 'people who get angry' you ask. This can't be more straightforward. What do you mean by asking this? Clarify, please. Anger isn't really circumstantial as I see it, it's intentional. You either intend to avoid being angry or you don't.

I have a coworker who I tried to be civil with but I felt extremely angry with. She finally pushed the right buttons. I told her I hated her guts. It felt so good to be honest with myself and others.

Anger is part of a sympathetic nervous response. It's the "fight" part.
— frank

I agree, but the ‘fight’ for what? — Brett

For life.