Anger Anger Everywhere

I was reading something on the social networks today that had me raising my eyebrows a bit. It happens regularly, actually, and I think it’s one of the reasons that I’ve largely withdrawn from social media altogether. It’s becoming a perfect storm of stuff that is designed to make you feel some sort of emotion, outrage being one of the predominant ones going around lately. And what it makes me feel right now mostly is anger.

Hi. I’m Zach Ricks, and apparently I’m an angry white male. (I usually skip fear and plow right on to anger, then to hate, then… well… you know how that goes.)

For example, there are very few people that I follow on tumblr, and I have nothing but respect for them. Usually. But being human, occasionally someone will post something that has me scratching my head a little and wondering what kind of reaction they’re trying to invoke, and what kind of conversation they’re attempting to have.

The article I read today had to do with something that people I follow are posting and talking a lot about – gender roles, masculinity/femininity, appropriate standards of dress and behavior, etc. And over the last few years, I’ve developed a knee-jerk reaction when someone says something that comes across as critical of, say, traditional families or of men in general. Usually, I don’t respond, but I’m usually a little upset by it and about it. Today, I did something different.

Today, I took the text of the article this person had quoted, pasted it into a word-processing doc, and went through it line by line, trying to see where this person had a point and where the argument was… less than effective. Part of this, I’ll admit, was sheer vindictiveness on my part. Correcting the grammatical errors was emotionally gratifying. And the cultural references. I suppose I should feel guilty for that. But I don’t. And I suppose that lack of guilt… should also make me feel guilty.

Because that’s what it seems to be all about nowadays. It’s all about pointing a finger at some kind of cultural institution, be it schools, parents, society, churches, traditional families, the rich, the poor, the illegal immigrants, nutbars of various handedness, etc, and saying THERE! THAT person or institution is the reason that I am less happy than perhaps I should be because of their judging/bullying/sexism/condescension. (Okay, I will totally cop to condescension in correcting grammatical errors in someone’s emotionally-driven screed. Warmed the cockles of my gnarled, black heart, it did. See above re: lack of guilt, and spare a prayer for my immortal soul if you can.)

I want to point out a couple of things here. You may note that I am not linking to the post that drove me to fisking today. That’s on purpose.

The article isn’t important to what I’m talking about. It could have been about anything from white male privilege (don’t get me started) to the infield fly rule. It’s only here as an illustration of something that I’ve noticed about myself – that I get frustrated when I don’t allow myself the opportunity to really digest something and get to why I feel something is wrong / misguided / off.
Because the original article that got re-shared on my tumblr feed is from months ago, and while my reaction (and the re-share that prompted it) is pretty hot and fresh, the original content is a bit… stale.
I get the feeling that the person who wrote that article is trying to figure out how and what they feel about the issue they were describing. I get that from looking at other things the person had posted. My fisking, while intensely personally satisfying at the time, isn’t ultimately going to help that person.
Snark. There’s always a fair amount of snark in a good fisking, but sarcasm doesn’t help people come together on an issue. It’s great for making you feel emotionally better / superior. And it makes people on your side of the argument cheer, and people on the other side get upset. Which I guess a lot of people would call “winning”. But if the goal isn’t “winning”, but “increasing understanding?” My own understanding or someone else’s? Then snark, sarcasm, cynicism, bitterness, etc. isn’t just not helpful, it’s actively opposed to actually getting people together on an issue. It makes you and your argument toxic. And who needs to be swimming in that kind of emotional poison?
While the argument that comes out of an emotional screed like the one I read is usually full of holes like a piece of Swiss, the emotion that’s associated with it is genuine and if you go straight for tearing the throat out of the argument, it feels like you’re attacking the feeling the person has. Which gets interpreted as attacking the person as opposed to addressing their perception or argument. Which makes them defensive and results in their digging in their ideological heels and doubling down on their position. People need to be able to work through stuff and one time-honored way of doing so is writing.

Of course, back in the day, people worked through stuff in their own personal notebooks. You will note that the name of the blog is “Mad Poet Files”, and yet there is no poetry here. Because I wrote that stuff in notebooks back in the day, and you don’t need to have it inflicted on you. Today, we work through stuff by broadcasting our thoughts and feelings over the internet for all and sundry to read. I’m not necessarily knocking it. I recognize that I’m describing exactly what I’m doing right now writing this.

So, what can I draw from this to help me out going forward?

Well, I guess an appropriate fisking is not a bad thing. Writing helps me figure out why I feel the way I do about a particular topic. It also helps me get some personal distance between the argument and the emotion. That way I don’t get the argument and emotion conflated and can respond without the kneejerk defensive reaction. And it helps me point out the logical fallacies, argument holes, etc., in someone else’s thinking. Just as I’m sure people do to me.

It also helps me drain out the anger and frustration I feel when I see someone attacking something that I think is worthwhile, important, etc.

A quick aside here. Anger and frustration is a natural and appropriate response when someone attacks something that’s important to you. But if you have no outlet for that anger and frustration? No drain for it? That’s unhealthy. And it prevents you from seeing clearly and responding appropriately.

And now I go to spend the evening thinking about this, and probably watching Princess Mononoke. Or finishing “Michael Moorcock: Death is No Obstacle“.

I am starting a new goal of blogging at least 1000 words a day for the next 40 days. This is day one. I will see you here again tomorrow. Possibly with Mononoke or Moorcock related thoughts.