Peter Walks for Democracy

“If we can pause, we can see that our anger or fear have been born of a wrong perception or may have its roots in the large seeds of anger or fear within us.”

Thich Nhat Hahn, How We Fight

In The New York Times, David Brooks recently wrote, “Everywhere I go, people are coping with an avalanche of negative emotions: shock, pain, contempt, anger, anxiety, fear.” He’s right. And individual people can do something about it.

Read Twitter or Threads in the WWE theatre we call American “politics.” Watch partisan propaganda “news.” Donald Trump has promised to be his followers’ “retribution” and to “root out … the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” This past weekend he told a crowd in South Carolina that he would leave our longtime allies to fend for themselves if Russia were to invade them. “If we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia,” he said, allegedly imitating a European leader, “will you protect us? No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.” He has said, “2024 is our Final Battle.” Read The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlett, American Rage: How Anger Shapes Our Politics by Stephen Webster, Twilight of Democracy by Anne Appelbaum, Empire of Resentment by Lawrence Rosenthal, or watch the January 6th, 2021 footage and hearings.

Everything about Mr. Trump’s behavior is dangerous. It is dangerous for the country because it feeds violence. Evidence of this abounds with the January 6th invasion of the U.S. Capitol as Exhibit A. It is bad for him as an individual. He reinforces his own resentments, making him less capable of being a good father, husband, worker, and leader. It is bad for everyone around. They either walk on eggshells or–if they can muster the strength to do it–risk his wrath when they ask a question or set a boundary. It is bad for his followers. When they internalize his anger as a leader, they take on something that is not theirs, and the psychological stress of internalizing others’ feelings dislocates us from who we can really be. And for those of us who see him as completely unfit for office, we are fed up with his temper tantrums, threats, lies, self-service, manipulation, and constant attention seeking. Basically, no one wins with this much anger pouring into our society.

So I’ve been reading more into anger…again.

Psychology Today says, “Anger is an emotion characterized by antagonism toward someone or something you feel has deliberately done you wrong.” It can do us good when it is managed toward creating genuine self-efficacy, correcting an injustice, or becoming the motivating force for greater health and well-being. Fanny Lou Hamer’s pursuit of voting rights was not kumbaya. Nelson Mandela’s and Martin Luther King’s marches for freedom were conflicts. And while anger was part of their work, it was not the end itself.

As Psychology Today also says, “Anger can make you feel as though you’re at the mercy of an unpredictable and powerful emotion. [E]xcessive anger can cause problems. Increased blood pressure and other physical changes associated with anger make it difficult to think straight and harm your physical and mental health.” (Emphasis mine.) When it turns into resentment and contempt, it takes on a life of its own as rage. David Brooks writes, “rage hardens and corrodes the mind of its bearer. It hardens into the sort of cold, amoral, nihilistic attitude[.]” That attitude justifies the anger and the anger justifies the attitude. It’s a feedback loop.

So when Steve Bannon says, “It’s time for us to get angry again,” I ask, “Again?” Hasn’t the whole point been anger?

When anger is hitched to politics in the most powerful economy, government, and military in the world, we are in real danger. The devotees come to believe in one of Robert McNamara’s eleven lessons in The Fog of War: “In order to do good, you must have to engage in evil: Opposing forces are the building blocks of existence. We cannot shy away from the evil required on our path to the greater good.” (Emphasis mine.) Charlottesville. Oath Keepers attending school board meetings with weapons. The coordinated incursion by Christian nationalists on January 6th, 2021 to stop the certification of the election. Trump has said he won’t defend our European allies if Russia invades. “In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.” What’s next? More rage? More coordinated action to release the rage? The abdication of our friendships. More coordinated action to justify the rage? More us versus them?

I started anger management at the same time I began my recovery from alcoholism a year and a half ago. I’m forever grateful I did. After years of self-reinforcing toxic anger and a spiral into self-sabotaging drinking, I’ve learned skills that help me.

Rule #1: Don’t fight. This is so hard. Anyone riddled by anger knows how hard this is. Anger, whether we want to say it or not, takes us over. It isn’t just in the rages when we “lose it.” It becomes pervasive in our minds, our behaviors, and becomes an integral part of our environments. Like alcoholics who look in the mirror in the morning with bloodshot eyes, apologize to their spouses, say they’ll never drink again, and then repeat the behavior, learning to step away from the fight takes mindful practice.

You learn to see the anger before it’s incited. You use tactics and strategies for understanding yourself and how you feel. You build bodily awareness and discover that your body feels a certain way that leads your thoughts more and more easily toward resentment, vengeance, and contempt. As you learn what anger is and how it works, you develop approaches that keep you out of rage, reduce outbursts, and provide you tools for prioritizing your needs, your wants, and your defenses. You can learn to assert yourself when you need to and set boundaries “with yourself [that will] help you stay within your sphere of control and prioritize what matters most.” Speaking for myself and those I see who have committed to learning and practice, it does great personal, professional, and civic good. It is a process that requires commitment, one that yields progress, not perfection. Let me say that again: it yields progress, not perfection. [I recommend the classes of the Anger Management Institute.]

Not fighting is not the same as abandon conflict. As Thich Nhat Hanh writes in How We Fight, “Don’t run away. To try to run away from suffering is not wise. To stay with it, to look deeply into it, and to make good use of it, is what we should do.” How?

Christian Conte’s Walking Through Anger: A New Design for Confronting Conflict in an Emotionally Charged World has helped me a lot. I don’t use his teachings alone. I practice mindfulness meditation, participate in a community of mindful recovery, and seek wisdom in our ancient religions, philosophies, and wisdom traditions. Conte’s three basic tenets for dealing with conflict make sense:

1. Listen: “To listen effectively is to lead with humility and genuine curiosity, which reflects to others that you see they are communicating to you from a place you’ve never been and really want to know about–that is, their internal, subjective world” (p. 20). This takes effort and concentration. In my view, it is another way of stating the lines from the Prayer of St. Francis, “O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek…to be understood as to understand,”
2. Validate: “Validation involves acknowledging how people feel of verifying that you understand what they’re communicating. To validate is not to condone what others are saying or support what they’re doing; it’s simply to communicate that you understand, to the extent you can, what they’re expressing about their subjective feelings and perspectives. That’s it.”
3. Explore Options: “[E]xploring options helps you direct people through the problem-solving aspect of the dilemma… Probably the most implant thing to know about exploring options is that that no matter the number of realistic options people in conflict might have, the best strategy is to begin exploring the one that’s immediately on the table. Even if the option seems extreme, if a person sees it as viable, then it’s an option.”

In the context of today’s angry, resentful, and contemptuous political milieu, these are all INCREDIBLY challenging. I’m not so naive that I think there’s a magic way to do this.

But there are practical ways to do it. And they begin with me and you, with each of us. We are not our leaders. None of us is Donald Trump. We do not have to make the decisions he makes and hitch ourselves to anger. So before you choose to go back to whatever media stream of anger you’ve been watching or reading, take a moment and ask yourself, “Is it worth it?” Listen to the part of you that wants to be content with yourself and in kinship with your fellows, understand that part of you, and calmly explore options, preferably with a wise elder.

if we are going to make our democracy work and keep civil distrust and civil strife from becoming an uncivil war with regular open combat, we have to do it.