Anger and abusiveness are not only tolerated, but are also considered positive social qualities. Here, in this milieu, people have no compass to navigate their emotional interior or the social landscape. They believe abuse is a sign of affection, and confuse anger with edginess and energy. “He’s hot because he uses such violent language.” Interesting to me, when I use violent metaphors in my speech or writing, people are disturbed. When I express my anger appropriately, coworkers assume I am the one who will go postal. They cannot read themselves or other people. They see my incidental anger, but fail to see the simmering rage never expressed by the quiet guy, or the continual vehemence articulated by the mouthy woman.
We live in an abusive, angry time. That is, the people are angry and succeed, and they abuse others, usually in a cowardly fashion, and pretend the abuse is humor. The ethos of ordinary behavior shows the anger, held back only by fear. Almost anywhere you look, both men and women are angry: the way they drive, their faces in lines at stores; the easiness with which they move from looking anxious to being annoyed, from annoyance to indignance, indignation to rage. There are reasons in primary socialization, relationships in the family, which are influenced by economic and larger social conditions. I’ll pass over that for now and just say the social conditions influence individuals, who then go out and further influence the social conditions, and next thing you know, mediocrity is considered genius and you are abnormal if you’re not bisexual and enjoy watching others humiliated and hurt.
Entertainment has a negative edge. Comedy is rude and abusive. Characterizations are straw men to be lampooned. What a fool! Ha! Strangely the portrayals show the bad feelings supposedly creative people have about themselves and about others. When we laugh at a foolish character, we are laughing at something about ourselves. The more merrily we respond to someone putting someone else down, however good natured, we are showing our tendency toward abuse. There are a number of associated habits of feeling, thought and behavior. For instance, superiority-inferiority: I tell myself I am better than you because I feel less than anyone and not wholly appreciated. And with that comes submission-dominance: I am competing to be the paddle but I also believe I have to take my turn as the ball. There are other associated psychological states (if that’s what they are), but I am having trouble saying what I am thinking clearly.
These are old observations but I have only had to use them for myself and never tried to explain them to others who may not have similar interpretations. In fact, from what I've seen, many people are oblivious to their own hostile condition. Many people live with anger and abuse, put themselves down and put others down, are rude and obscene, barely containing their festering condition from one moment to the next. Friends insult each other and believe it is a sign of intimacy. “Only true friends tell the truth.” The truth is anyone who brings you down is not a friend worth having.
If you look around and see only stupid people, perhaps you were told or believe you are not smart, or have conflicted feelings about your self-worth based on insecurity about your own intelligence.
There’s more to be said on all of this but it will have to wait for another time and place and more thought. It is possible to criticize without hurting someone, without calling him names. “You are better than that” is a positive way to say, “That wasn’t so smart, what you did,” and far superior to “What an idiot you are!” followed by hours of abuse and constant reminders in the days ahead of the mistake. It is not merely the form, but the feeling behind it. It is also the state of mind. What kind of person dwells on the mistakes of others, and then brings them up again, even laughing at what could be very painful to the friend?
Why do people put up with abuse and negativity in their friendships and social relationships? Social contact is necessary for sanity. Like food, it is better to have poor quality than none. Also, however, we learn to like the bad. A negative relationship may be better than none, but we also make what we have experienced into something good, even when it was harmful.
I will think about this more. I encourage anyone who has read so far beyond the fold to do so also.
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