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United States Of Anger

Commentary: Do you notice it? Do you feel it? Have you become used to it? There are so many angry people. Our nation is becoming united in one thing: Anger. So many seem to be mad at someone or something else.

Social media has become a gold mine for allowing easy spreading of anger and pettiness. This platform makes it simple to amplify negative emotions and situations to a world audience. Some people on social media go out of their way to act as outrageously and offensively as possible to cut through all the other noise and get noticed by as many others as possible. And one of the best ways to get noticed is to find something to get upset about and act very angry about it.

These observations are certainly not about all of the many totally legitimate things we have today to get mad about. Let’s face it. There are many good reasons to be mad and upset. No, this is about our modern culture of anger that seeks anger for it’s own sake and tries to use it to gain some kind of power and leverage over others without good cause.

It’s hard to say exactly when the seeds for our American Anger Culture were planted. A lot of them were planted in the 1960s when war and racial strife and generational culture gaps really took hold in America. Much of the anger that was planted back then has never gone away.

The 1970s brought Watergate and a lack of trust in political and governmental institutions, as well as economic turmoil with institutional changes in the American job culture. There was profound disappointment and disgust that things in high places were not always as we were taught. People got disillusioned and mad. And a lot of people also got hurt.

The 1980s Reaganomics Decade widened economic gaps among Americans with its so-called Trickle Down Theory that wealth would magically float down from the richest Americans to those less fortunate. Many are still waiting some thirty-plus years later for any of this wealth to fall from Washington economic-policy heaven. This added another layer to our sense of anger and unfairness.

The 1990s stoked new anger with the daily soap-opera-like goings on from the Clintons fueled by verbal venom from radio talk show hosts who delighted in getting listeners stirred up every day about everything those Arkansans did and said. Some of these hosts became very wealthy in the process. This also was a period of media fracturing where groups of people could now listen only to things they agreed with and didn’t have to be bothered by hearing other points of view. This media fracturing has only gotten more intense since then.

The Bush family. Barack Obama. Now Donald Trump. One polarizing figure after another keeps the national angst going and the anger pot boiling. It seems that a more quiet and deliberative style of governance has no place anymore. Just play to your political base and keep everyone else on edge seems to be the playbook of choice for all sides.

There is distrust among our generations. Men and woman today are afraid of how to act around each other when innocent compliments or encounters can quickly be turned into a major offense and scandal by someone seeking to gain leverage or advantage of some kind. Race? Whether it is sitting at an upscale coffee shop or driving somewhere and being pulled over for a traffic issue, everyday situations have become dangerous mine fields for disputes and anger on various sides. Reality TV shows and political cable TV shows feature anger as their centerpiece.

Anger feeds on itself when participants won’t back off and work to de-escalate the situation. In our maturity-lacking environment, backing off is seen as backing down and few are willing to make the first move and stop the anger from growing.

We face many dangers today, from international confrontations to staying safe in store

parking lots. One danger we can control is our own personal and collective eagerness to choose anger. Anger never leads to anything good. It is a dead end. If we want to get somewhere worthwhile, we have to choose a better road.