In support of the rage of man

[Athene]

---

For the last time, not letting someone go requires an act of MORE than merely standing in a doorway and saying "No, I'm still talking." 

Unless perhaps, said person is massive enough to block the entire width of the doorway AND there are no other means of exit in the entire house except for that one goddamned door. 
Then you'd probably have a case.

Telling someone that they can't leave because you are still talking is aggression. You are blocking their right to walk away, and you are asserting a right to continue making them angry.

It can be aggression. It can also be an act of fear, pleading, desperation, or simply wanting to finish making point with no intent on forcibly detaining anyone AND both parties being aware of that. 
You already know this of course, but you insist on being a knucklehead about it because you're pissed that you're just now figuring out that it's not against the law.

So ridiculous.
As if it's my fault you didn't look it up before you ran your mouth.

You need to check your privilege.

Uh-oh...Oh, no he didn't!

Lol...You know that when angry guys such as yourself toss that phrase around people just laugh at you, right?
It only makes bombs go off in the brains of folks like you. 

LMFAO

[LadyForCamus]

Don’t worry about it, Thena. Apparently, he doesn’t care anymore. 😏

[Yonadav]

You need to check your privilege.

Uh-oh...Oh, no he didn't!

Lol...You know that when angry guys such as yourself toss that phrase around people just laugh at you, right?
It only makes bombs go off in the brains of folks like you. 

LMFAO

I knew that it would either make you laugh or make you angry. I didn't really care either way.

---

Don’t worry about it, Thena.  Apparently, he doesn’t care anymore. 😏

It's true. I so totally don't care anymore. 

[bennyboy]

I think we can all agree that rage is something all humans experience, and the only thing we can control is our behavior. If this thread is in support of the bad behavior of raging men, it's bad. If it's in support of recognizing rage as natural and controlling our response to it, it's good. As for all of the other he-man woman-hater's shit this thread has coughed up, that's an entirely different nut to crack.

I'd say there's intrinsic good in all of our animal instincts-- if you consider genetic fitness a good.  What there isn't, is a good evolutionary adaptation to the close-quarters city life where you have a million people living within a few miles of you.

But it's not a lifestyle choice.  Nobody's sitting around thinking, "I'd really like to shorten my life span with super-high blood pressure, and if I could hit a few women along the way, that would be an added bonus."

In literally every instinct, we can see that there's variance in the degree to which people possess or respond to that instinct-- and at both the positive and negative tails of the Bell Curve, there's a problem.t.  If you say, "We are poorly adapted to a food environment with lots of sugars and starches, and a certain percentage of the populace just can't seem to control eating certain foods," nobody's suggesting that they are saying "Fuck good health.  Fuck how my loved ones feel about it.  I'm gonna go get me a dozen donuts."  While it's sickening to some degree, and while it's hard for others to understand why people lack the ability to get this behavior under wraps, there are so many in this boat that it's obviously coming from high-priority systems in the brain.

The same goes for love-- the things otherwise sane mothers will do or say when their own precious offspring are involved can be downright toxic. But we get it-- it's coming from such a primal instinct that she's unable to see how totally in the wrong she is.

[Belacqua]

I'd say there's intrinsic good in all of our animal instincts-- if you consider genetic fitness a good.  What there isn't, is a good evolutionary adaptation to the close-quarters city life where you have a million people living within a few miles of you.

This is the message in Freud's wisest book, Civilization and Its Discontents. 

We are animals, with animal instincts. We are also social beings, who depend on civilization for safety, the means of self-fulfillment, etc. 

These things will never be fully compatible. The mismatches require constant managing, and will never be settled. Maturity means better management.

[Alan V]

I'd say there's intrinsic good in all of our animal instincts-- if you consider genetic fitness a good.  What there isn't, is a good evolutionary adaptation to the close-quarters city life where you have a million people living within a few miles of you.

This is the message in Freud's wisest book, Civilization and Its Discontents. 

We are animals, with animal instincts. We are also social beings, who depend on civilization for safety, the means of self-fulfillment, etc. 

These things will never be fully compatible. The mismatches require constant managing, and will never be settled. Maturity means better management.

Some people settle for being hypocrites to whatever degree.  Others struggle endlessly.

[vulcanlogician]

Agreed. Anger is good, when justified.

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle lists anger as one of the passions that is necessary but dangerous -- it has to be held to a wise middle path. When allowed to go too far, it makes us crazy. But if you see something that should make you angry and you remain indifferent, this is also a moral failing. 

The trouble is that Aristotle doesn't give any specifics about how and when and how much we ought to get angry. A wise man knows this, and getting angry correctly is one of the things that makes him wise.

Late to the party, and I ain't wading through the 20 page thread. So sorry if this has already been covered:

I tend to side with the Stoics on the issue of anger. To call anger moral is to subject morality to whim and unstable force. Therefore, anger (if it is to be considered moral at all) must have some kind of "stabilizing force" to force some kind of consistency upon it. Maybe it is as Plato says: "Anger guided by reason is better than raw wish fulfilment." In any case, I would tend to trust Plato's insights over Aristotle's. Blind rage can be of benefit in peculiar situations. But ought we ever trust it as a moral force? Even when it is understood that anger is dangerous, such a philosophy seems unwise.

[Belacqua]

Blind rage

Nobody's in favor of blind rage

[LadyForCamus]

I guess I’m not sure what Benny is asking for then.

[Belacqua]

I guess I’m not sure what Benny is asking for then.

This is from Benny's OP:

In general, while an aggressive man is clearly a menace, and the behavior is not to be encouraged, I'd also say that demonizing people who have a problem controlling ANY instinct is unfair, and unlikely to produce good results.

This seems to be what he's asking for.