When is Anger Wrong?

Anger is an emotion which triggers when your expectations are dissappointed.^anger-loss The breach of expectations is interpreted as a harm (or in some cases, it might actually be a harm). Anger orients you towards a blamed source of harm, and impells defensive aggression against that blamed source. If the blaming reflex correctly identifies the source of harm, then attacking that source might injure it so it can no longer inflict harm, or might discourage further harm by demonstrating willingness to retaliate.

 Misperceived Harm from Frustrating Expectations

You told your friend last week that you were moving, and you thought they were going to help you out. When you call them that morning, they sound confused. "Oh, I'm sorry," they apologize, "I have work...I had no idea you thought I'd be there." You get mad that now you have to move alone, but after a few seconds, you realize that you should have voice your expectations.

The core of the trigger for Anger is a disappointed expectation. When reality does not meet our expectations, Anger destructively externalizes blame, instead of updating our expectations.^{panksepp-anger-extern} Sometimes this externalization is very helpful, impelling us to make a better world around us, to right injustices, or to protect ourselves from predators.

However, Anger will feel justified for any expectation breach, even if it comes from an unrealistic or impossible expectation. It is critically important to evaluate how reasonable are expectations are when we get Angry, or else we might spend our lives tilting at windmills.

Even when our expectations are achievable, the defensive aggression which Anger impels can easily make things worse. If there is an actually malicious actor standing preventing your expectations from realizing, then lashing out against them might push them back. However, everyone involved was just doing their jobs, trying their best to be a good person, then defensive aggression might actually create malice where there wasn't any before.

Sometimes, we are disappointed by a system, dispassionate processes operating without any intent. Being Angry at systems is generally futile and destructive. If your car doesn't work properly, kicking it or banging on the hood is far more likely to upset the system's functioning than to magically coerce it into functioning. Systems are not dissuaded by being attacked, and though they might be destroyed with enough ferocity, a measured recallibration or process adjustment is almost surely more likely to yield better results. Systemic malfunctions are simply always incorrect targets for anger.

 Misperceptions of the Blame Reflex

Walking to get some water in the middle of the night, you stub your toe on your table. Your Anger surges, and you curse at your table and hit it with your hand, inneffectually, only hurting yourself more. After a few seconds, the Anger subsides, and you feel quite silly having blamed the table for your mistake.

Not all emotions require a target. You can be afraid, for instance, of a situation, without being afraid of any specific identifiable feature in your environment. Anger, however, wants a target. To defensively lash out, it needs something to lash out at. To find this target, Anger is naturally paired with a strong Blame Reflex, which attempts to identify the source of the harm as some living agent^{panksepp-living} nearby^{panksepp-blame-near}. Anger without a blame target is an uncomfortable, unstable state (cf Girard), so our natural blame reflex will happily settle on a poor explanation rather than leave a harm unexplained.

Because blame orients a feeler towards defensive aggression, it must identify a single cause. If there are multiple causes for a harm, blame will prefer causes which are nearer and which seem like living agents. If there are no realistic living agents, we may anthropomorphize a non-living thing, as in the example above with the table, and will perceive malicious intent even if it doesn't exist. If there are many such living agents, blame may group these into a perceived "super agent", perceiving collaboration and conspiracy even if the agents are operating independently.

All of these biases for Blame are optimized for our ancestral environment. If our ancestor was hunting in a forest, and something went wrong, randomly attacking would at best likely dissuade any predators, and at worst wouldn't hurt anything important. In our modern environment, however, these biases are far less useful. Most of our modern problems involve complicated systems, with many interconnected causes. Our expectations stretch far into the future, and can be breached by any number of unintentional side-effects.

For more on how emotions influence causal reasoning, see "Cause and Affect".

 Transcending our Destructive Nature

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..."

― Jesus (Matthew 5:43-44, NASB)

In our modern world, the greatest predator of humans is other humans. Our myths recount many stories of revenge spiraling out of control, drawing more and more lives into the grave before it burns out. Modern societies try, and often succeed, to justly punish wrongdoers so that none of us have to realiate ourselves. In a just society, no one would need to be angry, because the rule of law would sufficiently deter unjust harm.

Forgiveness is one of the most momentous emotional innovations in history. A primary tenent of Christianity, it has spread across the world and now enjoys widespread acknowledgement as a strategy for peace, even if it is not always followed. The initial Christian arguments for forgiveness did not ask for a just society as a prerequisite, it claimed forgiveness would provide intrinsic religious rewards. Though less convincing to non-believers, there is certainly much to be admired in those who can bring justice and harmony with peace, not with war.

Perhaps humans will trascend Anger via the external path of making just societies. Perhaps we will tread the internal path of forgiveness. Or, maybe, we will hold on to this miscalibrated emotion until the end of our species. If one day, us humans do destroy ourselves, Anger will likely have played a major role.