Rage has recently become a prominent issue in the media. However, much of the attention directed towards it has been focused on the context in which it takes place, road rage being the most conspicuous example. The roots, psychological dynamics and sheer experience of rage is usually ignored in favour of the external triggers and subsequent consequences of enraged behaviour. Furthermore, the fact that it is men in particular who are prone to express rage has not been generally noted, an omission perhaps not disconnected to the fact that male rage is hardly a new phenomenon.
In this issue of Achilles Heel we have chosen to explore in some depth the internal experience of rage alongside its psychological roots and dynamics. In addition we have woven in the threads of masculinity and our experiences and expectations of being men. This confrontation between expectation and actual experience lies at the heart of rage, and links the destructive and violent expression of rage with the constructive protest and impulse to creative change that rage as outrage fuels.
Two recurring themes throughout the articles are the connection between rage and its expression as violence, and rage as the consequence of the frustrating experience of limitation. Such limitation includes both the legitimate and inevitable limits that we all as human beings must face as well as the abusive and humiliating limits that human cruelty can inflict. However, for rage to have a constructive rather than destructive impetus the grief of such limitation needs acceptance and expression, whilst the concomitant anger needs to be grounded in compassion and a sense of humanity and humility rather than erupting in egocentricity and a brutalising vengeance.
This is a challenging and demanding process which begins, as does rage, in childhood. How children, and in particular boys, are brought up, is crucial if the capacity to use rage as a positive force for change rather than a negative one for violent destruction is to be developed. However, as the recently published report by the Commission on Children and Violence points out, such development is hindered rather than encouraged by current childcare practices. Despite the fact that, as the report states, 'substantial research evidence highlights negative, violent and humiliating forms of discipline as significant in the development of violent attitudes and actions from a very early age', in our society 'physical punishment and deliberate humiliation remain common and legally and socially acceptable'.
The four principles that the Commission lays down for anyone working with children (and parenting is work!) of any age are so relevant to rage that we consider them worth repeating here. Expectations of and demands made on children, should reflect their maturity and development. Demanding too much will only increase a child's frustrations and propensity to rage. Furthermore, you cannot teach a five year old not to hit other children by hitting him! All discipline should be positive and children should be taught pro-social values and behaviour including non-violent conflict resolution. The more a child is made to feel good about himself, the more he will want to be good. The more he is humiliated, made to feel tiresome, wicked or helpless, the less point he will see in trying to please and the less connection and investment he will have with others and human values. Non-violence should be consistently preferred and promoted. If boys are taught that they cannot cry when they are hurt, it is not surprising that they hit instead. However, all children do need to be taught non-violent ways of getting what they want and holding onto what they have. This includes the use of and response to verbal requests and protests. In addition, if children are to listen to each other they must be confident that adults will listen to them. Adults should take responsibility for protecting children from violence done to them, and also for preventing violence done by them. It is our responsibility for knowing what our children are doing and what they are being exposed to. There is no legitimate argument for leaving children to cope, unsupported, with whatever comes their way.
The four principles above are clearly linked to the themes of rage. Although couched in personal psychological terms, these themes are equally applicable to the political arena. When political outrage is framed within narrow terms of self-interest and revenge, the fury of tyrannical ideology is unleashed with its accompaniment of oppression and inhumanity. Then social and cultural values become immersed in the gratification of power and dominion at the expense of intimacy and co-operation. In short, the destructive and infantile qualities of rage become the underlying force and momentum beneath the political ideal.
Whilst it is not very difficult to see how these qualities infuse much of mainstream political activity. it is equally clear that such rage is disowned and unconscious. hiding behind a veneer of civilised rationality. However, one consequence of such denial is that it is projected onto particular groups who become demonised as the carriers of the rage in its overt and manifest forms.
In Britain, and to an even greater extent in the USA, it is black males who are scapegoated as the carriers of rage. Making up a disproportionate amount of those serving time in prisons and in the lower echelons of the military, both institutions where expressions of rage in its more brutal and inhuman forms are intrinsic to the way they function, black males are both the recipients of society's rage as well as the scapegoats who are encouraged to act it out for us. The reality of discrimination in employment, the further consequence of discrimination in schools fed by a reactionary cultural identity focused on drugs, violence, criminality and macho hipness, all fuel a vicious downward cycle. In this way the myth of black males as demons becomes the 'fact' of black males as violent anti-social criminals. However, both myth and fact are social creations, fuelled in large part by the projection of rage by a society that has denied its own destructive and infantile rage.
The common thread in all this is masculinity and men. The valuing of power and dominion over intimacy and co-operation is reflective of a certain type of macho male identity, one that pervades our culture. Whilst by no means all men embrace this identity at face value, by its very pervasiveness we all as men have to develop within the conflicting and brutalising demands such a role encompasses. Rage in its infantile and destructive form both feeds and is fed by this macho masculinity. The stresses of modern life are reinforced and intensified within this macho-male framework. We hope in this issue we have created a more coherent link between men and rage, as well as offering a better understanding not merely of the negative elements of rage but of the potential positive values when rage is transformed.
Copyright © Achilles Heel Collective
