When it comes to anger, it seems to be a good news / bad news situation these days.
The good news is that everybody in the United States is not angry all the time. The bad news is that there is more free-floating anger waiting to spark into active wrath than I remember since the late 1960s and early ‘70s.
The proximate and widely perceived cause is political division. The deeper and more serious cause is a profound social and cultural separation. The separation began at the turn of the 19th century and is now responsible for distinctly different and sometimes incompatible world views.
One can find many views on this divergence, but I think it mostly reduces to a question of authority: are humans completely morally autonomous, or are we responsible to an external moral Law? That is, do we decide for ourselves what is right or wrong or must we defer to what we Catholics think of as God’s Law?
This is not a strict binary, of course; people fall out on a spectrum. Among other things, people tend to adopt the social and cultural mores of their time and place. They handle divergences from their primary moral allegiance by rationalization or simple cognitive dissonance.
But wherever they fall on that spectrum, people are constructed to think about events in terms of right and wrong. And when people see something going on they think is wrong, they often become angry.
“You’re Not The Boss Of Me”
My aunt and uncle once left my cousins at my grandparents while they visited other relatives. Grandmother, never shy about exercising her authority, told my youngest cousin to do something, or, perhaps, to stop doing something. My little cousin looked up with the confidence only a 4-year old can have and said “You’re not the boss of me.”
My grandparents loved to tell this story, but they never said what happened after the remark. Knowing my grandmother it was probably not a gentle acquiescence to the will of a grandchild. But it is this attitude, even, at times, this very phrase that lies at the heart of human rebellion against God. Rephrased slightly, it becomes “I’m the boss of me. Nobody else is the boss of me.”
And given our gift of Free Will, this is true. Terrifyingly so.
When we use our free will to define for ourselves what is right and wrong it may be relatively trivial. It might be having too many cookies and soft drinks in one day. But it could also be as hideously dreadful as the Holocaust.
There is no comparison here, obviously. One day’s mild gluttony does not begin to compare to years of torture, murder, and devastation. And yet both spring from the same kind of moral offense – I can decide for myself what is right and what is wrong; what is permissible and what is forbidden; what is good and what is bad.
Think Original Sin: “I am the only boss of me.“
One Dynamic Of Social Anger
There are people capable of hearing the sentence “What you are doing is wrong” from someone other than a close friend without internally translating it into “You are wrong”. I have not met many of them. But there are also plenty of people who cannot make this translation even when the remonstration comes from a close friend.
Our human default is to associate what we do with what we are – until we get caught. At which time “He’s a good person; he just did a bad thing!” becomes a common refrain for the cameras.
But this is true from the perspective of the observer as well. The transition from “what you are doing is wrong” to “you are wrong,” and therefore not a good person because you’re doing a wrong thing, is all too easy, swift, and unnoticed.
We live in a time when political opinions have taken on a moral weight. Examples abound: the funding of abortions, the funding and missions of the military, the funding and operation of social programs, or even the funding of space exploration.
When there was a social consensus on the source of moral authority, it was easier to build a social consensus on such matters. It was not always easy, but it was easier. When that social consensus is shattered, the result is almost certain to be social conflict.
When I am the only boss of me, it is hard to make room for the ideas, needs or wants of others.
This Is Our Time To Witness
This is our time as Christians to witness. But in a time of moral rebellion when many people are asserting their moral autonomy as a primary right, even as a facet of their identity, we must act with as much humility as we can muster if we are to have any hope of reaching them.
Which means, as an old (1928) Episcopal Book Of Common Prayer I have says, our personal behavior must “show forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days.”
We will need many soft answers to turn away as much wrath as is floating around us. Lowering the temperature of our social media conversations is one good place to start. Sometimes forbearance is the best we can offer; in the words of the Disney character Thumper’s father, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothin’ at all.”
It is not, perhaps, always appropriate to look for something nice to say – but it is necessary to look for a way to say it that is at least not hostile, and at best irenic. Coerced agreements are notoriously fragile.
Perseverance In Times Of Adversity
Every age has its manifestations of adversity. Part of the Christian response is always to persevere – to continue to walk the path set out by Our Lord. In our age, we are going to have to relearn the virtue of persevering in spite of public scorn. We will have to persevere in opposition to media tropes and the attempts to usurp the Gospel by the secular prophets of niceness, personal privacy, and moral autonomy. And we will have to do so lovingly and with humility. This poses a difficult challenge, but it is a challenge we must rise to meet.
I pray regularly for a new Great awakening to sweep through our country and the world. But until such time as God grants that Grace we must live in the harsh, increasingly secular and angry world. And we must strive to meet it with the redeeming love our Savoir has shown for us.
Prayer:
Lord Jesus, give us the gift of the Holy Spirit that we may answer wrath with kindness, scorn with love, and abuse with wisdom. As St. Francis asked, make us instruments of your Peace, drawing a world that is hostile and estranged from you back into loving relationship with you and the Father by emulating you in our own lives. And if nothing else, Lord, remind us when it is time to say nothing at all.
Amen
9 thoughts on “Anger Seems to be Everywhere Today”
Thank you, Lisa.
I have a copy of LIVE NOT BY LIES and it is in my stack of books to read– a never diminishing pile I try to add to from the bottom so books at the top have a chance!
I will keep writing. Apart from reading, it’s what I’ve always wanted to do and mostly have found ways to do.
This was a thought-provoking article. Thank you for writing it. It makes perfect sense that the breakdown of biblical-based morality is driving much of the division. This article laid that idea out very nicely.
I don’t think this is purely a religious versus secular divide though. I like the saying that you should do the best you can until you know better, and then you should do better. I think humanity has gained a large amount of knowledge in the last century that has cast doubt on many of the bible-based tenets of morality. Like many years ago when we had to change our thinking about how we interpreted Genesis in light of heliocentrism, science is giving us new information that is making us question some of our long-set tenets of morality regarding sex and sexuality among other issues. In addition to that, the internet has connected the world and allowed information to be passed around like no time before. And this information has shed light on some very dark parts of the church. This is a time of change, and I think the church will have to develop both its teachings and its structure similar to what it has done in the past. But like other moments in history, the change won’t come without strife and contention. I pray that we get to a better place as quickly as possible and as close to God’s will as possible.
Thank you for your kind words.
I probably disagree with the idea that science is superseding our moral understanding, but that is a long and involved conversation. Briefly, though, I think that the sexual morality taught by the church is consonant with the sexual mores evolved by most human societies over thousands of years of history; that they can be seen as being confirmed by revelation is no surprise. Sexual revolutions happen periodically in human history and they always fail for the same reasons: the moral strictures we are taught *work*, and discarding them always fails in time.
Moving on, the Genesis account of ex nihilo creation turns out to be the most consistent with the big bang theory of any creation stories, which scores one for scriptural metaphor as does the sequence of creation of life forms. Never give up on scripture; its author has always had the inside scoop.
I think there is probably a number of things we disagree on but also a number of things we do agree on. I wouldn’t say that science is superseding our moral understanding, but rather helping it continue to evolve. Sexual mores have evolved constantly over the past thousands of years. Sexual mores were very different in Jesus’ time than they were 1,000 years ago or today. A thousand years ago, we were arguing whether sex was ever justified and how much it defiled a person even if the individual was married. That’s a big part of the reason for the teaching on Mary’s perpetual virginity being developed about a 1,000 years ago rather than having been a teaching from the beginning.
I think science is also helping us better understand sex/gender. I think we can very much agree that there are meaningful differences between the sexes. And the differences range across the human body and mind and include not only the genitalia, but also hormones, brain structures, genetics, an so on. Each of these pieces can be considered more typically male or female, but we’re learning that the pieces aren’t always consistent. Even the genetics and the genitalia aren’t always coordinated. And these ideas- this knowledge – is brand new. I think it is this knowledge that will help us develop church teaching on sexuality. Certain sexual mores should be constant (i.e. sex is reserved for marriage), but how that is applied now that sex itself is no longer black and white needs to be developed. God’s revelation continues today, and it has now been revealed to us that sex (male versus female) is no longer as simple as we thought it was. The old system definitely worked for people like me who are heterosexual and fully one sex, but God’s creation has been revealed to have much more range than we previously thought. This is just one example of what is causing the foundations of traditional morality to be rocked, and this is an area where I don’t see the divide as being secular versus religious. Our bishops across the globe haven’t even yet decided how to apply this new knowledge. Many of them are in favor of developing the teachings on sexuality, and many are in favor of clinging to the traditional teachings. It will take time, but we will adjust to this new revelation. People aren’t rejecting Jesus when they support same-sex marriage or other aspects of gender identity, and people don’t necessarily hate homosexuals etc if they are against gay marriage,etc. I think this is something that gets overlooked by both sides and cranks the anger levels up far too high.
Excellent.
Thank you!
Yes, this message is particularly meaningful during these times. Trying to find the strength to stand firm against the abomination of abortion without watering down the teachings of Christ and stand strong like St. Paul….while doing so in a way that is without wrath and scorn…is a challenge we must master to make the light of truth brighter. St. Paul was firm to point out error and so must we be….but always with assurance that the hope and mercy of Christ will be offered to those who have gone astray from the truth. Abortion is the axe at the root of the tree of social justice. We must have recourse to your prayer often as we face abuse, scorn and error from those who promote the abortion industry and water down its destructive power to undermine a society. Your prayer is beautiful and without the grace of the Holy Spirit sent to us by Christ….our mission would be impossible to do on our own. We must pray this prayer often and before we answer those who wish to subvert or dilute the WORD of Christ to appease those who have pushed GOD aside and made themselves gods of this world. I always thought that the Original Sin was Hubris. We must fight with love and humility in response. Thank you for this prayer!
You are welcome, and thank you for your kind words!
Mark, I hope you keep writing articles for the Catholic Stand. I found your contribution to be written from a point of deep faith and also of knowledge of the teachings of Christ supported by the Catholic Catechism. I am currently reading a book, LIVE NOT BY LIES: A Manual for Christian Dissidents by Rod Dreher. I see all that he describes. “The Western world has become Post-Christian, with large numbers of those born after 1980 rejecting religious faith. This means that they will not only oppose Christians when we stand up for our principles—in particular, in defense of the traditional family, of male and female gender roles, and the sanctity of human life—but also they will not understand why they should tolerate dissent based on religious belief. We cannot hope to resist the coming soft totalitarianism if we do not have our spiritual lives in order. This is the message of Alexander Solzhenitsyn….he believed the core of the crisis that created and sustained communism was not political but spiritual.” As long as people can dissent and not be “cancelled” or censored, the Church allowed to firmly stand by her beliefs and not be attacked either directly or through more devious manipulations, The People of God allowed to practice their beliefs…not just inside the Church but in society where they work and live….then we now liberty and freedom is vibrant. If not, as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI stated a “worldwide dictatorship of seemingly humanistic ideologies will steadily take over society and he called this manifestation “the spiritual power of the Antichrist”. I will be using your prayer that you so have beautifully shared and hope that through love, humility and the grace of God that we can avoid this catastrophe. I will also follow the guidelines in this book..a motto for what Father Kolakovic called his FAMILY during the time of the Soviet Unions persecution of Christians in Slovakia: “SEE.JUDGE.ACT”. See meant to be awake to realities around you. Judge was a command to discern soberly the meaning of those realities in light of what you know to be true, especially from the teachings of the Christian faith. After you reach a conclusion, then you are to ACT to resist evil.