Our Bridge

[Vortex]

This post comes in response to the discussion on anger as a source of motivation in the ‘Is violence a Conservative value thread’. I was a bit surprised that many of you were okay with anger being a source of motivation, I wanted to offer an alternative. I call it Our Bridge.

Self-Serving:

My own experiences and observation have shown anger to be an emotion rooted in fear that is self-serving and ultimately self-corrupting. If you doubt anger to be a self-serving emotion ask yourself the next time something or someone causes a response or action driven by anger within you ‘to whom do my actions serve?’ Are your actions to the death of those by war or the socially oppressed really about the dead or the oppressed? Or are your actions purely a response to your emotions and a means to alleviate them?


Okay so anger is self-serving, is that so wrong:

I think that if we truly want to enact real social change in the world that it requires a more selfless approach. We must not forgot that all the conflicts we deal with on a daily basis are about people, all of us, if we allow ourselves to be ruled by anger we take people out of the equation and make it simply about ourselves. Is not one of the goals of Soulforce to present a non-violent approach to resolving conflict? Wouldn’t we all agree that violence like anger only works in serving the individual?


Compassion as an Alternative:

What I mean by compassion is to point out the unconditional nature of Love. It is not about ego or the individual seeking to alleviate just their own suffering or the suffering of a particular group, but to recognize and feel in totality the suffering of all humankind, and to honestly want a change. Why I ask must anger be a motivator in our lives? Must our actions begin and end with the alleviation of our own suffering, or is there not something more? A motivation beyond simply the self, one that realizes the connective-ness of us all and seeks to unite and show our commonality.


Case Study:

When I think of someone in the public realm who tends to invoke anger within me the name Ann Coulter quickly comes to mind. If you don’t know who Ann Coulter is well… consider yourself fortunate ( J/K). Revtj talks about the struggle with dealing with people like this in his post. One such occasion of hearing her speak she mentioned (and I’m paraphrasing) that if she was President the defense budget would not focus so much on precision guided munitions but instead on more nuclear weapons. That America was getting too soft in worrying about collateral damage to civilians and such. Yea I know, oh dear that’s what I thought. I don’t think I slept too well that night. More recently though she was at it again (talking that is) and she used that ‘Fag’ word so casually as so many other hurtful words seem to roll off that forked tongue of hers ( Takes a pause, rereads his previous thoughts on anger before continuing). Anyway I felt myself angry with her again but this time only for a split second. Instead I mostly felt something different. For the first time when I looked at her I saw not anger and hatred, but immense sadness and uncertainty (Emproph talked about this idea of ‘certainty’ and I could probably go into it for another 2 pages but I’ll spare you anymore of my ramblings). This of course is quite contrary to this false bravado she tends to project, but never the less it was there. I couldn’t help but wonder who or what had hurt her to make her so angry. I didn’t want her anger to be my own. (Is this not what they want, for us to fight back at their outrageous comments with the same anger?) Our experiences had given us completely different world views, but the feelings of sadness, anger, and uncertainty, this we shared.

Is this realization of commonality between ourselves and those who would hate us simply our eyes crossing as we stand on opposite sides of a river bank? When does our letting go of anger cease to be the stones we throw at each other and become the stepping stones of real social change? And when does the feeling of compassion for another human being cease to be about the individual and become our bridge?

[Zerbie]

Originally Posted by Vortex

This post comes in response to the discussion on anger as a source of motivation in the ‘Is violence a Conservative value thread’. I was a bit surprised that many of you were okay with anger being a source of motivation, I wanted to offer an alternative. I call it Our Bridge.

Self-Serving:

My own experiences and observation have shown anger to be an emotion rooted in fear that is self-serving and ultimately self-corrupting. If you doubt anger to be a self-serving emotion ask yourself the next time something or someone causes a response or action driven by anger within you ‘to whom do my actions serve?’ Are your actions to the death of those by war or the socially oppressed really about the dead or the oppressed? Or are your actions purely a response to your emotions and a means to alleviate them?


Okay so anger is self-serving, is that so wrong:

I think that if we truly want to enact real social change in the world that it requires a more selfless approach. We must not forgot that all the conflicts we deal with on a daily basis are about people, all of us, if we allow ourselves to be ruled by anger we take people out of the equation and make it simply about ourselves.
Compassion as an Alternative:

What I mean by compassion is to point out the unconditional nature of Love. It is not about ego or the individual seeking to alleviate just their own suffering or the suffering of a particular group, but to recognize and feel in totality the suffering of all humankind, and to honestly want a change. Why I ask must anger be a motivator in our lives? Must our actions begin and end with the alleviation of our own suffering, or is there not something more? A motivation beyond simply the self, one that realizes the connective-ness of us all and seeks to unite and show our commonality.


Case Study:


Is this realization of commonality between ourselves and those who would hate us simply our eyes crossing as we stand on opposite sides of a river bank? When does our letting go of anger cease to be the stones we throw at each other and become the stepping stones of real social change? And when does the feeling of compassion for another human being cease to be about the individual and become our bridge?

Thank you for this Vortex, this is excellent!

First off - there is a flaw with your basic premise. Anger is "always" self-serving and about the individual ego???? Nay!!! Oh it can be, sure, and often is, and that is the level I think you were speaking about. But it is not always about serving the angry individual in selfish needs or wants. I don't know about you, but I frequently get much, MUCH more angry at seeing someone else hurt than when the same hurt is done to me. So I find it impossible to perceive anger the way you do. For me, it acts as a motivator prompting me to stand up despite intimidation, and raise a shield for the friend beside me.

Case in point: You witness someone torturing a baby. You are not being harmed. But you feel anger anyway. "How selfish of you!????" No, your anger is a valuable emotion that exists to inform you of a violation, in this case, a violation of common humanity and respect for life. As you process that anger, it motivates you to acknowledge that something is wrong about what is happening, and then to take action outwardly to correct the situation, possibly at risk to yourself. In that way, anger motivated you to right and compassionate action that protected someone ELSE. Perhaps even by bringing the perpetrator to justice you are even "protecting" them from committing further assaults and violations which they would have to answer for someday, to a higher judge.


As to a bridge to compassion, just knowing someone is a path to compassion, if you allow it to be. Anger does not need to flee the scene, only to stand side by side with love. And yes, that produces pain, but it is bearable. Here is a case-example from my life:

When I was very very young I was locked ideologically into an us/them right/wrong dichotomy in which I perceived the anti-gay groups as the enemy. I thought I would always hate them for their wrongdoing and would never love them.
Then I spent a year working with gay-bashers. Not verbal bashers, no, I mean the teenage guys who go out with broken bottles and baseball bats looking for 'fags', and carry through with harming them. Despite myself, I grew to love them as human beings. It was the most painful feeling in the world to look them in the eye the morning after one of their rampages. I loved those kids enough to do anything for them and would fight anybody who treated "my kids" wrong. But if I had been there when they assaulted an innocent man in a hate crime, I would have done whatever was in my power to stop them, even if it meant harming them physically. Just as I would if a gay friend had taken a baseball bat to THEM. In other words, I simply could not value one human being above another. No. I discovered that I didn't just love "my team." I loved human beings. And so you must deal with *situations* not with us/them. Not with ally/enemy.

I have been troubled greatly by the monumental divide between "teams" if you will, on this issue. I understand your apprehension about using anger. Anger abounds on both sides, and mostly what it does is blind everybody. What needs to happen is that the raw reactive emotion of anger needs to be diffused, channelled, (how ever we must process it out of our hearts) and not thoughtlessly acted upon. But anger itself is not an enemy. It is information. It is there to tell us a violation has occured. Without it, how do we know to stand up for ourselves and our neighbors? What becomes critical though, after anger has allowed us to perceive a violation, is that we come to understand the situation as best we can, and act - not with anger - but with compassion and as much wisdom as we can muster.

Whew. . .

Thank you for raising this difficult question Vortex. While I disagreed with your premise that anger is always selfish, I am glad to be talking about this with someone who has another viewpoint. I'm still struggling with how to deal with anger when the emotion gets out of control and skews my judgment. And also with how to strive for a reconciliation among groups who will never agree on certain fundamental matters. Please respond, I hope this conversation goes further.

Thanks!

Z

[suzer1013]

Originally Posted by Zerbie

What becomes critical though, after anger has allowed us to perceive a violation, is that we come to understand the situation as best we can, and act - not with anger - but with compassion and as much wisdom as we can muster.

Yes, yes! I am just starting to understand this myself -- channeling my anger at injustice into compassion. It is difficult -- very, very difficult. But I think I'm beginning to see how that can work. I have a lot of learning before me, though, before I think I will really be able to put it into practice. Soulforce is really helping me understand how compassion for our "enemies" (though I don't like to use that word, it's the best I can find at the moment) can help create positive change.

Vortex said: "Is this realization of commonality between ourselves and those who would hate us simply our eyes crossing as we stand on opposite sides of a river bank? When does our letting go of anger cease to be the stones we throw at each other and become the stepping stones of real social change? And when does the feeling of compassion for another human being cease to be about the individual and become our bridge?"

Excellent, excellent questions -- the answers to which is what I seek. I'm eager to hear others' thoughts on this, too.

Susan

[Zerbie]

Originally Posted by suzer1013

n Soulforce is really helping me understand how compassion for our "enemies" (though I don't like to use that word, it's the best I can find at the moment) can help create positive change.


Susan

"adversary." "opponent." Not great words, but better than enemy. They have a more temporary sound to them. Like something from sports teams.

[Daniel]

Originally Posted by Vortex

This post comes in response to the discussion on anger as a source of motivation in the ‘Is violence a Conservative value thread’. I was a bit surprised that many of you were okay with anger being a source of motivation, I wanted to offer an alternative. I call it Our Bridge.

I believe I was the first one in the "Is Violence..." thread to mention anger as a motivator, but did not go as far as to say that I was 'ok' with it, though I would not also go as far as to say that anger is 'bad' either! I think I'm trying to be practical about the matter: angry arises. The Buddhist in me looks at that and says "You gotta work on that! It's not the best way to affect change in yourself and others. It can eat you alive." And while that I've experienced the truth of that, I have also seen how there is a kind of 'anger' that is very focused and not bent on destruction and can be very useful (ACT-UP comes oto mind here). I think a person has to be very 'awake' to themselves and others (see enough of the big picture) so as to do something constructive with anger. Anger, whether one characterizes it as self-serving or not, can get the wheels going. As Suzer has pointed out, compassion must take it's place. The bridge from anger to compassion- well- that's a large expanse for many, isn't it? I guess that's why I keep yakking about having a 'container' or spiritual practice. I don't think that distance is easily traversed without some kind of tools.

[tdogg]

I believe that anger can be a useful tool, motivate someone to action that is positive. When anger stand by love (as Z said) as well as other emotions - compassion, rational thinking, sense for justice and equality - when it is at the same level or even below the other emotions, then they can all work together positively in love.

It is when the anger emotion rises above the other emotions (and rational thinking) that danger enters the picture. It is important that one who uses anger maintains control over that emotion and uses it wisely in tandem with all other emotions. A person who isn't able to do this probably would be best to step away from the situation so things don't get out of hand. Perhaps the best measure of control would be, a person using the anger at a level of or below all other useful emotions and tools wouldn't show signs of the anger, or at wouldn't intimidate or scare others. On the other hand, a person who allowed their anger to rise above other emotions and be dominant would show it by intimidation, threats, adverse body language and speech.

Just my thoughts....

[Vortex]

You have become quite clever Zerbie. When someone starts by stating an absolute it should be a warning bell to us all that something maybe fishy about it. I usually try to avoid such bold statements but the self-serving part of my argument comes out a recent examination I’ve done on the nature of altruism (are we capable of a truly selfless act?) but I’ll save that for a future post and address our current dilemma of ‘anger’. I liked very much your point on how anger can give us a great insight into ourselves as all of our emotions undoubtedly can.

I still wonder though that if I respond to an injustice out of anger whether or not I’m just reacting to my own emotions, my hurt, my suffering, and not the injustice itself. Even if the outcome would seem positive, should it be just about me? When I allow anger to be my motivation, I loose my sense of objectivity and don’t act for what is necessarily ‘Right’ but instead for what makes me feel better. I maybe just worried about going down that slippery slope that we all know anger can take us down, or perhaps I’m giving my own motivations a bit too much scrutiny.

Originally Posted by Zerbie

Then I spent a year working with gay-bashers. Not verbal bashers, no, I mean the teenage guys who go out with broken bottles and baseball bats looking for 'fags', and carry through with harming them. Despite myself, I grew to love them as human beings. It was the most painful feeling in the world to look them in the eye the morning after one of their rampages. I loved those kids enough to do anything for them and would fight anybody who treated "my kids" wrong. But if I had been there when they assaulted an innocent man in a hate crime, I would have done whatever was in my power to stop them, even if it meant harming them physically. Just as I would if a gay friend had taken a baseball bat to THEM. In other words, I simply could not value one human being above another. No. I discovered that I didn't just love "my team." I loved human beings. And so you must deal with *situations* not with us/them. Not with ally/enemy.

I really liked everything you said here. Few people in the world today are actually able to defend and protect those who would hate them. You mentioned how it wasn’t just about ‘your team’ or one life being more important or valuable than another, isn’t this what true compassion is about?


The truth of the matter is (and maybe some can appreciate this) when I’m angry I don’t want to diffuse it, I don’t want to channel it, I want simply to unleash it and be left to pick up the pieces later. So I ask why have anger in the first place? Why can’t Love and compassion be that thing inside of me that alerts me to an injustice or makes me value one life the same as another. Anger to me eventually leads to destructive behavior, maybe not the first time, or the second, but eventually it consumes and corrupts the individual, until soon it is all you know. I operate on a basic premise that the only way to truly defeat and enemy/adversary/etc, is to make them your friend. When my adversaries see my hand I want them to see an open palm and not a clenched fist. Have you ever known violence to exist without anger? Have you ever known love to exist with it? When I allow anger to be apart of my life, it is like I’m out there building the bridge alone.

[Zerbie]

Originally Posted by Vortex

I still wonder though that if I respond to an injustice out of anger whether or not I’m just reacting to my own emotions, my hurt, my suffering, and not the injustice itself. Even if the outcome would seem positive, should it be just about me? When I allow anger to be my motivation, I loose my sense of objectivity and don’t act for what is necessarily ‘Right’ but instead for what makes me feel better. I maybe just worried about going down that slippery slope that we all know anger can take us down, or perhaps I’m giving my own motivations a bit too much scrutiny.




The truth of the matter is (and maybe some can appreciate this) when I’m angry I don’t want to diffuse it, I don’t want to channel it, I want simply to unleash it and be left to pick up the pieces later. So I ask why have anger in the first place? Why can’t Love and compassion be that thing inside of me that alerts me to an injustice or makes me value one life the same as another. Anger to me eventually leads to destructive behavior, maybe not the first time, or the second, but eventually it consumes and corrupts the individual, until soon it is all you know. .

Dear Vortex, what about objectivity indeed? I think when we are in the midst of life, we must be thrown in with EVERYTHING that life entails, everything that being a human animal entails. Including things like anger. It is not possible, when you are an actor in life, to be objective. (We can discuss detachment and witness states in a later post.)

Why can't love be the motivator in the scenarios I draw above? . . . Is it not love lying behind the anger at injustice? If we did not love the human heart, did not love fairness and justice, why would we become angry at cruelty and injustice?

I take your caution seriously however, Vortex, and there are many other activists who would do well to heed your words also. When I say to let that anger be the motivator, I suppose I am saying it is the match-strike that fuels action. But like a match, it should die out and let something ELSE carry the fire forward into action. You must process the anger out, I don't care if you do jumping jacks or pound on a pillow and scream, or tell yourself silly jokes until you laugh, so long as you process the anger out of your system before you act. Or else you carry the negativity with you into whatever action you take, and then your best attempts at corrective action are corrupted. The anger alerted you to a need for change. Then having dropped the anger, you act out of love and compassion. Anger = motivator. Love = actor.

Really Vortex, it is alright to feel whatever you feel, including anger. Anger becomes a problem when it is not managed. When it festers and feeds upon itself and therefore grows. When it is acted upon reactively - like if someone says words that hurt you and you respond by immediately snapping back something hurtful at them. Sadly, that very dynamic is at work in massive dimensions all across the globe, so your caution is totally appropriate.

But the emotion itself is not at fault. At fault is the fact that we have not learned yet to better manage the emotion and avoid letting IT take charge. Many of us grow up in environments where anger is mis-managed, or not managed at all. Some of us are taught never to express anger because it is "bad" or "selfish." Others see the example of raging adults and learn that angry raging behavior is a way to get what one wants. Neither of these extremes is healthy. The balance in the middle where anger is felt, understood, processed and released is the healthy balance. If treated in this way, anger is not a dangerous motivator, but a conscious one.

You raise the point about whether it is ultimately self-serving to serve others. Yes it is. So what? Why should it matter whose suffering is relieved? Let's be glad it is relieved. Yours matters as much as the next guy's.

[Dash]

Originally Posted by Vortex

Anger to me eventually leads to destructive behavior, maybe not the first time, or the second, but eventually it consumes and corrupts the individual, until soon it is all you know. I operate on a basic premise that the only way to truly defeat and enemy/adversary/etc, is to make them your friend. When my adversaries see my hand I want them to see an open palm and not a clenched fist. Have you ever known violence to exist without anger? Have you ever known love to exist with it? When I allow anger to be apart of my life, it is like I’m out there building the bridge alone.

For me...and maybe just for me...I find anger to be corrosive. I really don't allow it...or indulge in it...very often. It seems to fill me up like a raging fire, and leaves me scorched inside. It's like a drug that, when I'm raving on it, gives me all sorts of power; but it leaves me thin and hollow.

One of my favorite books of all time is The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks. One of the main characters is the druid Allanon. He's very powerful, but at the end of the book, after using so much magic, he has aged and gone gray.

That's how anger makes me feel.

Now...that being said. I can be a little too removed from what I'm writing at times. Plus, I'm a total sucker for wordsmithery (see!). I have to actively inject compassion into my dialogue or I'll let fly with a florid swordplay of angry words...without ever really being angry! I just do it because I think it sounds cool!

This last week at the UMC forums, I realized that I was getting tired and not guarding my words as much as I felt I should. When I start sounding like Ed Helms in Lebanon, then I know I need to back off and get some perspective. For those of you who are singers, you'll understand this: it's like running out of stamina in an aria, or losing connection with your breath support. Sudddenly I find myself not communicating as well as I could, without poise and self-possesion.

I think whatever passion we exhibit in our dialogue, it should be a tool. We should strive to be in total control, knowing that we are responsible for our words. There are times when we need to inject anger, but it is--for me at least--a dangerous and delicate additive. I'm always suspicious of it, but I also recognize it as one of our amazing and beautiful traits.

...and I'm often very self-critical, and wonder if I've gone overboard.

[Vortex]

Originally Posted by Zerbie

You raise the point about whether it is ultimately self-serving to serve others. Yes it is. So what? Why should it matter whose suffering is relieved? Let's be glad it is relieved. Yours matters as much as the next guy's.

Because if this is true it would mean the altruism does not exist. I'm not ready to accept that.


Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.

The Buddha

[Daniel]

Originally Posted by Vortex

Because if this is true it would mean the altruism does not exist. I'm not ready to accept that.


Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.

The Buddha

Great quote.

I cannot speak for her, but I believe what Zerbie means to say is embodied in the practice of Tonglen- where you breath into your own heart all the pain, ANGER, sadness, grief that you feel and breath out light, blessing, peace etc to yourself and others. One learns to widen the circle of compassion by starting with oneself. Is that 'self-serving'? You bet. I don't see how one can give what one doesn't have. In fact, I think it is the height of altrusim. And good caregiver knows that if you let yourself be ground under by your task at hand you cannot really 'care' for anything- or anyone- at all.

[Zerbie]

It's all okay. I am advocating something like what Daniel says.

Let me be perfectly clear: I am NOT advocating using angry actions or even angry emotions in social justice work. Perhaps occasionally that might work, but I believe 99% of the time it will only backfire, draw backlash, and fail.

Rather, I am suggesting that we Look At the anger we feel when we feel it, because until or unless we transcend the normal range of human emotion and experience, we ARE going to experience the feeling of anger again sometime, so - Look At It, note what it is telling us needs to change or resolve, and take steps to do so. Sometimes all that needs to change or resolve is our own thinking. Other times, we judge it necessary to strive for external change.

On the whole, I think activists are, or seem, too angry. On all sides of all the issues. The anger level in our society today is astounding, and sickening. It needs to be dealt with. Ignoring our own anger in an attempt to live up to ideals the human emotional system is not equipped to live at is not dealing with the problem, but hiding under the covers. We need to start by dealing with our own anger. Slowly eradicate it by finding out what it is there to tell us, what we are not doing that we need to do. Things of that sort. Anger is an informational tool that informs us about how our psyche is interacting with the world around us. Use it. Use it as that tool. By so doing, you work to eliminate the causes of the anger, while simultaneously teaching yourself to reduce the angry emotional responses. Learn to deal with it. Process it, so that when we go out into the world we are not adding our own anger to the soup.

[Daniel]

Beatifully and powerfully writ Zerbie!

[schoolboi]

I am angry. My anger at fundamentalism and lies about gay people are all the motivation I have right now. Right or wrong it really does not matter to me right now because it's all I've got at the moment.

Sorry I'm not being all philosophical. Just being real.

[Jennifer5]

... don't really have any input just wanted to say it's great just to get to hear what all of you have to say about this

[Jennifer5]

Originally Posted by schoolboi

I am angry. My anger at fundamentalism and lies about gay people are all the motivation I have right now. Right or wrong it really does not matter to me right now because it's all I've got at the moment.

Sorry I'm not being all philosophical. Just being real.

Don't be angry with them ... you should feel bad for them... they don't understand the love we have to offer...

[schoolboi]

Originally Posted by Jennifer5

Don't be angry with them ... you should feel bad for them... they don't understand the love we have to offer...

I'm not angry at them I'm angry at the institutions that have messed up my life and so many others.

[Jennifer5]

Originally Posted by schoolboi

I'm not angry at them I'm angry at the institutions that have messed up my life and so many others.

Now that I can understand... but do you really think messed up your life? Aren't they the ones that got people like Mel motivated to start this group... and isn't this more of a blessing than anything...

[Zerbie]

Well Jen, the tragedy is that there are people who don't survive this stuff, either literally or else emotionally, so even if some of us use it to a good end, well. . .just the COST! The emotional, mental, spiritual, physical, and social COST of all this is immense. Some people do not survive it.

And another thing: while it is beautiful that we are moved to improve things for LGBT people, imagine if it were a given to love and accept people as they are? What other magnificent things might we do with the same amount of time and energy?

[Joe Brummer]

I don't know if this will help your thoughts, but...

When I train others in nonviolence we have the discussion about "anger". It is a human emotion like love and happiness. Can't be avoided while we still live in these bodies and even Gandhi reminded us we will never be truly nonviolent as long as we live in this physical world.

At the moment of anger we have two choices: Violence or Love (nonviolence)

Anger is not a bad thing, it is your body's way of telling you something is wrong, injustice exists. It is all about what we do with our anger. Do we turn it into love or do we turn it into violence. Some turn that anger into violence on themself by saying violent things to themselves. "why i am so stupid?". That would be called depression. ANger turned inward is depression (violence)

The other choice is love, turn the anger into love. Nonviolence is love. Use that anger as the fire that fuels love. Work with that anger to right the injustice.