An anatomy of anger

On Sunday my girlfriend and I were racing back to Cape Town, hoping to make it in time to watch the final at the Grand Parade. Unfortunately our car broke down about an hour away, and we only made it back to town well after the fan park was closed.

I was absolutely fuming.

First there was the breakdown. Then the wait. Then we got stuck in traffic. And then we missed out on the fan park. And yet, the most infuriating part of the whole thing was that although I was positively brimming with anger, there was no one to be angry with. Despite all my swearing, short remarks, and the blind rage I was feeling inside, there was absolutely no one that I could take it out on. Sure I got very short with my girlfriend, and sat fuming while we waited for the tow truck, but despite my best efforts there was just no one I could blame effectively. I could have gotten pissed off at the car company, but really, who would I have called — and would the poor person I finally got through to really have been responsible for my breakdown? I could have fumed at my girlfriend (which I did), but she had done nothing besides trying to help. Finally I could have punched the car (which I did), but it didn’t respond.

I’m sure you know the feeling. It’s like when you really hit your head on a kitchen cupboard and you take it out on your son for laughing. Now the question is, in that situation, are you taking it out on Johnny because you really are angry at him for having laughed? Or is that just more of an excuse, a reason to be angry with someone, where otherwise there would have been no one? In other words, is your anger at Johnny a legitimate anger, or is he just a surrogate — a substitute for the real cause of your anger, even if no “real” cause exists (for who can really be held responsible for you hitting your head, or for the car breaking down?).

It’s an interesting question because I think it tells us something important about the nature of anger, and how we tend to deal with it. Take for instance the whole idea of how anger is something that one “takes out” on someone or something. It implies that anger is experienced “inside”, and that it is released in some way through its externalisation. Obviously this venting can be achieved in many ways — shouting at someone, punching something or kicking the dog for example — but it seems to me that it is most effective when we believe that our angered response is reasonable or justifiable, and not just a random outburst at a (relatively) innocent bystander.

To return to my breakdown example, while I could vent at my girlfriend, or get short with those trying to help, none of this made me feel better because I knew that being angry at them was unjustified. If our breakdown had been caused by someone crashing into us, then perhaps my anger could have been directed at a plausible cause, and some form of catharsis would have been possible. As such it would seem that anger and frustration are most effectively released when we believe that our venting is being directed at the actual cause of our anger. It’s the because part which is most important: without a belief in the legitimacy of our outburst, our anger can’t be assuaged.

So where am I going with this? We’ll let’s use it to look at the phenomenon of xenophobic violence, for example. It seems plausible to me that those living in townships have many reasons to be angry. Unemployment rates don’t seem to have changed much, and despite promises for housing, and better education etc, many simply feel that life just hasn’t got any better. Add to this the recent recession and the relative wealth of those beautiful people of the World Cup, and it’s no wonder that people are feeling more than a little resentful — but who to blame? The government in their blue-light parade? Or is it the education system perhaps? The problem with both of these is that they are too far removed from the immediacy of the problem, they aren’t on hand at the moment when frustration, resentment and anger levels peak.

But foreigners are.

And as rumours start to spread that we are jobless because foreigners have taken all the jobs, then violence against them starts to feel increasingly justified — after all, they’re the reason we’re in this mess in the first place. It’s a logic that emerges out of helplessness, and in the absence of an entity which can be held truly accountable. And the problem is compounded in this case because it’s unlikely that the source of frustration and anger will disappear, even if all the foreigners were to leave. Chronic underdevelopment would remain, and in the face of an unaccountable and unresponsive government, a new set of scapegoats would be found. The logic of this violence is such that stopping the persecution of foreigners wouldn’t remove what drives the violence. It’s a symptom of an underlying condition, and xenophobia is simply a convenient name that in this instance does more to conceal the roots of anger and violence, than it does to explain them.