“What comes with anger and rage? They’re the blinders of the soul of reason, of the rational mind.”
This is the organic trigger of a reaction beyond the control of empathy. It is needed in order to kill for survival.
Let me say it simply, when we get angry we blind ourselves to seeing anything beyond wanting to destroy that which we feel should be destroyed.
Reason is not needed for justification; anger itself justifies whatever one can do to stop or destroy the object or image of what is feared. There is no listening or looking at what is being said or done. The whole image is contained in the blackness of emotional rage and hate.
We don’t understand this emotional smothering, especially when we are in that circumstance of being out of reach of reason and control . . . filled with anger and rage.
I assume this rises out of the primary neural signal from the heredity of the past, where fear and death were closer at hand in everyday living. It remains to be so among the current conditions of animal life—to eat or be eaten—where killing remains an instant survival reaction and reflex. Its dynamic is survival, as there is no time for reflection if one is to survive.
The mind is bypassed so that one engages in the immediacy of the ‘fight or flight reflex‘, It is a blind reaction in service of survival.
Fortunately for us, we rarely, if ever, find ourselves in such life and death circumstances, but this depends a lot on who we are, where we live, and what our genetic heritage of temperament is in neural chemistry.
One thing that is consistent about anger is that it is most often expressed within the family or neighborhood where fighting occurs, it doesn’t necessarily bring death, but it often brings injury to the body, and possibly the ego image of the other.
The more frequent of these encounters are wars, and sometimes riots, where a person in control has to shoot and kill the other to defend or maintain control and power. Its opposite are those who are the cause, or are provoked, in the use of force because of a perceived threat to life.
This organic pattern of hate blinds most everyone caught up in it. It’s part-and-parcel with needing to defend oneself against, or to destroy the other, in order to survive. They meet each other in a life-and-death confrontation where reason is little more than a primal reaction to kill. It is often justified in feelings.
“We cannot reason our way out of violence when our thinking is flooded in emotional hate and rage. The instinct to kill and/or destroy ones target is a primitive neural signal. It has no eyes, ears, or mind available to reason or consider beyond its emotional state.”
The lack of self-awareness and social-consciousness of a number of AK 47/AR-15 owners that has consistently been on display over the past few years, is concerning. Is it a primal sense of security with these military-style weapons that people find so appealing? Is it the intimidation factor? How does one behave with a loaded military-style weapon vs unarmed? During times of social unrest, political upheaval, and consequent economic crisis, how is all of this intensified by a weapon that can shatter concrete. Damage to a human body? Its victims often must be identified via DNA because the physical form has been so disfigured.
We’re all facing a significant crisis in violence that will only increase as the fabric of our society continues to unravel. How will this increased violence affect our economic futures? Does it portend economic collapse? We are in serious danger. This isn’t something that could spin out of control, it is spinning out of control! We are currently witnessing a daily increase of false judgments aimed at whoever happens to be the popular target for a behind-the-scenes propaganda fest . . . fighting among ourselves without any capacity towards reason as a remedy. Hate floods our future.
What can be done about this? Is there an answer that could effectively neutralize the current spiraling towards violence? Do we not have to each decide for ourselves what kind of a world we want to live in? And once decided, doesn’t it make sense that we will have to begin it within ourselves? To every action there is a re-action. There is always a way, but we have to be willing to do the work of discovering what it is. Will you be part of the solution, or will you stand by and watch while Rome burns? It’s up to each one of us to awaken to a new way of seeing if we are to discover a new direction, a more sustainable direction for life on planet Earth.