US Leaders Need Anger Managment Therapy
Dave Muskera, M.A.
November 18, 2007
When it comes to anger management - a popular subject these days - psychologists sometimes talk about an unconscious mental process called “displacement of aggression”. This is what can happen when you get angry or upset with someone or something and because you can’t or don’t dare to directly express your feelings, you “displace” or redirect your pent-up emotions to a more convenient and/or safer person or object. For example: you get mad at your boss but you know that if you pounce you’ll be job-hunting. It’s just not a safe thing to do. Instead, you go home and find yourself coming down hard on the kids for messing-up the house. “You’re all grounded for the next year!” you bellow, in a fit all out of proportion to the situation. You might even kick at the dog. You are most likely displacing your anger onto the kids and possibly the dog - safer and more accessible places to unload. At other times displacement occurs when you are generally angry or upset about something but there is no natural or identifiable single target.
Displacement of aggression usually happens in isolated or occasional situations. Typically, it has no great devastating impact. However, for some people it can be a chronic problem where their feelings are habitually directed towards inappropriate persons or objects. For example: a person - emotionally damaged by a dysfunctional and violent upbringing - might spend a lifetime displacing unresolved feelings onto others.
This phenomenon also happens in groups, the community and even with governments. Group behavior can be really scary sometimes. For example; let’s say two football teams are playing a tied championship game into the last seconds. A questionable penalty is called and - as a result - Team A wins over Team B by a point. Fans supporting Team B are enraged and begin to surge onto the field to get at the referee and whoever else they can lay their hands on. Police - holding them back - get whacked and nearly trampled before regaining control. Later, fans returning home with un-vented and unresolved anger might engage in uncharacteristic hyper-aggressive driving and senseless nasty arguments in the kitchen.
On September 11, 2001 a terrible event occurred in this country that needs no recounting to bring to mind. We watched events unfold, horror-struck and in disbelief. As days passed, a smoldering bitterness and anger grew in people. Quickly, it reached national proportions. Fanned to red-hot intensity by endlessly repeating images flashing nightly on TV, we looked to vent our outrage and pain on a man whose name the day before 9-11 had been little known to the public. We were assured Ben Laden would be caught. But, as the months went on and the rightful object of American anger could not be had, our movement toward aggression mixed with angst.
Too readily we accepted the cry that the “enemy” deserved a first strike before another 9-11 type attack could be launched. Flames were fanned still higher till many accepted the leaky logic of the weapons-of-mass-destruction argument. Our anger was layered with fear. Duck tape and plastic sheeting became scarce. Like a nervous, distressed recruit dressed in combat gear carrying a machine gun, America looked anxiously about as if in a darkened room where ghostly enemies were said to lurk in shadowy corners. America pointed its gun and fired.
We fired - not at Ben Laden who could not be found - but at a convenient object of displacement: a small poor country with a vicious dictator (like one called Cuba and only 80 miles from our shores) that was in reality no direct threat to the United States but mostly a paper tiger that could not even launch a single plane against the onslaught of our high-tech war machine. A country whose army deserted and government collapsed within three weeks of war. A country rich in oil reserves that we needed to control. They were a safe object for the displacement of the national anger and despair generated by 9-11. Besides, it gave America a chance to show the world just how big our biceps had grown.
Isn’t the release of all that anger satisfying? Let’s wave the flag some more. Maybe we all can be convinced.
One of the fathers of communism said, “A lie told often enough become truth”? Wasn’t that Lenin? He certainly knew.
Terrorism has now replaced communism as the national bogeyman, I still have hope that most Americans can see around the smoke and mirrors.
Displacement of aggression usually happens in isolated or occasional situations. Typically, it has no great devastating impact. However, for some people it can be a chronic problem where their feelings are habitually directed towards inappropriate persons or objects. For example: a person - emotionally damaged by a dysfunctional and violent upbringing - might spend a lifetime displacing unresolved feelings onto others.
This phenomenon also happens in groups, the community and even with governments. Group behavior can be really scary sometimes. For example; let’s say two football teams are playing a tied championship game into the last seconds. A questionable penalty is called and - as a result - Team A wins over Team B by a point. Fans supporting Team B are enraged and begin to surge onto the field to get at the referee and whoever else they can lay their hands on. Police - holding them back - get whacked and nearly trampled before regaining control. Later, fans returning home with un-vented and unresolved anger might engage in uncharacteristic hyper-aggressive driving and senseless nasty arguments in the kitchen.
On September 11, 2001 a terrible event occurred in this country that needs no recounting to bring to mind. We watched events unfold, horror-struck and in disbelief. As days passed, a smoldering bitterness and anger grew in people. Quickly, it reached national proportions. Fanned to red-hot intensity by endlessly repeating images flashing nightly on TV, we looked to vent our outrage and pain on a man whose name the day before 9-11 had been little known to the public. We were assured Ben Laden would be caught. But, as the months went on and the rightful object of American anger could not be had, our movement toward aggression mixed with angst.
Too readily we accepted the cry that the “enemy” deserved a first strike before another 9-11 type attack could be launched. Flames were fanned still higher till many accepted the leaky logic of the weapons-of-mass-destruction argument. Our anger was layered with fear. Duck tape and plastic sheeting became scarce. Like a nervous, distressed recruit dressed in combat gear carrying a machine gun, America looked anxiously about as if in a darkened room where ghostly enemies were said to lurk in shadowy corners. America pointed its gun and fired.
We fired - not at Ben Laden who could not be found - but at a convenient object of displacement: a small poor country with a vicious dictator (like one called Cuba and only 80 miles from our shores) that was in reality no direct threat to the United States but mostly a paper tiger that could not even launch a single plane against the onslaught of our high-tech war machine. A country whose army deserted and government collapsed within three weeks of war. A country rich in oil reserves that we needed to control. They were a safe object for the displacement of the national anger and despair generated by 9-11. Besides, it gave America a chance to show the world just how big our biceps had grown.
Isn’t the release of all that anger satisfying? Let’s wave the flag some more. Maybe we all can be convinced.
One of the fathers of communism said, “A lie told often enough become truth”? Wasn’t that Lenin? He certainly knew.
Terrorism has now replaced communism as the national bogeyman, I still have hope that most Americans can see around the smoke and mirrors.
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