Is anger, personal or political, a useful emotion if it doesn't lead to positive action?

I would say No. Especially about Trump. Or the Gaza War. There’s nothing you can do about Trump, so why waste the energy of being angry? What will it accomplish?

You’re far better off being personally constructive – making yourself feel better, whether it is by actions (planting flowers, working out, cooking, painting) or by serving others.

Especially true for one-on-one personal anger. I can think of numerous times when I could have gotten angry for personal interactions (some personal, some at work).

But again, what’s the point? The object of my anger won’t care anyway.

No. Not if it doesn’t lead to a positive outcome. Other wise it’s just chest thumping and blustering, trying to intimidate people.

My opinion:

Anger can give you the energy to action, the adrenaline gives you heightened alertness and strength. The pain that is usually at the base of anger, motivates you to want to fix what made you angry.

Anger also is a stage in grieving and working towards acceptance so you can move forward. Grieving doesn’t have to be an actual death, it can be someone disappointing you and an end to a relationship. Many types of things or people we go through a grieving process.

Anger when you cannot do anything is not a good thing. Staying stuck in anger is not a good thing. Harming yourself or others because of anger is not a good thing.

Regarding Trump, anger is mostly a waste of time especially if you are not active in politics. Getting angry here and there as new news comes out is understandable, but seething for 4 years seems unhealthy.

Gaza you can’t do much about from the US in my opinion. Certainly you can write opinions and donate, whatever you see fit that will help you feel you are helping. There are many things happening in the world at any given time that are very sad. It’s all a matter of what you choose to focus on or not.

On the personal side: Absolutely not! I am no saint, but doing EVERYTHING I can to control my anger.

My anger has caused me to be spiteful and horrible to the people I care about. An ex reached out to me- drunk text. He strung me along and we hooked up. I told the pregnant girlfriend he decided to NOT tell me about until after, all out of spite. I was pissed. I wanted to hurt him like he hurt me, had nothing to do with her or “doing what was right.” I feel so much regret letting my anger and jealousy go that far. Even if she does not believe me, which I truly hope she doesn’t. A kid is involved, my feelings do not matter. Anyways.

If it does not lead to positive change, all it does is make you hate yourself, hate others. You push people away, intentionally or not. It is a horrible feeling to be stuck in. You lash out and then hate yourself for being so horrible.

My father yelled and screamed my whole life. His anger caused my mom to be so depressed. My older siblings got a more “fun” version of her (they had a different dad). I got that too- but also the mom that cried on the couch telling me to never get married or trust men. The years I had to watch her go from being happy and creative to sad and depressed- she stopped taking care of herself. It is not ALL my dads fault, no one was stopping her from seeing a doctor… but yeah. I saw how his anger hurt her and made her cry. How his anger changed her. There is a version of my mom before she met my dad, and a version after. No marriage should have that much suffering, and I know she wasn’t perfect either, with her anger too. Nothing justifies his behavior, however. It was over the top.

None of that anger was for positive change. Positive changed was promised, never delivered.

He is now facing reality. And I know it is hurting him.

The only “positive change” is reality hitting hard.

Political, I cannot imagine it to be useful without positive change. It just is not. But, other people have commented on politics so I will refrain. I am offering an answer on the personal side mentioned in the question.

When I was teaching I learned that anger can your friend! You have to skillfully hide it, and control it, but when you’re angry,and go with it, your words come out a differently, in a certain cadence, and the kids listen.
I was in a problem class once. One kid was sitting on his desk, feet on the seat, but facing me.
I said “Jimmy, sit in your seat.” and turned away for s second to deal with another kid.
I turned back, and Jimmy was still sitting on his desk, but now he was smirking.
I tightened up my tone and said “Jimmy. Sit. In. You. Seat.”
He just grinned and said “No! And you can’t make me! Because if you put your hands on me you’ll lose your job!”
I felt the other 25 kids go very still and very quiet, watching.
I felt my temperature rise.
I took a step closer, slowly leaned in, until our noses were almost touching, impaling him my eyes.
I quietly hissed “And . It. Just. Might. Be. Worth. It!”
His eyes flickered at what he saw in my eyes, they got wide and he quietly slipped into his chair.
But it only works if you really are angry because they’ll call your bluff in a heartbeat! But…I wasn’t exactly bluffing. And he knew it.
I didn’t have no problems with no body after that!

Anger CAN be a healthy emotion to have and to express. It’s a natural reaction that’s both useful as a warning signal, and for communication with others, but also is (or can be) a healthy way of releasing emotional energy.

Also, we don’t really have a choice whether to have anger about things, and if we try to not feel angry (for example, by saying it’s bad to be angry so thinking better to try not to be angry), that generally bottles up the upset, leaving it to accumulate and fester in us because we’re not allowing what is there to release. This generally leads to much worse eventual effects that can show up in all sorts of ways, and it often gets mis-directed as uncontrolled outbursts, resentments, and in many other dysfunctional ways.

I think by phrasing the question this way, it infers that emotions are without merrit if what causes them is not “resolved.”
A sentiment, that I would disagree with.

I actually believe that indifference, and apathy are FAR worse.

SQ’s example is perfect.
Perhaps she regrets her actions, as a result of her anger, but she SHOULD be angry at that guy.
He emotionally manipulated her, and it hurt her. That anger, made her protect herself by destroying any possibility of it happening again. In a morbid way, this is how life teaches us. By hurting us.

Like physical pain, anger is the “stick.”

Joy, and pleasure, would be the “carrot.”

Evolution does not favor harmful traits. What we call “anger,” is just the “fight” side, of our “fight or flight” instincts.
SQ
Anger is an animal/primal emotion, and we are still very much animals. And still VERY primal…

^^I think it’s a matter of extremes in the end. If too extreme or lasts too long it becomes pathological or detrimental.

You can take the same situation and one person is furious and the other person thinks it’s funny, or another person might be disappointed but quickly lets the anger go. Anger is natural, but I think it’s also taught, it’s part of family and cultural expectations.

Anger CAN be a good, useful thing, but it is a fine line you walk by going there. I used to tell my kids “If you panic, you’ve already lost”. When you panic, you stop thinking logically and go solely on feeling…fight or flight mode. I also told them that losing your temper is a form of panic. When you get angry, your emotions start to take over and you say and do things that may not be good for you nor for the situation. But anger is an emotion and emotions make us do things. So I think the key is to use the anger as a signal that some action is needed, but that is about all.

I agree with you. The first feeling may be anger and that’s okay. What’s important is what you turn that anger into as opposed to just holding onto it. Anger turned into determination for change or to stand up for your thoughts in a respectful way is a much healthier path.

^^I really like how you worded your answer. Especially the use of the word determination.

It’s an emotion that was created in a multi-billion year process.

It doesn’t matter whether one feels it’s useful or not. Anger is here to stay.

Life is art. Art is life.

I’ve known a couple men who had two emotions. Angry and not angry.
There was no inbetween. No words like frustration, disappointment, sad, confusion…nothing but angry. Or not angry.

I think it can be very useful to notice that often, unless perhaps we notice, and check ourselves, we may tend to make anger about a person.

That is, there’s a difference between anger itself (an emotion about being upset), and focusing negative feelings at some person.

In general, anger without personalization is often just our natural and unavoidable response to some very upsetting situation, and that tends to just be something we ought and need to experience and express.

Focusing negative emotions at someone is a behavior, and one that’s often not a great thing to do, especially when we direct a lot of anger into it without really thinking about it. That’s often not helpful, and can lead to all sorts of problems. Note that it’s NOT the same thing as deciding someone is many types of terrible, and having extremely negative opinions of them – that’s something else, especially when it’s not being caused just by anger.

I’m going to flip this question.

Is joy a useful emotion if it doesn’t lead to positive action?

Mostly to challenge the notion that emotions must be useful only if they have an outcome that is tangible.

I think as a society, we are often trained to ignore feelings that are labelled as negative. But not holding space for us to feel and explore those feelings often leads to worse outcomes.

I also believe there is intrinsic value in feeling your anger as deeply as you feel your joy.

Feel your anger. But also take it into the light. What is it telling you? How you learn and grow from it isn’t always tangible action. It may just be a quiet understanding.

Also, anger is often a mask for sadness. And we need to hold our sadness.

I guess I see someone who constantly rants on and on about the same provocations as non-productive. Or in the personal example I gave, being constantly outraged about Trump for the next four years unless there is an action to take.

Choosing to rant or expressing outrage is a decision on how to react to that anger.

It’s not necessarily intrinsic to the emotion itself.

@raum True. I do understand that it is an emotion and you feel what you feel but my life is too short for me to be constantly outraged – or for that matter, guilty feeling.

Yeah, I totally get that.

The thing about anger is that many use it to diguise their true feelings.

Well. Trump is an ever evolving, threat, to many.
That’s different, from someone who can’t let go of a lost playoff game, or a single perceived incident or occasion…

Is it made better, by left-wing media outlets making careers out of making sure Trump’s every dead horse is beaten?
It’s not up to me.
Some people, have grown addicted to this charade and the network news outlets, know their audience well.

The conservatives have cried for YEARS, as time has inevitably marched on, bringing inevitable change.

Now. Suddenly. They are in a position, where at least in red states, they will be VERY aggressive in trying to create the fantastically and falsely motivated changes they believe will “Make America Great Again.” “Again.”...

It would seem, their formerly unproductive rage, has the chance to be quite productive…

And. It should be expected that the pendulum WILL, swing back hard. Why? Because people are angry….