Why Anger by Design?

Anger and other emotions are natural responses to the environment. Emotions are an important part of the mind, which is composed of an organism’s total reaction to the environment. Culture is an individual’s or group’s total interaction with the environment.

Design refers to the purposeful manipulation of our emotions by individuals and groups that desire to control our behavior; their motives can be selfish or sincere, or some of both. Our friends or close associates may reward feelings of loyalty and security, but at the cost of our desire to explore a wider world. We are often coerced into choosing one group over another, or are expected to embrace one belief system against all others. The price of belonging may be that we are expected to do harm or perpetuate group violence against people whom we don’t know.

Control of human beings by other humans is achieved by either condemning emotions categorically, or banning certain emotions and inflaming others. In the extreme case the individual is blamed for having emotions, which are an inescapable and natural condition of being human. Feelings and impulses labeled as negative are forbidden, and must be replaced by positive emotions. This harsh treatment of the natural individual supposedly leads to good behavior. Punishment is the most common means used to enforce compliance, even in civilized nations, whose members undergo chronic psychological and economic manipulation. Emotions do not go away. They simply can’t because they are biological in origin. The natural reactions of both anger and fear are intensified by repression of emotion and this heightened emotional state is played skillfully by powerful elements in society. Politicians, religious leaders, and wealthy entities have always viewed the mass of citizens as a resource to be manipulated in their quest for dominance within their elite hierarchy of power. This is as true of democratic societies as it is in military dictatorships or monarchies.

The terrifying power of the father creates fear in the infant-child, fear that becomes a god. Unbearable helplessness is dealt with by the "my dad can beat up your dad" taunt evident in this poster, although comparing Thor to Jesus is incorrect: Jehovah is the equivalent of Thor. Boys react to the father's power with envy, an emotion that is manipulated for profit by the American entertainment industry. The deadly combination of primitive emotion and unlimited power that is presented as the ideal use of male strength is a perversion of nature. The proper role of the male is to provide a safe environment for the community, especially its children.

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The supernatural mind is based in the universal fear of death and a child’s vulnerable status at birth, a dependent psychological state that continues into adulthood. Magical thinking remains the bedrock language for explaining the environment for most humans, and directs government and cultural institutions, even in developed countries. Magical thinking results in a supernatural dimension that exists exclusively in the brain, but which is projected onto physical reality and is experienced as arising outside, and superior to, the individual. This is due to the very large and important presence of the parents, who are literally the models for gods: they can and do shape the thought process of a child.

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Supernatural power is believed to override the laws of nature in the form of miracles; parents do indeed perform miracles from the infant’s point of view, supplying (or not supplying) every need. They literally hold the sword of life or death over the child. Myth is filled with examples of fathers killing their children, especially males.

Magical thinking is a socially acceptable state of delusion, paranoia, and confusion that arises from this initial life or death vulnerability of the human infant. If the child is introduced to a greater physical reality and taught the skills needed to be a competent adult, the infantile state of dependence remains. This emotional state manifests as fear, magical thinking, and the inability to grasp a stand-alone natural reality. Only the mirage of a supernatural dimension exists for the incomplete adult. The sheer preponderance of magical thinkers in the United States indicates that parents rarely achieve the goal of raising children to full adulthood, despite free education and a technologically sustained culture.

The result is that abstract thinking produces wonderful new technologies but dismal economic, political, and social theories, which are based on invalid magical relationships. Magic cannot manifest as physical changes to reality; it is supernatural. The presentation of social and educational theory as being math-based does not make the assumptions valid. Superstition cannot sustain a technical and democratic society.