When Did We All Become So Unreasonable?

What if you don’t need to be angry to save the world?

Photo by Freddy Kearney on Unsplash

Anger is like a drug; the adrenaline, the singular focus, the occasional loss of bladder control.

As James Averill, a psychology professor at the University of Massachusetts put it:

…anger is one of the densest forms of communication. It conveys more information, more quickly, than almost any other type of emotion.

And he’s not wrong.

Properly harnessed, anger allows us to say things we might not otherwise have dared. It encourages honesty, even if we don’t always express ourselves perfectly. It forces us to do something about circumstances we’ve tolerated for too long.

There’s just one problem; anger is hard to sustain. Most of us are mature enough that our anger will eventually give way to reason. But anger needs constant justification. It needs an antagonist. It needs fuel. And in 2022, we’ve found a seemingly limitless supply.

If anger is like a drug, the news is the perfect dealer; available 24/7, 100% legal, and always ready to give you a hit of the good stuff. Best of all, it’s free!

Want a hit of misguided rage? Here’s a stunning blend of incompetent reporting, false equivalence, and race-baiting. I call…