Monday, January 28, 2008

Anger Vs. Sadness

In a post from a while back, I wrote about the ways that violence, rather than sadness, can be a way of dealing with the darker parts of human existence. In that post, I was talking about literature. But today I experienced the same thing but in real life.

I had a kind of bad day. Not a super awful bad day or anything, just, you know, one of those days where you end up feeling sad. I have to say, I was feeling pretty darn sad.

Nothing was really cheering me up.

Then, I got pissed off. And suddenly things seemed a little brighter. !

First I learned from Jezebel that the president of NOW said something about how the reason women ought to hate Obama is that he and Edwards engaged in a kind of metaphorical gang-bang, or multiple rape, of Hillary during or after some debate or something.

Oh my god. What? As Jezebel readers point out, this both trivializes rape, and manages also to conflate gang-bangs with non-consensual sex. News flash, Marcia Pappas, some women choose to be with a lot of guys! At the same time!

Then I read about how Bill Clinton is saying how the only reason Obama did well in South Carolina is that black people would only vote for a black person, or something. Good heavens. I used to always defend Bill Clinton but this is ridiculous!

It turns out anger and hatred can actually be life-affirming. Which is a scary thought, really. I kind of wish it wasn't true.

But I'm going to try to stay mad about it rather than sad. Just from the happiness-preservation point of view.

2 comments:

Captain Colossal said...

Mind boggling.

I'm totally with you about the life-affirming effects of anger. Like falling in love, it takes you out of yourself and erases ambiguity and weakness.

This seems like an appropriate juncture to mention that in the cab in Bakersfield, the driver asked me if I was voting for "Clinton or the black."

Octopus Grigori said...

Sí, podemos.