Still having problems finding a way into AST for folks, this will be attempt number I don’t know any more, another series, I suppose. The plan is to keep them short and manageable, hope to make the point with a barrage from many angles. I’ll start with the definition for AST – here’s the first, it means Antisocialization Theory – and then how it alters the narrative of a number of topics.
AST redefines everything, but we’ll try to show how, specifically, for this list of ideas:
human nature
social life
punishment
abuse
anger
empathy
relatedness theory
evolution
strength
resilience
etc. Oh, forgot some (and this will be a feature):
racism
trauma and healing, psychology
attention
culture, tradition
control
Redefinitions – 5. Anger
AST, a definition:
AST is the theory of our hurt, the human science of not deterrent and socialization, but of abuse, punitive and otherwise, and our antisocialization, which long word means exactly what it sounds like it means: to have been made antisocial. It is about the dark side of our social control, the stuff we supposedly don’t want to happen, beyond that the person maybe did what they were bloody well told.
The AST Theory of conflict states that the failures and ostensibly unintended consequences of our rough control are deeply and vastly consequential in human life, and its author can get very expansive, imagining it to be the post powerful and destructive force driving us.
The central idea is that structures and ways of being within the human social group – laws and punishments, ordeals, etc., – add up to pain and trauma for the individual, while laws prohibit simple reactive violence and simple revenge, and so the individual is “charged” with bad feelings, antisocialized and looking for a fight they are allowed to have. The group’s leadership – administrators of the law – can then exploit this reservoir of anger, point it at someone and allow the citizens the “freedom,” not an accident and not irony, we are always seeing this, to deflect and unload their frustrations.
AST asks you to note, that our own people frustrate us, and exploit our frustrations at will in this system, using us to abuse some Other, some human group in a war or a pogrom, or an apartheid. That is what I call the AST theory of conflict, weaponized by our own, to be discharged in some group conflict.
Hmm. Not sure if that will be the one I use every time, but I like it for our first few entries:
AST, “Anger”
OK, the first several have been long, I fell into trying to do too much at once as always. The idea wasn’t to present several long ideas in lieu of one, it was supposed to be brief, alternate definitions to counter the social narratives around a word or an idea, or to counter the Psycholoby Today sort of psychological or scientific definitions. Some may perhaps be good and proper definitions and I simply wish to add a qualifier.
So, anger is defined many ways, lately as an emotion, and as such involuntary, and a theory has evolved about anger’s usefulness, anger is our unfairness detector, it is an evolved response that gets us out of bad situations with some adrenalin and a suspension of peace and perhaps reason. If they fear our anger, we get respect.
This one would fall under the latter category, I at first thought, I pretty much agreed. Quite logical. So my only critique was – how’s that working out for you?
How is using your good and natural anger improving your life?
My answer is that some good and natural things have been hacked against us (sure, by ourselves) and that anger is one such, and rarely saves anyone under the human system, perhaps “anymore.” Generally speaking, we don’t really get the chance to use it to escape our circumstances. The law and order nuts will lock you up if you try, mostly. You will become unemployed, mostly.
Right?
So, I will project what I see to be the rest of the social narrative now: “Anger is a good and evolved emotion for our safety and interests, but we don’t approve anymore, it’s an unfortunate legacy of the past that we are trying to move beyond, blah, blah, blah . . . “
You know what? Species don’t grow out of emotions, so no.
Self defense doesn’t require anger. Good fighters know they are more effective cool and thinking straight, don’t they? – I’m sorry, don’t ask me about how to fight, I shouldn’t speak – but is an animal “angry” to fight you for food? This theory, “unfairness detector, for use to get us out of trouble,” I’m sorry, again, reasonable as can be . . . but it’s the opposite of antisocialization theory, which is not suspended just because it’s us feeling the feelings. It can’t be true, I’m sorry.
It’s the exact opposite of the actual, boots on the ground truth.
It has been a very long time indeed since your personal anger solved your life, we have had rulers and bosses for quite a while already. Your personal anger has another use, it isn’t created and tolerated and everywhere because it serves you. It was never meant to be turned on your oppressors, it comes from your oppressors to be used against their enemies. That is AST, as stated at the top of each of these.
And the social narrative about how it’s a “good” emotion, well, yes it is, to our leaders, to the powers that be, to them, your anger is very good indeed, while they remain cool and thinking straight.
Jeff
May 8th., 2022
Abuse with an Excuse 