Is anger addictive?

[Citizen James]

from an interesting article

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I'm not saying that we should be all happy-happy love-love all the time.  Anger is a normal human emotion. If we ignore it or suppress it it can build up and cause all sorts of trouble. It's a sign that we see something as wrong, and can motivate us to help make it right. However, all too often people seem to get hooked - their brains seem to turn off to any sort of reason and their focus seems to turn on to getting their next fix - preferably by provoking other junkies who root for other political teams and getting a good blood pumping fight going.   Needless to say, though critisism can help us analyze the causes of problems so we can work to prevent them in the future, raw hatred does little but keep the vicious cycle going.

Anybody else have opinions or comments on this hypothisis?

[dazzleman]

Interesting theory.  I think a lot of it is correct.

I don't know if "addictive" is the right word, but I wouldn't say it's the wrong one, either.

It is fine to have opinions, even strong opinions, but I do think that the behavior described, beyond a certain point, is indicative of a serious psychological problem.  We have a couple of examples of this on this forum -- people who are unable to have a rational discussion even with people who agree with them "only" 75%.  You have to agree with them 100% or they attack you, and at the same time they have no ability to reason out a position and defend it.

The latter is the consequence of living in an echo chamber.  Rather than questioning your ideas and defending them, you hear them constantly reinforced, often by equally ignorant and disturbed people.  When I hear people say, "I wouldn't be friends with anybody who voted for Bush," I know I am dealing with a willfully ignorant person who is unable to defend his views, and who is incapable of normal social interaction.

The internet spawns this type of thing and makes it worse.  So does the proliferation of radio and news commentary shows dedicated to a particular point of view.  This type of thing knows no ideology, but seems to be worse among liberals at this time.  It usually is worse at any given time among those whose preferred ideology is out of power.

In the 1990s, many said conservatives had this problem, and to a certain extent, they did.  Many conservatives were motivated simply by hatred to President Clinton.  Yet less extreme conservatives managed very successful to put together an agenda, recapture congress, and enact a good part of that agenda, including welfare reform, tax cuts and a balanced budget, all of which President Clinton went along with, sometimes reluctantly.

Liberals so far haven't gotten past the spewing hatred part of this.  They have been unable so far to come up with a positive agenda.

I have a general rule that when somebody hates a person or group beyond all reason, as many on the left do with President Bush, it tells you much more about the haters than it does about the object of that hatred.

[Everett]

I think it's possible, yes. Anger can escalate into a (chronic) psychological problem and I have seen many people who are like that. They love getting angry, they love fighting, and they love getting others upset because it supposedly makes them feel good. The real issue is when they don't seem to have a conscience at all. Anyone with a clean conscience will tell you that constantly going on angry rampages feels good at first, but afterwards you usually start feeling guilty about it. Of course, if you don't have a conscience, you won't care, and that's really troublesome. That basically means that you're a troll - someone who's obsessed with arguing and putting others down.