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For example, I would agree that it is appropriate to feel frustrated and annoyed (and perplexed!) if someone enters your home and deliberately pisses on your carpet.
It would become inappropriate if you invited them back and they did it again! To become angry at the first incidence requires that you had to demand that this person should not have done this.

But they already did it!.
Anger always requires that demand.

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I think I'm missing something here. If someone pissed on my carpet I would be pissed. Are you saying that people are not to be expected to know and show common decency, understanding that common sense is rather uncommon? I don't think this is what you mean, but the demand assumes that everything needs to be spoon fed to the world. As in "Please don't be an idiot or I will get annoyed. Anger may not be the best response, but can be merited for some instances. Can you clarify the, "Anger always requires that demand" part, please.

Cognitive behavioral theory would suggest that somewhere, sometime you learned that carpet-pissing should make you feel anger.

You see one of those damned carpet-pissers come into your abode and do it and – faster than lightening – you tell yourself “He shouldn’t have done that! This is unacceptable! This is inexcusable! This is evil! I can’t stand it! I won’t stand it!”

You know the routine.

If you don’t, then just unravel what you had to say to yourself to get you mad. Simply say “That made me get mad because…”

You’ll find the words them. Trust me. They are always there if you look for them.

So I don’t think there is a “carpet-pissing” instinctive anger response since there was probably a time before maybe cavemen even had carpets.

Anger doesn't just happen somehow like lunar eclipses or snowstorms.

This idea flies in the face of a world filled with people who never really mature, never grow up but live out the scripts they absorbed through osmosis in growing up.

They usually can point to outbursts of anger that have created untold damage in their lives, but will still justify these reactions as “natural” or “impossible to control”.

“It made me angry” is the theme song.

Of course, the evidence does not support this view.

Please understand I am not debating the what. This isn’t an issue of “right” or “wrong”.

Context is everything.

It is entirely an issue of questioning whether to not anger is an “act of God” or if somehow you have learned to choose that response.

The mind is a funny machine. The more it goes down a route of thinking and acting the more automatic those thoughts and actions become.

Eventually they can become so automatic that we lose awareness of what we are doing and we call this “unconscious”.

Actually it isn’t “unconscious”.

It’s just damned fast.

Many people justify whatever the hell they do by “explaining” that “I lost my temper” or “I just got mad”.

They believe that some things “just make me mad”.

Careful self-examination undercuts this belief.

Tougher still is the belief that anger is a good thing. Usually that proves to not be the case.

It is not likely that many people will live long enough to grow up and overcome most of the stupid triggers that make them go ape shit stupid (angry) but that’s another issue.

Almost any popular book by Albert Ellis goes into the kind of stories people learn to tell themselves to choose anger when they don’t have to.

For myself, I never argue with someone that anger is usually self-defeating. I figure if they live long enough they’ll probably figure it out for themselves … or not.

Oooh. That's sneaky.

Pretty soon you'll be suggesting that controlling your own emotions can enable you to manipulate people like puppets on strings.

Oh damn.

I think you did say that.

Well now I'll just go get mad now.

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Tougher still is the belief that anger is a good thing. Usually that proves to not be the case.

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A vestigial emotion, perhaps?

I'll tell you a little story. When I was younger, I was much less in control of my emotions than I am now. I would get depressed, I would get angry. These emotions threatened to overwelm me and were begining to become detrimental to my life. Then the reality of things dawned on me, and I realized that I am not my emotions! I began to detach myself from these emotions that threatened my safety and sanity, and without any therapy, medication, 12 step programs, imaginary friends, or any of the rest of it, I moved on to better things. You are not your emotions. Sure I still get frustrated, sad, and all the rest of it. But it is in its proper context now, I am not controlled. If you are truely a Satanist, then you will understand what I am telling you and stop acting like a child/slave/cow.

Frustration can be a strong and motivating emotion. It is often (though not always) an appropriate emotional response. Frustrated people have killed people. Anger is not necessary to “justify” strong responses.

It is appropriate to feel frustration when your desires are thwarted. However if your expectations are unrealistic (and you are therefore ignoring the Balance Factor) then frustration is stemming from neurotic nonsense you have internalized and are telling yourself.


Completely agreed there. We're on exactly the same page on this point.

I think I understand better what you mean, and why you think anger is unproductive.

When angry, people seethe, dwell, "bubble," and "steam" over the same issue---or, they explode wildly, and get themselves in trouble. Certainly, I've been there, and while it may be cathartic at the beginning, it steadily and increasingly becomes unproductive and draining.

Again, you make the assumption that everyone will feel the same as you do.

It's called solipsism and it can be tricky.

My sister-in-law was raped. Right as he finished, he told her that she would most likely have genital warts. She was not angry. She was confused, depressed, and wondered how she was going to go on with her life. She was not angry. Would anger have been appropriate? I think so. Is it an absolute response? No it isn't.

The deeper assumption is that things "cause" anger.

The evidence is that people learn when to react to anger.

Albert Ellis drew from the observations of Greek Stoic philosophers like Epictitus who remarked that things do not upset us but it is what we tell ourselves about things that upset up (or words to that effect). (I could not recall yesterday his sources but now I remember).

The poor bastard who is ridden by guilt and is then beaten and robbed may feel deserving of punishment and possibly feel even better, rather than angry after the beating.

Emotions do not just happen. They are learned.

That is what the clinical evidence points to.

I would underline the fact that those who pretend to themselves that emotions cannot be chosen or controlled, will never feel they have to try do so.

They can, of course, go to "Emotion-holics Anonymous" and declare "I am powerless over my emotions!"

But that path does not lead to self control. It leads only to excuses.