Wow, I have been thinking about this so much lately, as I think irrational anger is one of the primary ills of modern western society, especially in the United States (or at least that’s where I observe it directly). I can think of no better anecdotal example than my tendency to allow myself to wallow in subreddits like publicfreakout or bullybackfire or iamatotalpieceofshit. I find them to be addictive and yet when I finally put down my phone I feel both angry and dirty, and my own personal philosometer tilts away from people are basically good to people are basically evil, and the next thing I know I’m browsing Redfin for 40 acres in the mountains, and I think about purchasing a shotgun to lean up behind the door of my cabin there. None of it is healthy or productive.
Anyway, thanks for this post and I think I’ll buy this book.
Well, anger is a positive emotion after all. We actually like being angry. For one thing, anger masks any underlying emotions that would make us feel more vulnerable (sadness, desire, loneliness, etc.). And then it comes with a rush of energy, and superiority, and a sense of purpose. That’s why I believe Paul Graham says the most dangerous distraction for a founder are disputes. Because anger trumps any goal you have set for yourself, of you let it. Hence those who have no goals at all are often the angriest.
Reddit has really taken a turn towards hate-mongering since 2017, and especially since the pandemic began. Entire new subreddits pop up just to mock and breed contempt for certain segments of the population.
It’s disturbingly powerful, too. For instance, I have a libertarian friend who frequents r/HermanCainAward and is now pro federal vaccine mandate, using an oft touted “I’ve lost patience for these types” attitude. People’s opinions change, of course, but knowing just how much of a limited government libertarian my friend used to be in this regard was really shocking. He’s also looking the other way on how the Biden administration is trying to implement the mandate through OSHA.
As a recent parent of two kids, all this stuff is very intuitive and I think all parents deep down instinctually know this true. The hard truth is that you can't take shortcuts with raising your kids. You pay the cost now, or you pay it later. But easier said than done when you're exhausted...
We've tried many things with our first child. He was, for all intents and purpose, one giant A/B test. And the data consistently shows that neither rewarding, disciplining, scolding him or timeouts work. The only thing that works (actually works) is (1) finding creative ways to playfully diffuse the current situation, (2) listening to them to identify the root problem and (3) turning the lesson into a game (inception). This takes A LOT more time and energy than simply yelling at them. It's a full time job.
Your suggestions are also the only way I can manage to deal with adults effectively. The only difference is that I don't have any kind of legal or biological obligation to coexist with most adults and since it really does require a lot of energy and time as you say, I rarely ever do it. There's nothing more infuriating to me than being the only person in a room full of adults actually trying to communicate maturely. Especially when the people I'm talking to are older than me.
One of my favorite lifelong traditions has been to check out the local library, which sells donated books for 50¢. My family had no education, no connections or friends, basically nothing but a hard work ethic. So for me the library was a gateway to priceless knowledge and stories that I had neither the means nor know-how to acquire otherwise. Thanks to that library I was able to build up a modest but decent library by high school, with books about Roman and Greek philosophy, obscure but outstanding Sci-Fi and Fantasy books, and even anthropology. It always feels so fateful and serendipitous to have a gem come to me through such a spontaneous, unplanned path.
One of these books was "Never in Anger", by Jean Briggs, which I knew would be at least mentioned in the article as soon as I read the title of this link. It's really an outstanding book if you have any interest in anthropology and getting a somewhat inside look at other cultures.
I could quote the whole article, but this section captures a sentiment I took away from the book:
> Even just showing a smidgen of frustration or irritation was considered weak and childlike, Briggs observed.
> For instance, one time someone knocked a boiling pot of tea across the igloo, damaging the ice floor. No one changed their expression. "Too bad," the offender said calmly and went to refill the teapot.
> In another instance, a fishing line — which had taken days to braid — immediately broke on the first use. No one flinched in anger. "Sew it together," someone said quietly.
Since childhood I've been in love with philosophies like Stoicism and Buddhism and worked hard to practice emotional regulation in my daily life. I've at least improved my own abilities, regardless of how that may compare with others. But I've never seen such an admirable implementation as the people covered in "Never in Anger". I've tried adopting their approach in my own life, but it definitely takes a long time to learn how to really control your anger, rather than just suppress it and convince yourself it's controlled.
I highly recommend anybody interested in my comment or the article just go ahead and read the whole book, it's really an excellent work. And if you have any other suggestions, please recommend them. I've already added Brigg's second book, "Inuit Morality Play", to my reading list after seeing it mentioned in the article.
I wonder whether the Inuit aversion to anger is a cultural adaptation to living in close proximity to others through long winters when sulking off to one's own room or house isn't possible.
In the boiling water and fishing line examples above, it doesn't seem like anger would serve much of a practical, social purpose—it's more important to fix problems, maintain working relationships with friends and family, and continue to survive Arctic conditions.
However, modulated anger _does_ serve an important purpose in larger, less tightly coupled societies. Disengaged employees—contractors, fast food workers—are much more responsive to anger or the the threat of anger than to nuanced conversation.
I grew up in a household in which yelling and anger were taboo—it wasn't necessary for anyone's work and it detracted from our quality of life. I didn't understand the emotion's utility until I married into a family that owns a small restaurant empire. The empire would crumble without occasional yelling at vendors, government administrators, employees, managers, and so forth. It took years for me to admit that utility, but I'm still not comfortable with it.
I’ve spent many years explicitly teaching my son not to try to bury his anger. Anger is a biological imperative. As humans — as mammals — we don’t have the option not to feel it. Like any other emotion, it has to go somewhere. It is either felt and expressed, or felt and repressed.
They key is to feel it but not attach to it, and not use it to hurt yourself or others. Feel it, express it if you need to in non-hurtful ways, then let it go. This isn’t my idea, and it’s not a new idea -— it’s central to Buddhism, for example.
So I reread this and worry — where are those kids putting their anger? Because for sure they’re not escaping it entirely.
OTOH I think there was a Penn and Teller's Bullshit about anger therapy that claimed therapies designed to harmlessly let out anger actually raised anger levels. Anger and frustration clearly have social phenomenons where they build without any additional rational information.
Maybe by feeling more empathy they don’t feel anger as intensely to begin with? Also, by seeing parents not freak out over a spill the children likewise stay calm.
That is all fine for children, but in real life there are many situations where displaying anger is a perfect tool.
In a movie whose title escapes me, Jack Nicholson plays an anger management therapist who is hired to coach someone 24h per day. He explicitly includes exposing his trainee to situations where he should display anger.
This whole 100% stoicism movement is quite suspect to me. It is mostly a thing for administrator types who read the 48 laws of power and some manosphere sites. It is also Orwellian, since complete suppression of emotions is a central theme in Orwell's books.
I've come to view it as a parlor trick for administrators to appear superhuman and unapproachable.
Actually creative and productive people are more in touch with their emotions and sometimes let them out.
It’s not even a good parlor trick for most of the time. And in my experience, either because they either grew up in an environment devoid of anger or self-criticize themselves for getting angry, they’re not very good at dealing with other angry people.
The actual ice-cold operator and the actual happy-go-lucky seems rare. And both seem to have much better anger management. Everyone else comes off as a poser.
Playing a devil’s advocate here. Inuit have one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and alcoholism is a problem in Inuit communities. There may be of course many factors causing this. But could it be possible the venting your anger out keeps you from alcoholism and suicide in the long run?
You are probably correct. Russia and baltic states also have high suicide rates. Also there is a lot of alcoholism in nordic and baltic countries, as well as Russia.
No, because African people were colonized and genocided and the majority of African countries do not have extremely high suicide rates. Jewish people were genocided,
Israel has low suicide rate.
You can't really compare rates of death by suicide across countries.
> Of the 183 WHO Member States for which estimates were made for 2000-2019, just over 60 had high-quality vital registration data. Modelling methods were required to generate estimates for the majority of remaining countries, which were mostly low- and middle-income. [Suicide worldwide in 2019: global health estimates. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2021. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0]
The best you can do is (cautiously) use the WHO data.
This article may not be reflective of general Inuit practices. At the very least there is a lot of contradictory evidence that this is not how children are actually brought up in the Inuit community and that in fact at the very least there is a decent amount of corporal punishment when deemed necessary.
EDIT: Removed bit on physical abuse in the adult community because there are a lot of confounding factors there.
> Elders I spoke with say intense colonization over the past century is damaging these traditions. And, so, the community is working hard to keep the parenting approach intact.
Regardless, the article shows the ideal result. Colonization or not, it's impossible for one person to reach the ideal, let alone an entire tribe. To think otherwise leads towards the path of the Noble Savage [0]. Adults makes plenty of mistakes, and just like children, we need stories to guide us towards better behavior.
But it's not clear at all that this is the ideal result (from the perspective of Inuit practices) nor does it seem that is in fact the traditional approach.
From the reddit post:
> [I] came across this article on how Inuit leaders are protesting Canada's anti-child-abuse policy, because they say it is too harsh on traditional Inuit child-rearing practices like spanking. They complain that child protective services are unfairly removing children from Inuit homes, because they don't understand that Inuit tradition permits forms of physical discipline that might not be acceptable in broader Canadian society.
> I also found this collection of interviews with Inuit elders where they describe how things were in the traditional old days. When asked about discipline, Elder Tipuula:
> "If it was a boy, it was his father’s responsibility to discipline him. If he only wanted to spank him once, then he would only spank him once. He would behave for a while, and if he started to misbehave again, the father could spank him a second time.We women took care of our daughters. Some children reached adulthood without ever needing a spanking. Some of them needed to be spanked, and would thank us when they were older for correcting them. Parents would spank children to make them aware of things they had not been paying attention to. Some children were spanked when they did not deserve it and this was bad for a child’s development. When they realized they did not deserve a spanking, they became angry. Children who deserved to be spanked grew up being thankful for the discipline they received. Children who did not deserve to be spanked grew up to become angry people."
> Elder Ilisapi adds:
> "Some of us tended to take out our frustration on our children when it was our husband who we were angry at. Even if the child had done nothing wrong, if he made one small mistake, we took out our frustration on him. If children were treated like that, they could be damaged. It was their spouse they were angry at in the first place but they took their frustration out on their child. That is not the way to treat a child. It is not good."
It seems pretty clear that physical discipline is a part of the traditional approach, even if it is recognized as something that should have limits and be used carefully.
This seems to be in direct contradiction with the article's assertion that the parenting style is "gentle."
If anything, it seems potentially that this "gentleness" is the modern approach rather than the traditional one. There is a choice quote later on in "Interviewing Inuit Elders: Perspectives on Traditional Health" (the PDF link)
> Things are completely different today. We only reprimand our children verbally because we are not allowed to use physical discipline with our children anymore.
TL;DR: Strictly no yelling/expression of anger towards children. No scolding either. Teaching/parenting through storytelling (with most of the stories of the form "don't do undesirable behavior else some very creative monster will get you").
Reading this, I'm seeing how some people might get so defensive about criticism. "How can you be so stupid" can scar you in ways to make you upset instead of accepting to do better. Sure, they're teasing the children, but in a way that the child can laugh with them and learn instead of shutting down to protect the self.
A key difference: Inuit have time, and this parenting concept requires lots of time (waiting until tantrums pass, to tell stories, and to process emotions). In western societies however, parents rarely have adequate time for interacting with their children - it's why so many kids are parked in front of screens: it gives parents the time to do household chores without being distracted.
If we as society want to raise our children in better conditions, we have to limit work weeks and raise wages so that a 20 hour work week is sufficient to raise a family on.
Do you realize how much time and effort it takes to live in the arctic? It's a full time job. You need to make sure you have enough firewood for the winter, enough food from hunting and fishing. You need to maintain vehicles, equipment, and your home so it can withstand harsh conditions, etc.
Anyway, thanks for this post and I think I’ll buy this book.