Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Head Shop >

Civilized Aggression

09:45 / 30.06.04

Humanity seems pretty violent from where I'm sitting right now. Mob mentality allows people to do things that they would never consider doing in the cold light of reason. And while I don't know anybody who would go and kill for sport, I know plenty of people who enjoy a good bloodbath in there favorite video game. Speaking for myself, there have been times I've come home from work with the deep-seated need to make something suffer in the same way I've had to suffer.

This is, to say the least, not good.

One frustration I've found in the past (before I got a PS2) is the lack of acceptable means of catharsis. Wanna beat up some office equipment? Better drive outside the city limits unless you want the police called on you for disturbing the peace. Same with primal scream. Martial Arts classes are great, but they are subject to the hours they are open. Same with shooting ranges.

This thread would ideally encompass two questions:
What cathartic activities are available to the civilized person, and is it healthy to act out aggressively, albeit in a controlled and safe manner, or is it just reinforcing the aggression I think we'd all like to see gone from our lives?

(Moderators, feel free to pop this into Conversation if you want, but I though that this might fit under Psychology)

10:37 / 30.06.04

I'm not sure I actually believe in catharsism and that there is no actual empirical evidence of it existing.

Maybe when you play your PS2 or punch a punchbag you are simply releasing more endorphins that improve your mood.

Therefore, I suppose, I think that any kind of aggressive cathartic behaviour either has no effect or just reinforces the aggression.

That's the problem with psychoanalysis - it's a circular arguement. After all it seems to me that it is aggressive people who seem to display aggressive cathartic behaviour. This could be because they have more aggression to release but in my humble opinion it is simply because they are aggressive people.

14:43 / 30.06.04

One frustration I've found in the past (before I got a PS2) is the lack of acceptable means of catharsis. Wanna beat up some office equipment? Better drive outside the city limits unless you want the police called on you for disturbing the peace. Same with primal scream. Martial Arts classes are great, but they are subject to the hours they are open. Same with shooting ranges.

My guide to a hassle free screaming session in an urban setting-

I'm lucky, living in Edinburgh I'm spoiled for easily climbed hills across the town. Many a night my pals and I have climbed a hill at 3am to scream at the stars

That said, I have no idea how well the rest of you are served for parkland- perhaps it's harder to find (relatively) isolated local parkland in cities like London? But surely you have industrial wasteland instead? Or even a deserted nighttime industrial park (tres creepy)?

Saturday nights are the nights you wanna go "primal screaming" in the local park. Saturdays are the best if you want to avoid Police intervention- they're too busy with the drunks in town to bother with a bunch of weirdo's on a hill.

Other than that, exercise common sense. Make sure you're not going to wake up the local neighbourhood by ensuring your venue is relatively isolated from inhabited houses.

01:39 / 21.07.04

Well, you can always install a heavy bag in your garage or back yard. Boxing or martial arts is probably the best steam-blower around, but yeah, it can be hair-raising waiting for the chance to cut loose and break something, so why not set up some boards between bricks at home, and tell the family you're doing tamishiwara? What's that photo of the boss's face doing on the top board? Don't know how that got there, really.

Charlie's Horse

03:42 / 21.07.04

That's the problem with psychoanalysis - it's a circular arguement. After all it seems to me that it is aggressive people who seem to display aggressive cathartic behaviour. This could be because they have more aggression to release but in my humble opinion it is simply because they are aggressive people.

Good point, Atyeo - aggression breeds aggression, like many other emotions. But what if you can channel this constructively? Like Lord Morque's example - boxing is a highly aggressive act. You spend so much energy just doing this for a few minutes that by the time you're done, you feel too tired and endorphin-laden to truly still feel aggressive. You said that this "improves your mood," and directly past that line you reiterate that this mood change equals "no effect." So if you're not trying to change the mood, what are you trying to do? Make it so you stop thinking aggressive thoughts period? I mean, I don't masterbate to extinguish all sexual thought - it just gets me outta 'the mood' for another day (strapping young buck that I am).

I've always thought of debate as an aggressive act. Think about it - at the very least you try to make your ideas as relevant as someone else's. At most, you stand up on a soapbox and try to convince everyone that their very ideas cannot hold a candle to your own. It's like an argument attempts to uproot part your very mind and replace that space with itself. You swoop in, blind the opponent with the blazing light of your reason, and leave a pamphlet of your beliefs in place of their previous thoughts. That's pretty 'aggressive' in the sense that it's a forceful activity - I find it very, very hard to truly change someone's mind. Of course, this isn't quite the same as the extremes of violence our species goes to, but what do you 'lithers think? I suppose the aggression/forcefulness of debate is directly proportional to how close-minded your audience acts.

As far as the 'primal scream' goes - you can always fill up a sink with water and stick your face in, for those bad days at work. I always preferred the tops of buildings by night myself.

Deep, abdomen-style breathings seems to help. So does spontaneous laughter - I do this alot. Starts out as an angry demonic affair and gradually turns a little more sane.

09:03 / 22.07.04

what? sport!

04:19 / 26.07.04

I think working through anger and letting it out is very helpful. If you like to keep it calm, go through your anger mentally while meditating, ball up ALL the anger you can and let it all out in you good solid punch to the floor (or a bookshelf or something if you have people living below you).

My favorite cathartic activities:
Unreal Tournament - straight forward fraggin'
Martial arts - it helps that my pal takes the same classes as me and doesn't mind me showing up at his house at 2am just to spar
(let my geekness shine) a round of dungeons & dragons - this one works on a couple of levels. You and your pals get to do all those things you wish you could do in real life (i.e. kill the neighbor with the yapping dog) without all the consequences. Also, as you play, the anger you had fades away as you laugh with friends and enjoy yourself. What started as working out anger ended as a fun evening with friends.

As far as whether or not letting anger out is good: I think getting anger out through punching a wall is a little better than just ignoring the anger. It might be possible to rationalize the anger and work through it, but that runs the risk of essentially repressing your emotions and convincing yourself you aren't angry. I think the best bet is to quickly get rid of the overwhelming edge to the emotion, and then work to remove the cause from your life, though this isn't always possible. Just remember - everybody gets pissed, just don't break anything valuable (or anyone).

13:02 / 26.07.04

Yeah, stress is the killer- it's basically the flight-or-fight reaction drawn out over a long period. You end up with immune system suppression, all kinds of nasty shit. They call it General Adaptation Syndrome. Better to get the adrenaline and emotion out in one blast and be done with it, move on before it bites you in the arse. Scream into a pillow, kick a wall, but don't let it wear you down and rot you from within.

Brigade du jour

15:32 / 26.07.04

I wonder if anyone else gets this.

I'm very much in the 'Get It Out Of Your System In A Constructive (Or At Least Less Destructive Than, Say, Going Out And Killing People) Way' camp (might want to think up a snappier name, guys). The way this usually manifests itself is when I get pissed off and take it out on inanimate objects, e.g. the photocopier at work when it fucks up just at the exact point I need to use it.

I have noticed, however, once I've calmed down after one of these little temper tantrums, that even while the red rage was at its peak I was still holding back. I was still 'pulling my punches' and on some very rational, conscious level not allowing myself to cut loose even on some piece of bleeding wood or plastic.

I wonder what this means. Preferably, it means I just never really get angry enough to cut quite that loose in the first place. That would make sense, I mean, what do I really have the right to get, shall we say, physically as opposed to intellectually angry about anyway?

Or maybe it means I'm still repressing my emotions even in what is for me a highly emotional state, which is not very healthy and ultimately counter-productive. Does that sound familiar to anyone?

11:40 / 27.07.04

MGB: Yeah, I get that, too. Even when I do get mad enough to just up and hit something, there is still a small but influential part of my mind that casts about the room for something safe to hit, and which compells me to literally pull my punches when I do finally haul off.

Whether this is a "good" thing or a "bad" thing emotionally, I don't know, but it has definitely kept me from breaking my hand against brick or putting it through a window, etc. The same restraint has also kept me from hurting other people, too, at least long enough to make the rational decision not to start a fight (not that things go that far very often).

~L