anger

Does it feel like the world is angrier today than ever before? Perhaps it's just that communication is so easy, that every action (more often every bad action) in the world is made more visible. But I think it's more than that.

A 22-year-old man shot a Congresswoman in Arizona. There are violent clashes in the Sudan during a referendum that will decide whether the country should be split in half. A few days ago, Salman Taseer, the Governor of Punjab, Pakistan was assassinated; his death was celebrated by a segment of the country that decried his moderate views. The assassin was showered with rose petals and garlands during his appearance before the court. What provokes all this anger?

Extremism exists in every community - that's reality. The "edges" have historically not been as visible to the middle, but the media in their relentless quest for shock-journalism are changing that. Once they become visible, it's much easier for the edges to collect fellow extremists, and wannabe extremists with the tools the Internet makes available.

What were scattered, random, disconnected micro-freaks are finally able to coalesce into much larger, more coherent, better funded, and very real threats to the mainstream. Of course the media will now shower ever more attention on these now macro-freaks, and in doing so, legitimize them (can you say, "Joe the Plumber"???). This is when things get scary.

Being legitimized means that you are accepted as part of the zeitgeist - you are now acculturated, and scarily you are a "respected" force. Look at Moktada al-Sadr who recently returned to Iraq from exile - originally a cleric in a small town, he became political by weaponizing his community, and inciting them to resist. He became a force when CNN and the US Army began to pay attention to him, and this enabled him to recruit more micro-freaks to the point where he went macro.

The scariest part is when a mainstream player decides that to become even more "main," they must incite the fervent and freakish edges to their cause, thus expanding their base with people more driven to act (donate, vote, rock the vote, etc.). Frenzy is currency is politics - the ability to drive your constituents into a frenzy is considered a good thing (for any party); it is defined as:A state of violent mental agitation or wild excitement; temporary madness or delirium; a mania; a craze. Is it hard to picture violent acts resulting from this? If you can drive your constituents into a frenzy against your opponent, your chances of winning have gone up significantly. Honor and being honorable are seen as weakness.

Going back to the Arizona case, the same NY Times article talks about how Sarah Palin's Facebook page contained a map where every "enemy of Palindom" was identified with cross hairs. It's interesting that she just chose to take this down now, in the wake of the Arizona shooting (the Congresswoman is one of the "targets" she identified). Is that an admission of guilt?

I wrote a post after the US Midterm elections last November questioning whether Democracy is simply the lesser evil, and that there must be a better form of government that is at once both pluralistic and of integrity.

No doubt there are horrific examples of wanton violence in non-democratic states around the world, and when they occur, the "voting" countries all rise up to condemn them. And yet more and more we see horrible acts of violence in the name of winning elections in democratic countries, yet no-one rises up to question that.

Campaigning and then governing based on anger is no different than despotism and fascism when it comes to the price exacted on humanity and integrity. In fact, the advantage with despots and fascists is at least you know what's coming and can, to an extent, steel yourself. With democracy acts of anger are random and spurious, and always catch you by surprise and unprepared.

Until politicians (and voters) can agree that winning with integrity is preferred to winning at all costs, acts of anger will occur even more frequently - this isn't the last time a 9 year old girl will be killed by politics.