Hi everyone,

The Insight program on SBS Television is a national forum discussion program that goes to air every Tuesday night at 7.30pm. Jenny Brockie is the presenter.

We are producing a program on the subject of modern day rage and would like to hear from anyone with an interesting story to tell about dealing with either their own or someone else's anger.

This could be a story involving a passive aggressive colleague or partner, a road rage incident, a sports rage incident, an anger management course or where rage has been channeled constructively in the pursuit of social justice.

If you have any thoughts on this subject please email Associate Producer Claire Absolum at claire.absolum@sbs.com.au with a few sentences about yourself and some contact details.

The show will be recorded on the 1st of September in Sydney. SBS will cover the cost of travel.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Cheers,

Claire

You should do a program on the death of liberty under our twin conservative governments. There are far more improtant issues than random acts of rage, which is simply an emotion.

I suspect much of the rage we witness nowadays is as a result of the continual assault by the "big two" on our individual liberties and consequent feeling of disempowerment and impotency.

Interesting.

Steel - with the greatest respect, I've noticed from your frequent posts to OLO that you often seem to be very angry. While that may be "simply an emotion" to you, it often detracts from the points you are trying to make, because they are obscured by the emotional language you use.

For example, while I agree with much of what you say with respect to the Henson/Olympia debate, you lose me completely when you resort to simply attacking people who disagree with you. As I recall, you've claimed that your expressions of rage are legitimate, but it seems to me that they alienate more people than you persuade.

If this is a discursive strategy you use in real life, surely you've noticed that it doesn't achieve much in the way of positive results?

Ms Absolum: looks like an interesting program, but I haven't got anything to contribute, I'm afraid.

All this "anger" stems from parents either not wanting to & not being permitted to dish out discipline at children at a young age when a well-placed slap prevents this kind of "anger" developing in the first place.
The "gimme, gimme" mentality (incidentally also dreamed up by academic "experts" has a lot to do with this indiscipline disguised as "anger". All of these problems are a direct consequence of a situation caused by ignorant "sociological experts" imposing their own mindless idealist views on normal peoples' daily life. Why don't journalists go around digging up some of these sociologists' recommendations from 30 years ago & expose them to let today's generation realize the root of it's problem. You never know it just might help them to steer into a more sensible direction.
Even by watching Jenny Brockie it becomes painfully clear hat even she always gives more credence to her "academic experts" on insight rather than people who know.

"All his days he (man) eats in darkness, with great frustration, afflction and anger"...Ecclesiastes 5:17.

Its the man condition the Holy Bible tells me.

Add to it a very fast moving age, advertising agencies who temp with all of the lustful pleasures of life, which few can obtain, add drugs like caffeine and there it is... RAGE.

To lower the rage factor they might likewise ban coca-cola etc and coffee and work steadfastly to give people hope.

"To lower the rage factor they might likewise ban coca-cola etc and coffee and work steadfastly to give people hope."

Now Gibo, you really are showing your madness. Don't you drink coffee after your church service on Sunday? I suppose you want alcohol banned too.

I've seen you exhibiting plenty of rage in your posts over the last few days. What's your excuse?

If I wasn't a Christian, you alone would give me reason to want religion banned.

I'm extremely sceptical about invitations from SBS and the ABC appearing on OLO. Television producers have so far managed for decades to find plenty of subjects for their programs without appealing to online discussion blogs.

If the requests are genuine, all they're going to receive is page after page of non-sequiturs claiming secularism/feminism/abortion/free-markets/Labor/Liberal are responsible for the breakdown in whatever the subject is, followed by the OLO natives getting stuck into each other.

I think it's far more likely that respondents to these appeals will find themselves on a Scientology or Pentacostal contact list than on telly.

Dear Claire,

Thank You for your invitation.
I admire Jenny Brockie very much.
She's a very competent presenter, and
the programs are always interesting.
The topic is very timely.

I wish I had the courage to be on the
program, but I don't, simply because
the case of "Modern Day Rage," that I
remember only too well dealt with a
family member who was diagnosed with
Alzheimers.

The specialist did not have what you'd
call a good "bedside manner." He was
very cold, abrupt, and matter of fact,
in his diagnosis.

After the diagnosis all hell broke
loose in the car and at home.
It reminded me of a trapped animal in
great pain.

I won't go into the details here - they're
too personal. And, because this situation
deals with a very sensitive family member,
I could not discuss it in public.

However, I imagine that the program will, as
always, be interesting to watch, and I wish you
every success in finding your participants.

All The Best,

"Is there such a thing as frootloop fundy rage?" CJ Morgan.

I think there is and you've seen it here.

"Does anyone think that nudism and godliness match. "

perhaps the better question is "Does anyone think that extremism and godliness match?"

The first is just about skin, the latter is about the motivations and character of a person.

The former shows someone who makes particular clothing choices given the opportunity.

The latter shows a person out of balance with themselves, their neighbours and if she existed with their god.

The bible does not forbid nudism nor does it present a strong circumstantial case against it. It does speak a lot about the kind of people followers should be, it speaks of minds being renewed. When I see the posts of our resident fundies (especially the two most hate focussed of them) I don't see anything that looks like godliness. I see individuals full of themselves unable to cope with the complexities of the world they live in and hiding their fear behind expressions of contempt for those who don't do it their way. I see individuals dishonest to themselves, the world and their faith.

People who seem to live in anger at everything outside their oh so small worlds.

R0bert

I will consider your advice CJMorgan but at the moment i don't have the time and patience necessary

I'm finding there's a lot of road rage in Brisbane. I'm in the inner city area and regularly travel between here and the Gold Coast, and I've noticed a definite road rage increase over the past 10 years or so.

Yes, the pace of life is extremely fast.

Yes, disciplining children is difficult given the 'anti-smacking' lobby and cessation of corporal punishment in schools.

However, economic necessity now dictates that in a large number of families, both parents work; and John Howard's legislative amendments also force single parents to work and/or study at least part-time.

Families more and more are forced into paying other people to care for their kids before and after school or in the school holidays.

Kids are seeing less of their parents than ever before in this country, compounding the discipline issue.

Parenting is not valued as a societal contribution any more leaving future adults less and less self-disciplined - it's an inevitable cycle of selfishness, greed and violence.

Don't blame parents; they can't discipline kids they hardly see!

RAGE ?

How come no one has mentioned RAGE BOY :)

http://www.snappedshot.com/archives/964-Professional-Protester,-Jihadi-style.html

Look him up.. he has become a kind of cult figure..

Rage boy parodies

http://www.snappedshot.com/archives/976-Islamic-Rage-Boy-Parody-Roundup.html

Steel.. CJ is (choke.. cough.. near death experience) right :)
you do show so much anger.. and it takes about one sentence b4 some of us tune out.

Argue your point... with good solid evidence..

If you let children get what they want..when they want..and never teach them the word 'no'.....then one day when they are BIG..and some bright spark says 'no'.....hmmm they might (and often do) snap.

There seems to be growing incidents of rage in our communities often directed at people who are complete strangers, say in the case of road rage.

Why the growth of rage is an interesting question and like most phenomena, there are probably a number of factors.

Maybe it is the fast paced lifestlye which affords little quality or quantity time to those closest to us, we are working longer hours and there is a growing unrest with the political processes that purport to represent us.

Perhaps the feeling of powerlessness is the cause of all this rage. Reminds me of the film "Falling Down" starring Michael Douglas whose growing frustrations and disappointment with 'society' resulted in ever-increasing incidents of rage.

Jenny Brockie's evenhandedness is refreshing in the media and I look forward to the program.

I get really bemused by the constant talk these days of 'Time Poor', and our 'Fast Paced' life.

I think it all falls under the umbrella of self obsession and vanity.

Seriously, nobody is time poor. Everyone has the same amount of hours in the day. Everybody has the choice on how they use them.

Sick of feeling busy? Downsize your life. Sell your house, pay off your mortgage, set your life up so you can walk to work.

Want lots and lots of free time? Don't have children. Or learn to enjoy time with your children so you don't see it as work.

Don't want to work? Be a bum.
Don't want to clean the house? Don't.

Obviously those who earn more can be not as time poor and still have a better standard of living. But it's all relative and the majority of people have a lot more choices than they realise.

A hell of a lot of people are stressed and busy and time poor because they choose to be. Vanity and Envy make them work their life away looking to compete with others. Then they say they are stressed and time poor, and have rage attacks.

PolyBOAZ, I don't care too much if you or anyone else tunes out. If your comfort is of greater importance to you than the content of what that person may be trying to express, then that's your choice.

Just remember, that often anger is justified (and sometimes not, as some people can be mistaken). Someone for example may tell you something that would otherwise have saved your life, had you not ignored it by expressing irritation at their anger and screening the remainder of what they said out. Their anger may be attributed to their heightened state of urgency, or because they have been gravely injured. I appreciate it can be annoying though ;)

“Perhaps the feeling of powerlessness is the cause of all this rage.”

Yep Pelican, spot on. That’s the root cause of my rage, which occasionally really manifests itself badly.

I find that rage can sometimes surface very quickly over very minor things. But I reckon that those minor frustrations are only triggers for the release of a big pool of discontent sitting just under the surface that has been generated by entirely different things.

I’ve set myself up with a very good lifestyle and career in a great part of the world. I only have myself to look after. I’m able to indulge my interests about as fully as anyone can. I’m right into relaxation. I spend a lot of time on the beach in the wonderful north Queensland winter. I’m into exercise, with a good hard run or hill hike almost daily and I spend a lot of time expressing my major concerns, not least on OLO. And I travel a lot. These things are great calming mechanisms.

And yet there is always significant anger just itching to burst out.

I see Rage as having two basic sources Quasi genetic (Basic instincts), Mental illnesses V conditioning (parental and community examples).
We as a species seem to ignore the fact that we are animals and as such have sections in our brain that hard wire many of our responses.

I don’t accept the argument that it’s natural and therefore justifiable/acceptable. As humans we do have the ability to override instincts at least the protracted ones.

It also seems to me that where we as a species ignore our basic instincts in creating our environments. Instead reinforce the needs for these animal instincts. We encouraging aggression, competition, dominance while ignoring the balancing factors like our need of connectivity and our place/importance in society (importance of the individual).

We become insignificant as individuals which tends to heighten our sense of being dominated by others and therefore our search connectivity and place manifests it though the vicarious aggression of sport. Various sub-morphs include football team supporter, national pride, cultural/religious zealotry and justification for murder rape, violent crimes at the extreme ends. Clearly in two groups oppressors or the oppressed at the cost of tolerance.

Studies have indicated that high profile sports-people from high aggression sports have more difficulty in adjusting to social conflict off the field. Their violent proclivities are higher than the public average.

People who see themselves as victims of ‘the system’ often seek membership to sub-cultures ( often violent gangs) as confirmation of their identity (importance) and an under-current of rage against those who they perceive are oppressing them.

To a lesser extent we all respond in similar way. We hate (an emotional justification for rage) drivers who cut us off, won’t let us in, male drivers in hats especially ones in Volvos, females in 4wds. Young people, vans, trucks, busses, traffic jams, taxis… the list goes on. Objectively these prejudices can’t be supported in fact and are irrational.

Most commonly this sense of place is represented in a search for “greater meaning” which is more often than not emotionally based in cause and solution

Individual “when a well-placed slap prevents this kind of "anger" developing in the first place.”

Well said, we are paying the price for a generation many of whom were brought up without being held in check or accountable by their parents or teachers for their temper tantrums and have developed an inexhaustible sense of personal expectation that strangers should endure their bad behaviour.

The words of my eldest ring in my ears on fathers day 2006 when she said to me I had been strict when she was growing up but she needed it (followed by a kiss).

Children need to learn about boundaries and respect for the rights of others. Now we are reaping the harvest of all the wishy-washy, nambi-pambi no-slapping twaddle policies of the 1970s and 1980s we see a harvest of binge drinking, drug abuse and rage on a scale unexperienced in recent generations. This violence is different to previous social violence. This violence is not premeditated or targeted (as it was with rockers etc. of the past) it is indiscriminate and unmeasured.

Gibo as a heavy coffee drinker I fell about the floor laughing when I read your post, really.

Wearymum “Don't blame parents; they can't discipline kids they hardly see!”

So you cannot balance your responsibilities, who should be held accountable for that?

(note I am a divorced father who made sure I remained directly involved in my daughters upbringing, regardless of the threats and lies of their mother)

US “I think it all falls under the umbrella of self obsession and vanity.”

Another good observation US, a lack of understanding that other people exist or have rights.

Pelican “Perhaps the feeling of powerlessness is the cause of all this rage.”

That is just a convenient excuse,

It absolves people for the public manifestation of their poor self control and personal action choices.

Col Rouge - Your kids were lucky to have a Father who cared enough, was mature enough, and responsible enough to put his children before himself. Other kids have not been so fortunate.

Some parents who seperate/divorce do endeavour to maintain a civil relationship to bring up their children; unfortunately others insist their need for control, revenge and vexatiousness is more important.

Congratulations on being evolved..

Ludwig you don't seem to be a rage filled person at all. You always appear very calm and rational here on OLO. :)

Col and Usual Suspect I understand where you are coming from regarding personal responsibility - but the question asked is why all this rage? Even if the reasons are only perceived - such as perceived powerlessness? That is the question.

Perhaps another reason is the overemphasis on material possessions or consumerism - call it what you will - that inevitably makes people unhappy or filled with rage?

I am no expert just thinking aloud.

A couple of ways the government breed this rage...

The whole concept of 'User Pays'. People used to be happy, or at least accept, that their taxes would not all be spent on things that would directly benefit themselves. These days everyone thinks 'why should I have to pay for that. I don't use/need it'. It encourages selfishness.

Governments falling over themselves to show how they 'feel our pain'. We're creating a society of whingers. For every problem in the world, all you hear these days is 'The government must do something!'

pelican,

'Perhaps another reason is the overemphasis on material possessions or consumerism - call it what you will - that inevitably makes people unhappy or filled with rage? '

That's what I mean by Vanity and Envy. People do think they are time poor and feel stressed by their 'fast paced' life, but it's all due to their own Vanity in wanting to keep in the same 'class', or move up a class, and their Envy of the lifestyle they see others have.

Fear also comes into play, as in securing their 'future' or their children's 'future' that they think they can buy with $20k a year private school fees

Wearymum “Congratulations on being evolved..”

not many would agree with you . . . but thanks : - )

It is in common with other things I have written, about personal accountability and responsibility.

I take responsibility for those I fathered.

Pelican “I am no expert just thinking aloud.”

I don’t think any of us are ‘experts’ pelican and I think too many place their faith in the hands of supposed experts who know all the answers but none of the questions. Parents know their children best and should be supported in their efforts to instill a sense of responsibility into them, instead of experts who tell us no smacking.

The old old adage “spare the rod and spoil the child” comes to mind, although I never used a rod, only my hand (so I felt the sting as much as they did).

Pelican, I do not think it is a function of “material possessions or consumerism” things do not define how we act.

The issue of a sense of powerlessness, well people have more personal discretion than ever before. They are less constrained by social convention and the authority of the church and other institutions, so I do not see a lack of ‘power’ as a cause.

My gut feel is its to do with people with an unreasonable presumption of self entitlement and lack of consideration for the equal rights of others.

This goes back to a lack of parentally imposed discipline.

Maybe divorced parents has some influence on the numbers but I feel any failure of parents is more a matter of expediency rather than divorce and selection of the wrong priorities.

A lot of excuses are made from suggesting work pressures and the need for two incomes, etc.

My view, that is a parental management issue and parents placing their priorities in the wrong order.

OF course, going back to wearymums comment, one thing I got from my parents and which I endeavoured to give to my children was

"Unconditional Love"

Children and adults who have that sense of acceptance by someone else (parents) are less likely to act out because they have less need to assert their rights over others, basically, they are more secure within themselves and less inclined to extreme emotional outbursts and "Rage".

An other contributory matter is the proliferation of drugs which result, from their use, in paranoia and violent outbursts. This includes Methamphetamine and marijuana.

You make some good points Col. I agree with much of what you say. Unconditional love is the most important aspect of raising children and being their to support them if they fall or make a temporary wrong turn.

Lack of parental responsibility might explain some of it as you say but much of the road rage, for example, is coming from people in my age group too (40 somethings) and in general we were a generation raised with 'good manners' and taught to respect others.

I wonder if the Insight program will provide any further insight. :)