Anger Isn't All Bad! A Day in the Life of an Akin Gump Dissident

I had a consult with my psychiatrist, Abbas Jama, M.D., yesterday afternoon, January 7, 2010. We talked about my feelings of anger toward my former employer, the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. Dr. Jama urged me to "let go" of my anger. He said I need to forgive my former employer. He said that my anger is only hurting me, and not the object of my anger, namely, the people I used to work for.

That's not entirely correct, Dr. Jama. Anger isn't all bad. Anger can be a defense against depression. Also, being able to hate intensely without suffering ill consequences can be a mark of high ego strength. My doctor measured my blood pressure just a few days ago, on Monday: it was a healthy 100/80. I don't suffer from headaches, or other somatic complaints associated with anger.

By the way, urging someone to give up his hatred can signify that the person doing the urging identifies with the aggressor and not the victim (the person who feels the anger). Is there anybody in the U.S. government who would urge Iranian protesters to give up their hatred of the Iranian regime? I don't think so; certainly not Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Is there anyone who, during the Communists' reign in Russia, would have urged dissidents to let go of their anger toward the Soviet regime? Again, probably not.

Here's an excerpt from something I posted on my blog a few years ago:

I'm a hater. A nonviolent hater, to be sure. Yes, let's be sure about that! But I'm a hater nonetheless. It's part of my psychopathology.

Sigmund Freud was a hater. K.R. Eissler writes: "In examining the orbit of Freud's emotional responses, it is impressive to take note of its wide circumference. It is particularly important that the circumference of emotions also contained within it the emotion of hatred. Freud belonged among those who did have the ability to experience strong hatred."

Like Freud, Richard Nixon was a hater. So was Winston Churchill. Oddly enough, both Nixon and Freud had an "enemies list." (Incidentally, Freud and Nixon also both liked dogs. I don't know if Freud's wife wore a cloth coat, though.) "Freud set up once a list of persons he hated. It contained seven or eight names. People in general deny the presence of such an affect, unless they feel protected by group support. Thus there was hardly anybody in the West who would not have felt free to express hatred against Hitler, but it is rather rare for a person to aver a hatred that is the result solely of his personal inclinations. Since other geniuses have left no known record of people they hated, one cannot determine whether the figure of seven or eight persons on Freud's 'hate list,' as he called it, ought to be appraised as high or low."

Funny thing about Freud, Nixon, and Churchill. They were all disposed to depression; they were susceptible to losing themselves in psychological "dark places." From time to time each of these men occupied "a dark place" of the soul.

Depression and hatred can be related.

William Manchester has written the following about Churchill's "Black Dog," as Sir Winston called his depressive spells: "In a profound sense, he himself always remained the underdog. All his life he suffered spells of depression, sinking into the brooding depths of melancholia, an emotional state which, though little understood, resembles the passing sadness of the normal man as a malignancy resembles a canker sore. The depressive knows what Dante knew: that hell is an endless, hopeless conversation with oneself. Every day he chisels his way through time [like a rat, as Shengold would point out], praying for relief. The etiology of the disease is complex, but is thought to include family history, childhood influences, biological deficiencies, and -- particularly among those of aggressive temperament -- feelings of intense hostility which the victim, lacking other targets, turns inward upon himself [like Underground Man]. Having chosen to be macho, Churchill became the pugnacious, assertive fighter ready to cock a snook at anyone who got in his way. That was why he began carrying a Bren gun in his car when he became prime minister, then took bayonet lessons, and insisted that his lifeboat on the wartime Queen Mary be equipped with a mounted machine gun. But in peacetime he often lacked adequate outlets for his aggression. The deep reservoir of vehemence he carried within him backed up, and he was plunged into fathomless gloom."

Manchester goes on to discuss what a psychological boon Hitler was to Churchill late in life. Yes, a boon! It can be so much fun to hate. I know from personal experience; in my late thirties I felt I was going nowhere in life. I felt adrift, aimless. Then, in late October 1991, my prospects were dramatically altered. Dennis Race entered my life and I turned the termination -- "The Termination" -- into a career in itself. The Termination gave new meaning to my life. I had found an object to hate other than myself.

Manchester writes of Churchill: "Nothing could match the satisfaction of directing his hostility outward, toward a great antagonist, a figure worthy of massive enmity. But as the years rolled by and he approached old age, the possibilities of finding such an object became remote. The strain began to tell. Anthony Storr writes: 'In day-to-day existence, antagonists are not wicked enough, and depressives suffer from pangs of conscience about their own hostility.' Then Churchill's prospects were dramatically altered. Adolf Hitler entered his life. It would be fatuous to suggest that the Nazi dictator's only significance for Churchill was as an answer to an emotional longing. Churchill was no warmonger. He was a statesman, a humanitarian, a thinker in cosmic terms; he would have been profoundly grateful if Hitler had strangled on his own venom. But the Fuhrer's repeated lunges across the borders of peaceful neighboring states did arouse a Churchillian belligerence far beyond the capacity of ordinary men. His basic weakness became his basic strength. Here, at last, was pure evil, a monster who deserved no pity, a tyrant he could claw and maim [again, like one of Shengold's rats or, even more, like Shengold's image of the talon-endowed Sphinx] without admonishment from his scruples. By provoking his titanic wrath, the challenge from central Europe released enormous stores of long-suppressed vitality within him. In the beginning Hitler responded in kind. He, too, was a hoarder of rage, and he was a great hater. He may have felt that Britain's prime minister met an ache in him, too. As it turned out, he needed Churchill the way a murderer needs a noose."

There is more to heaven and Earth than is dreamt of in your philosophy, Dr. Jama!