Dwayne Monroe wrote:
>On the surface this seems like a trivial question but I think we're beginning --
>slowly -- to come to grips with the very profound fact that millions of Americans
>are extraordinarily angry. I suspect they're angry because their lives suck IN
>SPITE OF THE FACT they're supposed to be the citizens of the mightiest, most
>advanced, freest, most splendid portion of old Earth.
>
Yes, the old psychoanalytic saw is that depression is a defense against
anger -- you depress your level of energy and deal with the resulting
low rather than allow yourself to feel anger, which may be a danger to
you if expressed. What Zizek is suggesting is the obverse: that anger
(directed against safe/weak victims) is a defense against depression.
The kind of anger that is now fashionable allows you to identify with the powerful, with the humvee drivers, with the most powerful military machine on earth and allows you get some measure of safety in a world that is increasingly unsafe, terrifying, depressing, etc. You're being sold down the river and you know it but there's nothing you can do about it. Consciousness hurts, so you just vent and for a tiny fraction of a second to feel that you have some power and some fucking rights.
Pathetic and scary at the same time. Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" has an interesting slant on this. So does Faulkner's Snopes character -- I think I'm thinking of the right one.
Joanna