Anger is Not a Virtue
post 135 - Light & Hope Series No.2
In my most recent post, “A Concert for Goodness’ Sake,” I talked about the concert I gave on June 14 titled “The People, United!” The dual purpose of the concert was to use music as a tool to build community and to give a couple of younger musicians one more experience to do the same in a professional environment.
NO SUGAR AND SPICE
Today, I want to add that using music as a tool to build should not be confused with sugar and spice and everything nice. Just because we’re not singing about any of the multitude of horrid things happening in the world today does not mean we are oblivious to them. Instead, I’d like to see a healthy balance between building up and breaking down.
2020s vs. 1960s
I have said before that this is no longer the 1960s, when so many Americans were so blindly overindulgent of patriotism that they could see neither that things needed to change nor what those changes might be. No, this is the 2020’s when so many Americans are so blindly cynical that, in my opinion, not enough see the good things that are trying to grow and desperately need our help.
So, after thanking the myriad people who helped make this concert possible, including and especially the volunteers, and before 90 minutes of uplifting, heartwarming, empowering music, I shared some thoughts about anger. My presentation was an updated version of one I made at what I call the “Dreaded Folk Music Conference” in Michigan in 2019.
THE DREAD FOLK MUSIC CONFERENCE
To say my presentation at the “Conference” seven years ago didn’t go over well is an understatement. I gave it at a panel discussion I led called “Songs of Social Conscience: A Time to Build Up or a Time to Break Down?” I was on the side of building up, but louder, more aggressive voices raised for “tearing the whole system down.”
It was in the wake of this conference that I coined the term “the MAGA left” to describe that small portion of the population that’s so far to the left that they are squarely on the right. I’m sure they wouldn’t agree with my characterization, but let’s think about it.
Who hasn’t heard someone say we should “tear the whole system down?” And who hasn’t heard that not only from the fascist-right, but also from people who consider themselves to be “on the left?” Maybe you haven’t, but being a nationally touring folk musician, I’ve been in close quarters with all kinds of people, including self-described “progressives” who advocate tearing the whole system down.
A big part of MAGA’s and the MAGA left’s wishes have already come to partial fruition. When Trump was re-elected, he resumed tearing down the rule of law, the impartiality of our judicial system, our military alliances, our economy, our welfare state (a.k.a. Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, Social Security, and myriad other programs that feed our children and the poor), our leadership of the global economy, our public health research and… well, that’s not the point of this episode, is it?
After thanking folks, I confessed:
GRIEVANCES
“I have to be honest with you, friends. I am angry! – Very angry!
“I am angry about what is happening to my country. I am angry about what my country is doing to God’s children - children God had the audacity to create with skin colored other than white, or to have born in countries other than the U.S.; children who recognize themselves to be different from the bodies in which they were born.
“One of my transgender friends told me she wonders if ‘God put her in a boy’s body to punish’ her or help her discover that ‘the soul within lies deeper than the skin.’ I don’t know the answer to that question, but I believe we should love all of God’s children.
“I am angry about what my country is doing to God’s creation: the assault on the climate, the torturing of our parks, and the rape of our forests and other gems of nature.
“I am angry about the wars and the genocide. That we ‘Drill, Baby, Drill” - and pay for our stupidity by living in a more and more compromised natural environment, and through higher gasoline and electricity prices, while billionaires and trillionaires make, in Trump’s words, ‘lots and lots of money.’”
{I have to interject here that when I typed the word “trillionaire,” it was flagged by spell-check as not being a real word. But it is now, as a consequence of tearing down yet another guardrail.}
NOT A VIRTUE
I continued:
“You can hear in my tone how angry I am. But I consider myself fortunate to know that anger is not a virtue. Anger always has been and always will be a vice. I believe this truth to be one that MAGAs can never tear down – either from the left or the right.
“Anger eats us from the inside out. It begets itself by perpetuating language and actions that feed itself and give it more power. And it begets offspring of vengeance, grievance, and retribution.”
“I shared this belief at a folk music conference in Michigan in 2019, and I prefaced it with one of my other beliefs - that nobody has a monopoly on truth, so therefore, I may be right, or I may be wrong.
“And I was still shot down. Not debated or challenged with skepticism, but ‘professor-targetted,’ and subsequently excoriated by the Board of Directors. I was called naïve and a clueless old white man of privilege because I believed America has some redeeming qualities and that tearing down the whole system will only lead to… well, what we have today, ‘Trumpism,’ ‘MAGism’ and “Muskism.”
ANGER vs CANCER
“My detractors insisted that anger can be good because it motivates change. But, so can cancer - that other ugly disease that also eats us from the inside out.
“They said ‘cancer can be the cure,’ because it can motivate us to put more wholesome foods into our bodies and more wholesome thoughts into our minds. But I believe it is the wholesomeness that cures us, not the disease.
“We don’t need cancer to motivate change in our health habits, and we don’t need Donald Trump or Elon Musk or their godless MAGAs to tear down this great country to motivate the changes we need in our society. Instead, striving for human decency can motivate in a healthy, more loving way.
“Pete Seeger told me once, ‘You don’t need to tear down a building in order to rebuild its foundation.’ Now, we may need to decapitate the malignancy running our country today, just as we would remove termites from a building or a tumorous cancer from the body. We certainly need to demagafy and demuskify America. Who knows? The process may have already started.
“But unless human decency lives in our hearts and dominates our lives, we will likely find ourselves in 2032 right smack back on the same track we are on today.
“This is why I put this concert together. Not to tear down Trump or MAGA, though I think they are foul and need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But to use the power of song to do what Pete taught us – to celebrate our victories and extol the virtues.
“So, let us sing together songs of peace, hope, and community. United around these goals, we shall not be defeated. Let us listen to each other sing and find where our unique voices can add to the group effort. Let’s together take one tiny step closer to hope.”
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As a final note: If you have an organization that could benefit from an event like the one I described above, please contact me at spook@spookhandy.com. We can work together to help…
Keep the Flame Alive!
Thank you for this insightful and thoughtful blog post Spook! Anger is helpful at times - it can save your life. But if you hang on to it too long, it's like battery acid that eats the container its in. In my own challenges with anger I discovered a quotation by CS Lewis: “I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.” We have such a deep and overwhelming grief over what we have lost and how things have changed. Maybe the first part of a concert could be songs of lamentation. But we don't want just to stay there forever either - hope isn't a feeling, it's a commitment. A commitment to the belief that despite how bad things are today, we believe there's a brighter tomorrow worth fighting for. So thank you Spook for your beautiful music, your insights and sensitivities. And for asking the question: "Whatcha gonna do?" Keep the flame alive brother!
<3