Desire and Anger

THE AGE OF ANGER

and the Culture of Hatred

IN a previous post we discussed the idea that mercy is above justice. The opposite of mercy and tolerance is not merely justice, but also anger and hatred. Forgiveness is a divine characteristic. A saintly person is naturally humble, merciful, and tolerant. Often wisdom is seen as weakness by materialists: "Tis folly to be wise where ignorance is bliss."

The idea of mercy would seem to be self-evident as a principle of religion. It is an important aspect of the perennial wisdom wherever it has been found. And yet, if mercy is divine, revenge is a particularly human attribute.  Revenge is a carefully premeditated act of anger found only in the human domain. Animals do not lie in wait to avenge wrongs done them by other animals in the past. While a hyena is sure to know which tiger is his enemy, the idea of an “eye for an eye” does not occur in the animal world. Beasts understand threats, but have no tendency to avenge a particular slight. Humans, on the other hand, store up vengeance for years.

Anger, then, is an even more a primitive emotion than revenge, for it is felt even at the animal level.

It seems that we live in a culture of hatred and revenge. We live in an age of anger. But how did we get here?

According to the ancient wisdom traditions of India anger is a function of desire.

ध्यायतो विषयान् पुंसः सङ्गस्तेषूपजायते ।

सङ्गात् सञ्जायते कामः कामात् क्रोधोऽभिजायते ।। 62 ।।

dhyāyato viṣayān puṁsaḥ

  saṅgas teṣūpajāyate

saṅgāt sañjāyate kāmaḥ

  kāmāt krodho ’bhijāyate

In Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna says, “While contemplating the objects of the senses, a person develops attachment for them; desire is the result of attachment, and from desire, anger is born.”

Anger is a product of desire. We want something, we can’t get it, we become angry. It’s a simple analysis. And yet, we can’t connect the dots. We don’t make the connection between desire and anger.

One reason for this is that we are taught that desire is a good thing. The more we desire and want, the more we create our personal “dream.” And we should sacrifice everything to reach that dream, to “go for the gold,” according to modern commercial mythology.

After the Second World War, America set about transforming its own culture through a hard-won peace that took advantage of its new military dominance of the world. The pressing question of how to deal with a labor market engorged with unemployed soldiers was solved by putting Henry Ford’s economic model to work. The consumer society was put on a war footing. To be patriotic was to buy more, eat more, and consume new commercial products.

The boost in consumption would fuel the economy and put people to work. The “madmen” were at the forefront. They rebranded army surplus K-rations and sold canned goods to an enthralled public. Cans of tomato sauce and spaghetti became “Chef Boy-Ar-Dee.” Wives eager to offer French cooking to the men who had seen the chic bimbos of Paris wore Chanel No. 5 and read Julia Child’s cookbook.

My father worked as an ad-man on Madison Avenue in New York, back in the 1960s, the age of the Madison Avenue Ad-men or “Madmen.” In Post-war America, the genius of admen and madmen created the commercial America we know and love. Their genius drove millions to smoke Lucky Strike cigarettes and drink Coca-Cola.

Before the “madmen” created plastic packaging, housewives would bring a basket to the market for shopping. The “madmen” invented our plastic bag culture and fed it to the world. Today there are islands in the Pacific awash with plastic trash, in part, thanks to the vision of the 1960s "madmen."

Their vision was to get people to want things; to promote desire. After the Great Depression in the United States, austerity was a virtue of necessity. It was considered rude to flaunt one’s wealth. Hard work, family and clean living were valued. Lust and desire were vices. But the values of the “Greatest Generation” were challenged by their children, the so-called “Baby-boomers.” The new vision had an ally: Television.

In the 1960s television beamed TV commercials out to millions of homes. The best American writers wrote for TV dramas like Twilight Zone, Star Trek, and Batman, with the goal of having eyeballs glued to TV screens to watch the advertisements that would promote the culture of desire. The more desire they could create, the more people would want and buy the products that would drive the new prosperity. The saturation bombing of TV programming would create a generation of sociopathic individuals called “Baby Boomers.”

The post-war generation of boomers would suffer none of the privations of their parents. After spending thousands of hours internalizing desire as a social value, they turned out to be incredibly selfish.

According to Bruce Cannon Gibney in A Generation of Sociopaths:

“The Boomers suffered virtually nothing of the Depression that shaped their parents and, unlike their European peers, did not have to confront the suffering and guilt that marked Europe for decades after the war. With the exception of Pearl Harbor, where 2,471 Americans died, the homeland escaped the war basically unscathed. Japanese subs blew up an oil derrick and destroyed a baseball field in Oregon, and the Empire dispossessed America of a few Alaskan islands for a time, and that was about it. A childish mind might have been inclined to view one of the greatest of wars as something of a game.”

As the Post-war “madmen” gave way to the baby boom generation, the psychology of desire became wed to the American psyche. While the Rolling Stones cautioned, “You can’t always get what you want,” “You can have whatever you want,” became the watchword. It was, of course, a lie. The baby boomers displayed a near sociopathic disregard for the values and traditions of their elders. The hippies declared new values. Among their heroes, counter-culture figures like Timothy Leary and Abbie Hoffman popularized ideas “turn on to drugs, tune in to sex, drugs, and rock n roll, and dropout of the establishment society.”

Bruce Cannon Gibney continues: “Despite rising prosperity and expanding civil rights, the Boomers found much to dislike about the America they inherited, from Vietnam to the restrictive set of cultural and social assumptions held by earlier generations. They duly attacked, using as their weapon the aptly named counterculture, which was above all a doctrine of opposition. The Leftist version is well known: antiwar, antistate, anticonformity. Rather surprisingly, the Right had its own version, a rebellion against a big government and a regulatory/welfare orthodoxy that many midcentury Republicans had helped build. The Right’s counterculture gets forgotten, paradoxically because it achieved greater success becoming not so much a counterculture as the culture, and perhaps also because of its shared and inconvenient origins with the Leftist version. But before the revolution would be political, it had to be personal, fashioning a template of sociopathic improvidence that would provide the policy agenda once Boomers gained control of the state."

Nixon’s Amerika opposed the selfishness of the Baby boom generation with corruption, militarism and the Church. The unbridled desire and sociopathic selfishness of young people who wanted a “sexual revolution” was opposed by the selfishness of the wealthy with their military industrial complex.

The Reagan generation began to buy off the so-called “idealists” of the Baby boom generation, pointing out that “Greed is good, Greed is beautiful, Greed will set you free.” Reaganomics played on the fantasy of greed that drives the Amerian psyche. “If the rich get richer,” he declared, “The poor will thrive.” A rising tide raises all boats. If the business of America is business, let the businessmen do their thing. We will all benefit. The organic marijuana dreamers became Cocaine businessmen whose “dream” would gradually transform Latin America’s drug trade into the world’s most violent multi-billion dollar industry after arms trafficking.

And yet if the baby-boomer “hippies” were selfish fools whose fantasies of bliss and brotherhood were soured by selfishness, drug addiction, and violence, the reaction to the “hippies” was even more strident. Armed racist militia groups, and neo-nazi groups made common cause with right-wing gun groups.

The baby-boom generation gave rise to the “Me Generation” and Generation X. And so the current of individualism running through American society created a number of subcultures or “tribes” which, while apparently opposed, really coincided in selfishness, desire, and violence. When desire is the basis for society, society dissolves into crass individualism. As individuals, we may form alliances in families to get what we want, our alliances are tribal.

And with the “globalization” of the 90s and early 2000s, selfishness, individualism and desire have become globalized. Trotsky’s idea was that revolution can only succeed if it is globalized. Unlimited growth in consumerism cannot succeed unless we export it to other countries.

But now that we have globalized individualism, racism, xenophobia, and ever-increasing desire, we are facing “blowback.”

In the “Age of Anger,” social critic Pankaj Mishra paints a grim picture:

““Hate-mongering against immigrants, minorities and various designated ‘others’ has gone mainstream – even in Germany, whose post-Nazi politics and culture were founded on the precept ‘Never Again’. People foaming at the mouth with loathing and malice – such as the leading candidates in the US Republican presidential primaries who called Mexican immigrants ‘rapists’ and compared Syrian refugees to ‘rabid dogs’ – have become a common sight on both old and new media. Amid the lengthening spiral of ethnic and sub-ethnic massacre and mutinies, there are such bizarre anachronisms and novelties as “Maoist guerrillas in India, self-immolating monks in Tibet, and Buddhist ethnic-cleansers in Sri Lanka and Myanmar. Grisly images and sounds continuously assault us in this age of anger; the threshold of atrocity has been steadily lowered since the first televised beheading (in 2004, just as broadband internet began to arrive in middle-class homes) in Iraq of a Western hostage dressed in Guantanamo’s orange jumpsuit. But the racism and misogyny routinely on display in social media, and demagoguery in political discourse, now reveals what Nietzsche, speaking of the ‘men of ressentiment ’, called ‘a whole tremulous realm of subterranean revenge, inexhaustible and insatiable in outbursts’.

There is a pervasive panic, which doesn’t resemble the centralized fear emanating from despotic power. Rather, it is the sentiment, generated by the news media and amplified by social media, that anything can happen anywhere to anybody at any time. The sense of a world spinning out of control is aggravated by the reality of climate change, which makes the planet itself seem under siege from ourselves”

The culture of desire that began to be spread through the visual medium of television in the 1960s and intensified through the internet age, has morphed into the culture of anger, hatred, bigotry and bullying. Unsatisfied desire leads to rage, says the Bhagavad-gita. A collective unconsciousness saturated in desire has exploded into hate-soaked societies filled with rage.

Extremists preach that the sin of anger can be a virtue when engaged in the service of God. We are lost in an aggressive world; the spiritual solution must be aggressively promoted, by any means. Promotion of spiritual life through violence, therefore, is a virtue: the Koran or the sword. This is wrong-headed. Anger and violence only beget more anger and violence. Those who aggressively promoting their religion will find that the reaction will be more agression. As Kennedy put it in his first inauguration address, those who would ride the tiger of violence will find themselves inside the tiger.

Commercial propaganda saturates consciousness at all levels. Anyone with a cell-phone is subject to constant advertising to the point where it becomes subliminal. We no longer see the constant ads, we think. We don’t pay attention to such things. But advertising is powerful and works. It legitimizes absurdities. How else can we explain the election of a Trump as leader of the free world?

Through constant propaganda, humans are socialized to see themselves as individuals only. We belong to “brands” and “tribes,” like Apple or Samsung. Apps and bots identify our demographic and group us according to algorithms that display tailor-made ads to us to control and manipulate our consuming power. And above all we are constantly encouraged to “desire.” We are cajoled to aspire to the wealth, status, fame, and power on constant display not only via mass media, but through social media, and constant internet advertising, by brand names and celebrities.

And constant desire must end in anger. The culture of desire means leaving tranquility behind. The culture of desire and anger means giving up meaning as meaningless, forsaking all that was once sacred. While we are encouraged to believe that everyone can reap the rewards of the system, cruel experience will teach that when the rich get richer, the poor do not necessarily thrive, and the middle class is left to stagnate.

In a world of diminishing resources, where desire and greed are virtues, the promise of economic growth and well-being is not what it seems. Developing countries and emerging markets don’t really reach the unrealistic growth targets they were promised at the cost of their traditions and cultures. While the rapacious corporations that promote lust, anger, and greed as the new values had promised that the future would be better, the reality is different. After 30 years of neo-liberalism in developing countries many nations have little to show for globalization but a wrecked environment, industrialization and impoverished culture.

Still, few challenge the idea that greed is good, that desire should drive the economy and that anger and revenge are important for security. Secular rationalism promises equality for all and delivers racism and anti-immigration witch-hunts. Western free market culture promises opportunity, but with strings attached. Democracy promises dignity and reduces people to alienated freaks in a robot society.

The modern commercial and consumerist society is as hollow as an abandoned shopping mall. It’s culture is devoid of any meaning except an ironic wink and nudge that we’re all having a good time being cynical. The values and traditions that once sustained culture have been data-mined by Disney and Pixar for the “stories” that might drive a bloated entertainment market. Culture or spiritual practices that cannot be monetized are valueless according to the magnates governing the industries of film, art, and books. Such worthless ideas must be abandoned as failures. If sacrifice has any purpose it is for getting money. But when one has finally attained the dream of endless wealth, what is there? Does wealth really equal moral and spiritual superiority?

We are led to believe that it does, and so we are shocked by the divorce of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, the abject stupidity of Donald Trump, the moral vapidity of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and other self-made billionaires.

Oddly it was the iconoclast French philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau who foresaw “the moral and spiritual implications of the rise of an international commercial society” As Mishra writes in Age of Anger, Rousseau worried that the cult of individual freedom and desire would give rise to “the modern underdog with his aggravated sense of victimhood and demand for redemption.”

One consistent manifestation of this ressentiment across many seemingly different ideologies is an insistence on the retrenchment of gender roles by angry men who feel emasculated by having to compete with, and sometimes lose to, women. Another is the rancor of provincials toward rootless cosmopolitans.

Among Rousseau’s followers were Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine, but in Europe his ideas about the Social Contract not only spawned the French Revolution but encouraged generations of anarchists and bomb-throwers. The ideological children of Rousseau went on to assassinate tsars, kings, and presidents.

“History does not repeat itself,” Mark Twain observed, “But it rhymes.”

“Then, as now,”Mishra writes, “the sense of being humiliated by arrogant and deceptive elites was widespread, cutting across national, religious and racial lines.”

Stoked by the flames of desire and the fire of anger and hatred, the current climate of “cultural supremacism, populism and rancorous brutality” has transformed the globe. The virus of desire was carefully cultivated in the cultural laboratories of the 60s “madmen.” The virus of lust, anger and greed has been globalized in the hopes of creating a world-wide consumer culture. To the extent that this virus has become endemic and the promise of unlimited economic growth has been accepted, we now see a crisis in anger and hate, provoked by the virus of desire.
Opposed to the virus of desire is the culture of spiritual wisdom. The idea of self-restraint has fallen out of vogue. Self-restraint is seen as useful only if it ends in wealth. We respect football players who torture their bodies in training when their hard work ends in championship. As long as self-discipline has material rewards it may be included in the new commercial mythology. Anger and revenge can be channeled into success in sports and other areas where hard work pays off. But the idea of self-restraint in the achievement of a spiritual goal is anathema to today’s culture of desire and anger.

In truth, anger is a corrupting emotion. Anger and hatred have no place in the psychology of a true holy person or sādhu. 


While it may be true that even Jesus Christ showed anger when he threw the money-changers from the temple, anger is not considered a divine quality by any of the teachings that constitute perennial wisdom. In 16th Century Bengal, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu counseled.

tṛṇād api sunīchena taror iva sahiṣṇunā
amāninā mānadena kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ

The Lord’s Name is always to be chanted with more humility than a blade of grass, tolerance like that of a tree, respect for everyone, and without desire for respect from anyone.

Commenting on the above, Bhaktivinoda Thakura explains in Bengali poetry

 গুরুদেৱ! কৃপা-বিন্দু দিযা, কর’ এই দাসে, তৃণাপেক্ষা অতি হীন

gurudeva! kṛpā-bindu diyā, kara’ ei dāse, tṛṇāpekṣā ati hīna
(Sharanagati: Bhajana-lalasa, 11.1)

"Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur showed us how to pray to our Gurudev: “Please mercifully give me the power to be humble, to be tolerant, and to honour others.”

Humility gives us the strength needed to practice Krishna consciousness. Tolerance gives us the ability to adjust with the environment. Honouring others is the main way that we can avoid pratishtha. If we attain these powers by the mercy of Gurudev, then we can properly chant the Hare Krishna mahamantra. (Bhakti Sundar Govinda Maharaja, lecture)

Some religious people advocate an agressive spirituality to counteract the aggressive spirit of the times. In India holy men are called “sādhus.” A sādhu is one who reveres the truth (sat). It is said that one must speak the truth, but one must also speak sweetly. Sometimes it is impossible to honey the truth. Truth is often painful and cutting. In this regard, I have heard some devotees teach that “sādhu means one who cuts.”

There is some truth in this. A sādhu or holy man heals as does a doctor, by surgically removing the cancer of materialism. Sādhu literally means one who practises ″sadhana,″ one trained in the path of spiritual discipline. This discipline includes humility and tolerance as a matter of course; not agression and violence.

What exactly is a sādhu? The term sadhu (Sanskrit: साधु) appears in Rigveda and Atharvaveda where it means "straight, right, leading straight to goal", according to Monier Monier-Williams. The traditional meaning refers to one who is "well disposed, kind, willing, effective or efficient, peaceful, secure, good, virtuous, honorable, righteous, noble" depending on the context. In Mahābhārata the the term implies someone who is a "saint, sage, seer, holy man, virtuous, chaste, honest or right". The word sādhu derives from the root sādh, which means "reach one's goal", "make straight"

The true sādhu never takes to the sword. There are no examples of violence by sādhus against others in any of the histories that flow from the Chaitanya Charitamrita.

A true holy man teaches by example; and anger is anathema to the true sādhu.