Rage

Shoe memorial where Egerton Ryerson once stood,
Gould Street, Ryerson University Campus, June 7, 2021

I find comfort in piecing together rational explanations for upsetting or confusing things – like the Las Vegas massacre and the SNC-Lavalin controversy. Put in context, these events are easier to understand and the world seems less random.

But, it's hard to find comfort explaining the randomness of rage.

The counterintuitive finding of one study, for example, was that anger can be a good thing among humans. 

Under the right conditions, anger is a tool people use to launch necessary conversations that otherwise might not arise.

 

Human households use anger to clear up dissatisfaction among their ranks. You know how this works. Household occupant A does something that drives household occupant B crazy. The situation simmers and builds until B loses it. This precipitates a lively exchange, which makes A aware of the irritant. A promises to stop driving B crazy. A and B reach a new equilibrium.

While you could say that B could get the same result just by asking nicely, B might say that until they felt truly angry, they did not have the capacity to speak. 

The human-nature-based explanation for anger is that it can force a reckoning so that circumstances may improve. 

But not always. 

I can see how the rage displayed against the statue of Egerton Ryerson was an outburst in search of a solution. 

First Nations in Canada want redress for genocidal policies and they want respect. On June 6, some of them felt the way to start the conversation was to destroy a statue that no one wants replaced.The protest was peaceful. There were no arrests. No one was hurt. 

Harder to fit into the study's findings is the rage displayed against a Muslim family out for an afternoon walk the day after Ryerson’s statue’s head was thrown into Lake Ontario. 

The man behind the wheel wasn’t looking to start a conversation. The murder of innocents was his point. 

In the wake of the London tragedy, there have been a lot of public statements and calls to action, even by those who have in the past, out of political expedience, courted bigotry. 

We should do everything we can. 

We should call out Islamophobia as hate speech. We should call the attack an act of terror. We should seek out and destroy the sources of online hate. And we should amp up mental health resources so families can read the signs and seek help before their children decide their only redress is to become a mass murderer. 

Thanks for reading.

Karen