Lexington Anger Management

摘要

In one of his short stories, "The Quantity Theory of Insanity", Will Self suggests that there is a fixed amount of craziness in the world. If one person becomes a bit saner, another will become that bit madder; if one group starts to act normally, another will start freaking out.rnMr Self's theory can be applied to all sorts of mental affliction. Children like to think they are less bigoted than their parents, for example. In fact, they are simply bigoted about different things: fatties, smokers and people who drive Humvees, rather than blacks or homosexuals.rnBut the most dramatic example of the quantity theory at the moment is anger. Many people hoped that Barack Obama would usher in an era of good feeling after the foam-flecked Bush years. He talked endlessly about bipartisanship and national unity. He was also a living symbol of racial reconciliation. America greeted his inauguration with a frenzy of flag-waving and well-wishing. But anger is back in a big way, redistributed but also revitalised. John McCain is angry about earmarks in the budget. ("If it seems like I'm angry, it's because I am.") Ben Bernanke is angry about bailing out aig. ("If there is a single episode in this entire 18 months that has made me more angry, I can't think of one.") And everybody is angry about the state of the economy.