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Dear Stranger Who Left an Angry, Vapid Comment
You are most likely suffering from cognitive dissonance. It’s nothing to be ashamed of—I suspect everyone experiences it now and then. It’s the mental discomfort that comes from trying to hold two incompatible beliefs. The human brain can’t do that, so it compensates in different ways. A common one is to lash out in anger instead of calmly considering new information. Though cognitive dissonance’s name is relatively new, the phenomenon is ancient. Elbert Hubbard had it in mind when he said, “If you can not answer a man’s argument, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.”
Anger makes us look like we know the facts are not on our side, so the only thing that’s left to us is rage. We may insist our anger is righteous, but there is no righteous anger—there’s only self-righteous anger.
Anger making us look wrong is one reason Martin Luther King said, “No matter how emotional your opponents are, you must remain calm.” The civil rights leaders conducted workshops before marches and protests to ensure that their side would stay calm while the other side went wild. They knew that the public image of protest matters as much as the message because our opponents will use anything they can to discredit us.
The same considerations are behind Malcolm X’s advice to “Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect…
