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Anger

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2023

Ute Frevert
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung, Berlin
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Summary

Anger, akin to the wrath of God or the wrath of Achilles, the godlike hero from the Iliad, has long been considered a powerful and empowering emotion that is not for everyone. This chapter shows how in modern societies it rages in common people, while fighting in war, starting revolutions, contesting and sometimes even overthrowing political systems. But it is not only a genuine emotion felt and put into action. Anger can also be provoked, staged or even faked in order to strengthen a regime in power and justify its political decisions to the world. This was the case when in 1938 an alleged Volkszorn (people’s anger) was propagandistically declared the trigger of the infamous ‘Night of the Broken Glass’. For democracies, anger has to be considered a highly ambivalent feeling. On the one hand, it signals and legitimately expresses that people are dissatisfied and feel disappointed. On the other hand, anger can be extremely destructive when it renders a person impervious to the opinions and feelings of others and ends up in the refusal to engage in dialogue and the rejection of basic democratic rules, negotiation and settlement.

Keywords

Type
Chapter
Information
The Power of Emotions
A History of Germany from 1900 to the Present
, pp. 20 - 36
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Anger
  • Ute Frevert, Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung, Berlin
  • Book: The Power of Emotions
  • Online publication: 14 July 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009376792.002
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  • Anger
  • Ute Frevert, Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung, Berlin
  • Book: The Power of Emotions
  • Online publication: 14 July 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009376792.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Anger
  • Ute Frevert, Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung, Berlin
  • Book: The Power of Emotions
  • Online publication: 14 July 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009376792.002
Available formats
×