Ursula: Emotions cause physical changes. Anger corrodes and long term anger corrodes absolutely. I see it every day in someone close to me.
It could be that we are discussing several different types of anger. There's the DSM-IV explosive personality type anger. There's the anger that comes from unaddressed personal dissatisfaction, which may either be short term or chronic. Both of these are undoubtedly debilitating.
Then there's the type of anger I am advocating. Because you disagree with my politics you don't see it as a positive thing, but let me translate it into something acceptable, like "anger at social injustice."
This last kind of anger is very productive. Consider Teddy Roosevelt's anger at the conditions of the urban slums, Margaret Sanger's anger at the reproductive fealty of women, or Malcolm X's anger at the state of black Americans in his time. In all three cases, anger was a justifiable response to social injustice and motivated these individuals to seek change and effect it.
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