Areas › Anger › The fear underneath anger
A piece of cloth, an accent, a surname has been enough for people to decide who counts as one of us and who does not. The sorting happens fast, it feels like seeing rather than choosing, and it has cost lives.
You will not catch the sorting while it happens. What you can catch is the moment just after, when you notice you have already made up your mind about somebody from a marker they are wearing. That is the moment to ask one real question about the actual person standing there.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Any who direct themselves wholly to God and do good will have their reward with their Lord (Quran 2:112). The measure given is where a person turns and what they do, not the badge they happen to wear.
بَلَىٰۚ مَنۡ أَسۡلَمَ وَجۡهَهُۥ لِلَّهِ وَهُوَ مُحۡسِنࣱ فَلَهُۥٓ أَجۡرُهُۥ عِندَ رَبِّهِۦ وَلَا خَوۡفٌ عَلَيۡهِمۡ وَلَا هُمۡ يَحۡزَنُونَ
In fact, any who direct themselves wholly to God and do good will have their reward with their Lord: no fear for them, nor will they grieve
Qur’an 2:112read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A developmental study across ages 10 to 23 found that emotional reactivity declined with age while regulating emotion by reappraisal improved, and that sensitivity to rejection peaked in mid-adolescence. The pull of belonging bites hardest young and does soften. It compared different ages at one time rather than following the same people, so it shows the shape of the change more than its course in any one life.
Silvers JA, McRae K, Gabrieli JD, Gross JJ, Remy KA, Ochsner KN. (2012). Age-related differences in emotional reactivity, regulation, and rejection sensitivity in adolescence.. Emotion (Washington, D.C.) doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Once someone has been filed as not one of us, everything they do afterwards gets read as further proof.
When not to
If you are the one being sorted and it is putting you in danger, that is a safety matter first and needs other people, not private reflection.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Let yourself be frightened. People who cannot stand the feeling tend to do something reckless to make it stop, and it is the recklessness that gets them hurt.
Some of what teaches you most arrives rudely, from people you would not have chosen, at a time you did not pick. A provocation is often that kind of lesson.
If you never raise your voice but spend your evenings arguing with strangers on a screen, that is anger too, and your body is paying the same bill.