"I only said it because I was angry!"

[shhhquietplease]

A quick question for the masterminds: is it right to automatically dismiss anything 'incriminating' (cruel, ignorant, hateful, etc) that people say when they're angry? Are we to just forget it because they said it when their emotions were flying around, or is there some glimmer of truth to those words

Comments

[seakittym]

Personally, I have never said something I don't mean when I'm angry. I tend to stew in anger and ask politely for someone to stop doing what it is they're doing, and when it's not changed, I 'snap,' but not in a typical way. I tend to become robotic, making lists of all infractions, and I'll write a letter or confront the person verbally. I've been told I'm frightening because I seem to have no emotion at all when delivering these speeches, and my memory of exactly when and where whatever happened is always cited as if I was writing a paper in APA format.

Because I have never said something I didn't mean while angry, I find it hard to believe it when other people say things and then suddenly didn't mean it later. If you tell me you think I'm a fat bitch while you're mad, but later you change your mind, eh, you think I'm a fat bitch but were just too scared to admit it earlier.

[niblik]

All data is valid. Whether the data is correct, incorrect, true, false, or subject to any other scrutiny that could dismiss it -- that's entirely up to the data

[night_princess]

> All data is valid. Whether the data is correct, incorrect, true, false, or subject to any other scrutiny that could dismiss it -- that's entirely up to the data.

I agree with that part.

I also agree that people sometimes just drop being polite and become more truthful when they're emotional.

However, some people also just have a talent for seeing how to wound others, and they automatically aim for such sensitive spots in a moment of anger, whether or not they believe the sensitivity is warranted. For example, an angry person might think that an anorexic is way too skinny but still call the anorexic fat in a moment of anger just because it will deal the most damage to the anorexic.

> I'm of a mind, all things are rational

Sequence of lottery numbers? Hurricanes? Microsoft products?

I'm of a mind that can impose order / sense / patterns / levels of predictability onto a huge number of things, but that's quite different from all things being rational.

[siderea]

However, some people also just have a talent for seeing how to wound others, and they automatically aim for such sensitive spots in a moment of anger, whether or not they believe the sensitivity is warranted. For example, an angry person might think that an anorexic is way too skinny but still call the anorexic fat in a moment of anger just because it will deal the most damage to the anorexic.

This sounds reasonable, but pragmatically does not square with my experience on the ground heretofore. You would think an angry person might call the anorexic fat, but my experience is that in an actual angry outburst they're going to call them anorexic.

Which makes sense when you think about it: when normal people lose their cool, no matter how wounding to the other it might be, they don't agree with their antagonist. The anorexic thinks she's fat; if you're furious at her for something else, you're not likely to say, "You're right, you are

[rampiance]

What Niblik said. What Night Princess said. What Siderea said.
Not much originality here.
I file away ALL comments and wait until a pattern emerges. Let's say I've been arguing heatedly and the other says something especially violent, say, "...and you'll never see your children again!" I don't forget it, even tho I know the guy is truly a very good person in many ways. He's also a control freak, and the statement was a data point in the control freak pattern.

My own take on Niblik's notion (everything is rational) is something like: Everything I observe (with all six or so senses) is real, and I desire to understand reality as well as I possibly can. Therefore, any statement is a real event. What's left is to fit it into the appropriate pattern.

[twilightbloo]

I might apologise after an angry outburst but it would be for the manner in which I said it, not as a means of denying the truth of my statements.
I would probably then go on try and explain the content of my outburst in a calmer and more reasoned way.

I'd also apologise if I realised at a later point that I had made an erroneous statement due to a failure in logic or lack of information, but that would be the case whether or not I had made that statement while angry.

I agree, as you've suggested, there's often truth to words spoken in anger.

If someone is a strong believer in "If you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all" then they might mean "I only said it because I was angry" in terms of I meant it but didn't mean to say it, but even then it still holds that they did mean it.

[twilightbloo]

Gah. Should be "go on to try and explain".

[thagirion]

I have not said anything that I regreted out of anger. When I become angry I tend to clam up because I am very aware that I could make a mistake and say something wrong which would be worse than anything. Reacting on emotion is usually wrong so I don't do it. I may then wish I HAD said something but then after careful thinking I'll say it because it needs to be said and that includes the painful truth, but not until I've calmed down and thought about the consequenses of my actions. So far I love this technique.

[plymouth]

I've never said anything I didn't mean while angry but I do think I've given people a false impression of how strongly I felt about something because I complained about it while angry. As in, I will be mad at my S.O. about something and then suddenly all of the little things he does that annoy me a little will grow out of proportion and I might snap something like "And I really HATE how you always insist I hang my towel up a certain way!" (a true example). He might even end the conversation thinking the minor thing I snapped about was as important as the big important thing I started out being upset about, when really it's something that kinda bugs me but is actually pretty tolerable.