Self-Witnessing Report on the Age of Rage: What Can be Done About Latent Rage?

Linda Ure

April 2, 2001

The Age of Rage

When we begin to modify our personal behaviors we begin to learn how to use new tools for lessening the reaction to triggering situations through the re-occurrence of raging behaviors. I have attempted to bring together the myriad of ways one can address the situations that erupted previously in rage behaviors and demonstrate the process one might consider in the community dialogue of the public arena to modify the triggering situations that have been frightening our society, our pedestrians and our bicyclists into rage. Rather than a compilation of rageful events per se, I have focused on the community dialogue that comes out of acknowledging the need to work together to solve society's complex problems of accommodating pedestrians and bicyclists in our traffic community. The implications of community dialogue offers ways to address the specific problems that arise for a pedestrian or a bicyclist, so that the greater society, as a community, can achieve greater safety with inclusion of all citizens in that society.

It becomes apparent, to me, that our society is more flexible than I may have previously imagined. Communities do want to work out the problems that impede it's citizens from enjoying the full benefit of citizenship.

Explaining what's happening with rage is one focus of explorations into a community's health and well being. When focusing on the possibilities to solve the problems of rage, the entire community benefits. Rage has the opportunity to be channeled into the collective society for better planning of our future cities and remodeling our older cities to meet the needs of the greater community.

While personal raging behaviors will require both personal and societal focus in methods of rage management and anger control, we can anticipate creating successful educational techniques addressing early childhood learning behaviors toward community membership. Further, educational rehabilitation of adults who rage can be accomplished through training, or retraining, community membership and ethics, with secondary and tertiary methods.

On the community level, one engages in ongoing dialogue with other community members, including government agencies and private organizations to problem solve for better space, and time, for people-all people. On the personal level, one can assist herself, or himself, with illumination into why they rage and modify these behaviors.

While my annotated bibliography focuses on remediations in the greater society, my self-witnessing observations delve into personal behaviors and methods to identify, evaluate, and ameliorate rage-felt situations. As you read on, you may find rage in the strangest, yet most familiar place; in yourself. I even found rage in myself. Self-witnessing observations, can be peeled away just like layers of an onion, to reveal something about the self.

I prepared my Self-Witnessing Observations, in accordance with instructions, in four parts, and provide here the following table to help you navigate the report.

Anger Condition Survey Available here

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