Demand of the question Introduction. Contextual introduction. Body. How anger and intolerance affects understanding? Conclusion. Way forward. |
Anger and intolerance are negative emotions developed in response to an adverse provocation, or any threat. As Gandhiji said, Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding, one must control anger and must be tolerant. Correct understanding is a disposition to appreciate or share the feelings and thoughts of others. Anger and intolerance reduce such ability of correct understanding as these make an individual biased and irrational.
How anger affects understanding?
- Anger is a negative emotion that often leads to bias and clouds moral judgement. For eg. Under provocation people resort to violence and fail to understand the repercussions their actions may cause.
- Anger makes a person lose calmness and forces them to take hasty decisions which may not be correct. Anger makes a person to lose patience which drives him towards intolerance. Angry person is constantly stressed person; such a person cannot think with clarity.
- Anger lead to an influenced, non-objective and emotional decision, which is not based on well thought outcomes and understanding of consequences of such decisions, which could be dangerous. E.g. In anger mob may lynch an innocent without knowing or verifying his crime.
- Anger affects the person who is angry as well as all the people who are touched by that person’s anger. An angry person is likely to speak harshly. Sometimes angry people hurt themselves if they are unable or out of reach of the people at whom they want to direct their anger.
- Evils like honour killing, acid attack by spurned lovers is because of anger at the moment. Anger does not allow rational thinking and people take up extreme steps and kill their own children/loved ones due to uncontrolled emotions.
How intolerance affects understanding?
- An intolerant person will remain ignorant to diverse opinion and belief and thus act according to narrow ideals. For example, generally politicians with religious background are ignorant towards issues like LGBT rights.
- Intolerance is contagious just like anger and can encourage others to be blind for diverse views too.
- Intolerance make a person blind to other opinions and narrow down a person’s thinking and judgement marred by biased views.
- Intolerance in society prevent correct understanding as people only see one side of the coin. For example, not all Muslim are terrorists as are branded by some individuals which lead to development of intolerance against them and may lead to violence.
Way forward:
- It is very necessary for a person in position of authority and responsible for decision making to keep their negative emotions in check. It requires development of emotional intelligence.
- To manage emotions sensitivity training can be given to the individuals.
- Encouraging sarva dharma sambhava by making people of diverse cultures to interact with each other.
- Yoga and meditation techniques to control anger is a must in a way it gives one control over one’s own mind.
- It is important to accept other views and thoughts so as to develop as a rational human being. For this education and awareness about other’s rights also plays an important role.
It is common to find people and leaders losing steadiness of mind when faced with stress. Thus, in today’s world administrators needs to be emotionally intelligent to act in a fair and unbiased manner. Balanced decision making for social progress and development can only be made with an objective and unbiased mind, which can be achieved by controlling anger and being tolerant and open.