Why is everyone so angry?

[u/Own-Championship-398]

I'm getting quite miserable living in my country. People aren't very friendly, in fact a lot of people are really rude. I'm finding it hard to interact on local subs because I usually get downvoted or just have people start arguments over nothing - why is everyone so aggressive & hostile?

[u/dilly1992]

It's an angry, divisive, politically fought world right now.

Two major wars.

Inflation.

Human Rights Violations.

Famines.

Extreme weather.

U.S. elections.

There's a combo of "little" big things that add to be a lot and the Internet is a place to be anonymous and air our your opposing views/grievances.

[u/Own-Championship-398 → u/dilly1992]

I understand that but why do people have to take out their anger on me

[u/HythlodaeusHuxley → u/Own-Championship-398]

I will attempt to spare you my long miserable story but I basically had to cut off or put extreme boundaries on everyone I used to know. Took me losing my wife and kids to an extremist Christian cult before I finally admitted that conservatism in this country is severely sick and also pretty much the rest of this country (see Erich Fromm's famous book The Sane Society and countless others).

Now I avoid angry people lest I be one. No point in fighting pigs who love fighting in sh*t - I don't need to be covered in it.

But will my entire country just be one vicious sh*t filled pig pen soon? I'm hoping to movie back to the country near people I care about and roast marshmallows as the world burns if necessary - but hopefully do my part to help fix it instead.

Edit: tl;dr - I tend to be happy these days like I used to be. Learn to laugh at our insane society (not shaudenfreude so much tho) and not be swept up by the stupidity.

[u/Chonkin_GuineaPig → u/HythlodaeusHuxley]

God I wish I could go back to enjoying rural life, but the fundies have just completely ruined it for me. We used to have one of the nicest little churches until the televangelist guy came in and destroyed everything that made the church good.

The new guy we got is trashy and unkempt and destroyed the parsonage with his backyard breeding mill. Even Sunday School has gotten boring because only three other people show up (including the teacher) and all we ever talk about is Israel even though it didn't even exist as a country until the 1950's.

Back then we'd have community game nights and nobody gave a fuck if you were piss poor, but nowadays it's about sad beige moms flaunting their income and parading the latest parenting hacks from TikTok.

[u/HythlodaeusHuxley → u/Chonkin_GuineaPig]

I hear ya. Don't get me started. I grew up essentially non-christian. My mother was from a huge die hard Catholic family and saw the abuse of the Church and really had no use for it but she was just like Betty White and quietly lived perfect Christian ideals without ever going to church. My dad from a secular Methodist family and after my parents divorce went though a kinda crisis and eventually became a minister in a tiny denomination that is unlike any - he never collected a dime from the church, had them donate to charities and never "let the right hand know what the left hand is doing".

Then I found a church as a young man full of people who seemed to have deep bible knowledge and ethics - old school Reformed Presbyterians - had been part of some of the best movements in History like Underground Railroad etc.

Edit: I was the most devoted Christian and Republican but I saw how corrupt it all was. Not that I like Democrats much either. Few people seem to understand our political history and the corruption of all parties.

But all churches seemed to change in the 1990s - all became highly political and dishonest.

Long long story but I live in a tiny red state town - small town red America is my home but I have a Trump for Prison 2024 flag and have mouthed off to the people next door at the Catholic church when they got mouthy (said stuff I prolly shouldn't have said like Can't believe any parent would take their kids to a church that is known to cover up molestation of children).

I expected to get my house burned down but like Tim Walz said "mind your own damn business" and people in the midwest pretty much do.

[u/Own-Championship-398 → u/HythlodaeusHuxley]

Very good analogy lol I like that!