The pandemic has made us all so full of rage What happens if we never get over it

Everyone is so damn angry.

Across Canada, you have the travelling Marathon of Rage that is following Justin Trudeau, shouting racial slurs at cops and spouting bizarre imported conspiracy theories. Among the vaccinated, you have an empathy deficit that has some posting on social media of the unvaccinated, “let them die.” In the U.S., you have near-daily reports of school board meetings erupting into threats and fisticuffs, incidents of increased road rage, an elected member of U.S. Congress talking about “picking up arms” against his political opponents in anticipation of “bloodshed.” And then there was the violent siege of the Capitol building in Washington that kicked off this year.

Everyone is mad as hell, and no one is going to take it anymore â€" whatever “it” they may be fed up with. Whatever mixture of political polarization and increased militancy have fed into this moment, whatever combination of social media bubbles, disinformation campaigns and conspiracy theories underlie it, the isolation and uncertainty brought on by the pandemic seem to have magnified the effects. There’s a surplus of frustration and pent-up energy, and a shortage of empathy and patience. More than 19 months (and counting) of a viral pandemic have inspired a pandemic of rage.

When this stuff spills onto our front pages, it’s typically because it has become political, but a lot of us are feeling it in personal ways. Among my own friends and social media contacts, there’s been a gradual increase in variations of “I just can’t anymore,” anecdotes about episodes of human indifference on the playgrounds and in grocery stores, expressions of contempt for fellow citizens. Tempers are short.

Which is, apparently, to be expected in times like these. Since last summer, waves of articles by psychology experts have explained the “pandemic anger” that can accompany prolonged fear and isolation. Domestic violence has gone up dramatically, violent road rage incidents have spiked, angry clashes between shoppers and store clerks have gone viral, flight attendants told the New York Times of “not even feeling human anymore” after a summer of dealing with abusive passengers.

People know they are angry. In a survey of 6,000 Canadians taken in February and March, researchers working with Angus Reid found patterns of anger, rage, and misanthropy in people’s descriptions of their own reactions to COVID-19.

On Twitter recently, trauma coach Iris McAlpin wrote that after periods of trauma or prolonged stress, “it becomes increasingly difficult to see nuance, think clearly, listen, empathize, and have restraint. We’re also more prone to name-calling, defensiveness, aggression, irritability, self-centredness, nonlogical thinking, difficulty focusing and anxiety.” Because of COVID-19, she wrote, many of us are experiencing just that. “We’ve ALL been exposed to prolonged stress, and either direct or vicarious trauma recently.”

And, she wrote, it’s not surprising that this is leading not just to individual episodes of anger, but to political clashes as well. “When we’re in survival mode it is harder to find common ground. Everything different than our own view reads as a threat.”

Trends that point to politics becoming more bitterly polarized have gone into overdrive during the pandemic. Starved for human contact, people have turned to social media where their convictions and fears are reinforced.

And now instead of seeing the pandemic as the common enemy, our inter-tribal anger has intensified. Those who fear the virus blame those unwilling to mask or vaccinate for prolonging the suffering; those who fear the perceived threat to civil liberties are enraged at attempts to force them into line and impose more isolation.

Of course I don’t mean to suggest these groups are equally justified, or that the information they claim to be relying on is equally valid. The anti-vaccination and anti-mask groups â€" like the QAnon conspiracy theorists and U.S. election fraud obsessives â€" seem to me to be delusional.

But while the flame that sparks our rage may vary, the dry kindling doused in gasoline that makes it so quick to ignite is made of common materials â€" and the pandemic has provided a great bounty of such materials.

What does all this anger mean for our future?

Eventually, we hope, the pandemic will fade, along with the fear and frustration it has inspired. But the wounds it has caused, both personal and political, will be with us a lot longer â€" especially since so many politicians are preoccupied with trying to channel that anger to their advantage rather than defuse it.

Some marriage therapists say the one thing that is known to doom a partnership is contempt.

“Contempt is the ingredient that kills personal relationships more swiftly than any other. Eliminating contempt may not be sufficient to save a relationship, but, as marriage research suggests, it is almost certainly necessary,” Andrew Ferguson wrote in the Atlantic in 2019. Even then, he was applying it to the political situation: “Perhaps the same is true for the nation.”

Those protesters spewing hate on Justin Trudeau, those vaccinated folks expressing hope the unvaccinated will just die: does that sound like contempt? And does it sound like something that will just be water under the bridge once the current crisis has passed?

Let’s hope it can be. Contempt is the opposite of empathy. And as U.S. President Joe Biden has said, “empathy is the fuel of democracy.” If we cannot imagine ourselves in the shoes of other people, we have little hope of working with them in a healthy democratic society. This “empathy deficit” in North American democracy isn’t a new problem. But it’s a problem the pandemic has hastened and deepened.

Everyone is so damn angry. Understandably so, when you think about it. But that’s the very discipline that’s so elusive amid the difficulty and drudgery of pandemic life: to think about others, and understand them, and not let rage take over and do its terrible work.

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