How a contributist lens can help you overcome anger and annoyance

Marianne von Werefkin, Untitled

If you're like me, you often find yourself getting triggered to anger by the careless or harmful things others say (especially on the internet). Often, these upsetting statements would be merely annoying if you encountered them only once, but you’ve seen or heard them so many times that you can’t take it anymore; they’ve become automatic triggers to anger. A classic example of this is when a man starts explaining to a woman basic things in a field she is an expert in. The first man to assume you don’t have expertise in the field you’re talking about is merely annoying, but the fiftieth can be rage-inducing.

Some ways of responding may feel good momentarily (e.g. snapping back, or settling into a fixed picture of the triggerer) but these responses ultimately leave us divided as a society, and work to dehumanize us as individuals. It is not hard to see how our everyday resentment of one another and lack of generosity feeds into the national dysfunction that has been on display in every recent election year. Is there another way? As I reflect on contributism, I'm inspired to approach these situations with generosity — reaffirming my own dignity (and humanity) by asserting my right to give. When I stop and consider the various complexities behind the anger, I find myself led to respond differently, with curiosity and grace.

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As an Asian American woman, I come from a culture where it is common to comment on any weight gain or loss, and to assume that all women must have a goal to lose weight.

Say I meet a new friend who makes a comment about my weight in one way or another (it doesn’t even particularly matter what it is – it could be an assumption we both want to lose weight; it could be a comment on my weight gain or loss). I am happy with my fitness level and would prefer my weight not to be commented on, and my annoyance immediately turns into anger because she is the fiftieth person I’ve heard something like this from and I am tired of hearing it.

My initial instinct in this case might be to snap at her. But thinking even for a moment, it’s clear that she has no idea that what she said is particularly annoying to me or that it would make me upset. 

From a contributist perspective, I think it’s important to react to this emotion internally and to the other person externally with understanding and grace.

Responding Internally

I think the first step to addressing anger from a contributist perspective is to simply stop and think before responding, and (at least momentarily) assume best intentions on the part of the other. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Why might they have said this thing? This all stems from having “incomplete information” about others, as economists put it, or “not being able to read minds,” as your parents might have put it. Some reasons may be:

• They don’t have good information. They don’t know your background and were trying to help out. They may be saying something factually incorrect because they don’t have good data.

• They have insecurities or have been hurt in the past, and maybe they assume you share their insecurities and can relate to them.

• You have insecurities or have been hurt in the past. Maybe they meant something in a completely different way to how you perceived it. Are you perceiving what someone said in an uncharitable way based on other experiences you have had?

• There’s a cultural difference. What’s seen as an acceptable conversation topic or way of communicating in Asia might be seen as rude in the U.S., and vice versa.

• They are actually being malicious and trying to purposefully bother you. But I think and hope that as we mature into adulthood, this is less and less the case.

Even if this reflection doesn’t result in a clear change in how you react externally, there is value to oneself — and indeed, even virtue — in reframing one’s relationship to the other internally. 

I often think of Iris Murdoch’s story of the mother-in-law as an example of this. A mother-in-law “M” views her daughter-in-law “D” as rude and juvenile and beneath her son; in short, she finds her annoying. “M settles into her fixed picture of D.” writes Lawrence Blum in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Murdoch:

But something prompts her to reflect on her view, recognizing both her jealousy of D and her own snobbishness. She tries to look at the D she knew in a new way, and over time, as the result of her attempts to see D anew, her view of D changes. … D is discovered to be not vulgar but refreshingly simple, not undignified but spontaneous…not tiresomely juvenile but delightfully youthful. (IP: 17–18/313)

M doesn’t act any differently outwardly once her opinion of D shifts, but even so, Murdoch believes she is still engaging in moral activity by changing her inner view. In my view, I think she has also shifted to viewing the world through a more contributist lens, and is likely more at inner peace for it.

Responding Externally

Once the internal reflection is done, which hopefully becomes more and more second nature as time goes on, considering the different reasons someone might have done something can also be helpful in thinking about how to respond externally in a contributist manner. How to respond in a contributist way depends on your existing relationship with them and exactly what they said; to think about both their relationship with you in the future and their relationship with others.

In cases where you don’t know the person well and won’t see them much in the future (such as the vast majority of cases on the internet), it may sometimes be best to simply accept that their reasons for doing what they did might have been any of the above and move on. The internal work has already been done — you have turned towards generosity, and you can leave with your peace at least partially regained. It is not always helpful to engage further, especially when there are barriers (cultural, time, knowledge gaps) that limit the space for effective communication to take place.

But say, upon reflection, you believe that responding is worth a shot. There are a few ways to do so in a contributist manner (asserting your right to give).

It might make sense to ask about something that might be factually incorrect, or to clarify if your interpretation was correct. Sometimes these sorts of annoyance and anger situations arise from assumptions, and no one is exactly in the wrong. There’s a lot you simply don’t know about another person; it can be surprisingly helpful to ask. 

In some cases, the annoying thing might be part of a specific personal trigger of yours that they couldn’t have known and is truly no fault of theirs. If this is a friend, it may be helpful to tell them about this, as it might affect your relationship long term. But if it’s only an acquaintance, it might be better to ignore.

In other cases, though, the annoying thing is not annoying just to you, but to lots of people, and may therefore be affecting their interpersonal relationships generally. In these cases, the most generous thing to do would be to attempt to help them to stop engaging in behavior that harms their relationships. (Notice how the contributist mindset doesn’t prevent intervention, but through generosity, reframes it from conflict to connection.)

This comes up a lot in interactions between people from different cultures. If someone has just moved to a new place and is unknowingly offending everyone, it might be the kindest thing to do to point it out (people kindly pointing out insensitive things I’ve done has been tremendously helpful to my development as a person), if you can do this in a culturally sensitive way. 

The exact external contributist response to annoyance and anger, I think, then, is highly situation-dependent, and may require more reflection when the person is a friend. 

The clearest guidance I try to give to myself is to try to have generosity and grace in the way I  view and respond to the other person’s actions, and to think about both my relationship with them and their relationship with others, when making a decision on how to act. I have annoyed many people too; we are all, mistakes and all, people in need of love.