To expand on your last sentence, anger can be a driver of positive change in the world. Greta Thunberg is angry that people are carelessly wrecking the only planet we have to live on. Racial justice protesters in the US are angry that black people keep getting killed by the police. Unless you’re a saint, being furious about some injustice is much more motivating than the dispassionate thought that ‘x would be a good deed’.
Having said that, I would agree with OP that most of the time in most interpersonal situations anger is damaging, and for most people becoming less angry is a good thing. (Or at least many people should become much more aware about why they are angry, at whom, instead of letting themselves be generically angry and taking it out on the nearest available target.)
When I watch the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr, I am inspired by his total absence of anger. Perhaps he is a saint, in which case I endeavor to follow his example.
To expand on your last sentence, anger can be a driver of positive change in the world. Greta Thunberg is angry that people are carelessly wrecking the only planet we have to live on. Racial justice protesters in the US are angry that black people keep getting killed by the police. Unless you’re a saint, being furious about some injustice is much more motivating than the dispassionate thought that ‘x would be a good deed’.
Having said that, I would agree with OP that most of the time in most interpersonal situations anger is damaging, and for most people becoming less angry is a good thing. (Or at least many people should become much more aware about why they are angry, at whom, instead of letting themselves be generically angry and taking it out on the nearest available target.)
When I watch the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr, I am inspired by his total absence of anger. Perhaps he is a saint, in which case I endeavor to follow his example.