Letter: Anger goes with the territory

IN RESPONSE to Victoria McKee's article "Neither a bottler-up nor a ranter be" (Sunday Review, 11 June), it is worth reflecting on the fact that anger, whether suppressed or expressed, is not endemic to all cultures. In our culture the experience of anger is linked to ideas we hold about the importance of freedoms of individual expression and achievement, and to ideas about the self as central to our experience of the world. In societies where people experience the bonds between themselves and others as central, and individual achievement is less pivotal, anger is experienced less frequently. The "problem" of how to "channel" anger in our society arises because anger is a part of the way we (especially men) learn to interpret our small, individual, worlds.

Peter L Appleton

University of Wales

Bangor