hear us roar

You know what I hate about advanced technology? With everything becoming smaller and increasingly virtual? There's nothing to kick. Right now, for example, I want to kick the internet, because it's not working properly at the office. But I can't kick the internet. And I can't kick my computer, because it will break.

Back in the day if the tractor didn't work, you kicked it until either it worked or you felt better. But ours is a world of sitting out the malfunction until it corrects itself, which closely resembles the waiting in cattle lines we face at the grocery store or in traffic; ours is a world of calling tech support and biting our knuckles and sitting on hold for hours when the computer doesn't do what we think we're telling it to do; ours is a world of gritting our teeth in the effort not to damage the expensive flatscreen TV when the digital signal gets all screwed up and we no longer even have the option of adjusting the antenna to get a better picture. Ours is a world of helpless immobility in the face of ungovernable and infinitely breakable components of an entirely technological civilization. We can't fix anything ourselves, and we can't yield to our anger at the things we can't fix.

This is why people snap into murderous road rages and go postal for no good reason. Our world is becoming so orderly and fragile and intricate and out of our control in even the simplest matters that the aggression which comes naturally to humanity has no safe or socially acceptable outlet except for the exercise most of us don't bother with. We can't even yell at each other in person because we're dealing with people over the phone or the internet, and without personal resolution to conflicts we stew and simmer for hours after a frustrating business call and take it out on our coworkers, friends and family. The danger of all that bottled rage -- we are physical beings, we can never breed aggression out of ourselves -- is that when it does erupt, there's no controlling it. When we deny these inborn aggressive tendencies their law, their rule for acceptable expression, such as kicking the tractor when it doesn't work, then the expression of what we have made no law to accommodate is utterly lawless and beyond the reach of reason. And the results are usually horrifying.

Rahr. I still want to kick the internet. I think every office and every home should have a punching bag.