You Can't Persuade Anyone With Anger | Mori Ogai's Chiebukuro

On Not Giving Way to Anger (You Cannot Persuade Others With Anger)

…Of course you too will feel anger welling up. That is exactly the critical moment. In all things, first respond with calm. Calm comes first. For under no circumstances can you win another’s heart through anger.

When I first read this passage, I only half-agreed — it sounded plausible. But the phrase “you cannot make others yield through anger” stuck with me, and thanks to that, I later noticed something.

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It wasn’t justice — it was an addiction to attacking

Back when I briefly belonged to a certain club —
The leader wasn’t exactly the mindful type. It was really the attentive deputy leader who kept things running smoothly.
But when the deputy left, the atmosphere of the club deteriorated. The leader started spinning their wheels, and things went downhill from there.

Around that time, a woman in the club — let’s call her A — invited me out to see the autumn leaves.

That day, with beautiful crimson foliage behind her, everything coming out of A’s mouth was an attack on the leader.
The other day the leader did this… unbelievable. I told them off like this. I can’t stand the leader.
She kept reeling off the leader’s failures and flaws, then saying, “This is why the club is doomed! If we don’t do something, it’ll be a disaster.”

I’d come to see autumn leaves — why was I being forced to listen to this, on and on? But I’m weak against people with that much intensity, so I got overwhelmed and couldn’t say a thing. As I watched her rattle on, one thing came to me.

(Ah… it doesn’t sound like she’s trying to make the club better. It sounds like she just wants to attack and tear down someone she hates.)

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”You can’t persuade anyone with anger” suddenly came to mind

You can’t really know what’s in another person’s heart. Maybe I’d misread her, and her primary aim really was to improve the club.

Even so — if she had thrown those words at the leader in that same anger, no matter how correct the argument was, it would never have reached the leader’s heart.
Calmly taking in the opinion of someone in attack mode isn’t an easy thing to do.

For example, if your parent says in a sharp tone, “Do your homework first when you get home. It’s easier if you get it out of the way — why can’t you understand that?” — it’s hard to take it in with an open mind. Your heart gets hurt before your head can process the point.

That said, with a parent, there’s at least the premise that they know you well, so there’s still some room to take it in.
If you normally feel their love, once you’ve cooled down you might even think, yeah, I guess doing homework first is easier.

But in our daily lives, how many people do we actually have that kind of deep relationship with?

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You wanted them to understand you — but you’re moving further from that

I get taken over by anger too, often.
Once I decide I dislike someone, I struggle to calmly hear their side, and in that anger I even want to crush them with what I think is the right argument.

But at that point, I’m just trying to beat them down.
They’re not going to accept an opinion delivered in attack mode.
It’ll end in stalemate.

Even if I manage to force them down, they haven’t truly agreed. It’s more like I’ve beaten them in a fight and they can’t speak because they’re too badly hurt — there’s a dark aftertaste to it.

All I wanted was for them to understand my opinion, and yet I’ve only moved further from that goal.

Of course, there are times when you do need to speak firmly. But that should be a tool used from a place of inner calm — not something wielded under the control of anger.

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So what do we do? My own version of calm

I left the club pretty quickly, so I don’t really know the leader.
If I’d stayed, maybe I would have come to hate them too.
I hadn’t been there long enough to feel invested, so I didn’t try to fix the club’s problems. I just stayed out of it and kept quiet.

…But if I were going to try to improve the atmosphere, I’d want to start by listening carefully to the leader and caring about them as a person.
People listen far more seriously to the opinions of someone who is trying to hear them out, than to someone who isn’t.

If you already hate the leader, that’s extremely hard.
Negative energy is strong, and holding it back is genuinely tough. But I’d want to try.
If I want the other person to hear me, I have to take the first step myself.
We’re only human, so even then it might not work out — there might not be enough time to truly understand each other.

But even so, it leaves far, far more room for a way forward than starting from a fight.

For under no circumstances can you win another’s heart through anger.

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About Mori Ogai’s Chiebukuro

This book is a collection of short entries on themes like dealing with people, conduct, and keeping your mind in order. A book of maxims, basically.

Mori Ogai’s original text is written in classical Japanese,
but a modern Japanese translation is included, so it’s still readable even if classical Japanese isn’t your strong suit.

The content is, to put it plainly, practical wisdom for life.
The advice is consistently grounded in the premise of being involved in society, which gives it a concreteness that makes you nod along.
Even though Mori Ogai is a literary giant of the Meiji era, nearly all of it still applies today, which is fascinating. Maybe people never really change, no matter the era.

If it piques your interest, do pick up a copy.