Anger Can't Persuade Anyone | Mori Ogai's "Chiebukuro"

On Refraining from Anger (Anger Can’t Persuade Anyone)

… In the end, you too will surely find anger rising in you. And that is precisely the critical moment. Whatever the matter, meet it first with composure. Composure above all else. For no matter the circumstance, you cannot win another person over with anger.

When I first read this passage, all I felt was a vague maybe that’s true. But the line “you cannot make another person yield through anger” lodged itself somewhere in my head, and because of that, there’s something I was able to notice later on.

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

This was back when I belonged, briefly, to a certain circle.
The leader wasn’t really the perceptive type, and honestly, the whole thing only held together thanks to a vice-leader who was good at reading the room.
Then the vice-leader decided to step down, the atmosphere soured, and the leader started spinning their wheels more and more.

In the middle of all that, one day a woman in the circle — I’ll call her A — invited me to go see the autumn leaves with her.

When the day came, there I was with beautiful momiji as our backdrop, and all that came out of A’s mouth was one accusation against the leader after another.
The other day the leader did such-and-such… unbelievable. I gave them a piece of my mind, just like this. I can’t stand the leader.
She’d line up every failure, every flaw, then say: “The circle’s not going to work like this! We have to do something or things are going to get really bad.”

I’d come to see the autumn leaves — why did I have to sit through this, on and on? But I’m the type who shrinks in front of people that intense, and I couldn’t get a word in. I just watched her talk and talk, and somewhere along the way, something started to settle in me.

(Ah… it kind of feels like she doesn’t really want to fix the circle so much as just attack the person she hates and beat them down.)

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And then the line “anger can’t persuade anyone” quietly came back to me

I can’t really know what’s in another person’s heart, so maybe I was reading her wrong, and her real priority really was making the circle better.

But even if that were true — if she’d thrown those words at the leader with all that anger behind them, no matter how valid they were, I don’t think they would have reached the leader’s heart.
Calmly taking in what someone says when they’re coming at you like that — that’s just not something most people can do.

Imagine a parent snapping at you: “When you get home, do your homework first. It’s easier if you just get it over with — why don’t you get that?!” It’s hard to just take in. Your heart gets bruised before your head has a chance to understand.

That said, with a parent there’s the underlying premise of “this person knows me well,” so there’s a bit more room to swallow it.
If you usually feel loved by them, once you’ve calmed down later, you might even think, well, sure, doing homework first really is the easier route.

But honestly, in our day-to-day lives, how many people do we really have who are that close to us?

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I’d only wanted them to understand me too

I get taken over by anger plenty of times too.
Once I decide I dislike someone, it’s hard to calmly take in their side of things, and in the heat of that anger I even want to pin them down with what I’m sure is the right argument.

But by that point I’m just trying to hit them and win.
And the other person isn’t going to take in my words while I’m coming at them like that.
We’d just part ways still at odds.

Even if I did manage to pin them down, they wouldn’t really be convinced. It would feel more like beating someone in a fight and then watching them go silent because they’re too hurt to speak… there’s a dark aftertaste to it.

I just wanted them to understand my side too — and yet I’m only moving further from that goal.

There are situations, of course, where you have to speak firmly. But I think that should be a tool you reach for from a place of inner calm. Not something driven by anger.

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So what do you do, then — my own version of staying calm

I left that circle pretty early on, so I don’t really know much about the leader.
If I’d stayed, maybe I would have ended up really disliking them too.
I hadn’t been there long enough to feel invested, so I didn’t really feel like trying to fix the circle’s problems either, and I just kept my head down and stayed quiet.

…Still, if you do want to make the atmosphere better, I’d want to start by really listening to the leader, and try to care about where they’re coming from.
People take your opinion much more seriously when they feel you’re trying to understand them than they would otherwise.

If you dislike the leader, I imagine it’s incredibly hard.
Bad feelings run strong, and holding them back can be genuinely rough. But I’d want to try.
If you want the other person to hear you out, you have to be the first to really listen.
Then again, we’re human — even then it might not go well, or there might not be enough time to really come to understand each other.

But I still think that approach gives you so much more of a way forward than starting with a fight.

For no matter the circumstance, you cannot win another person over with anger.

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About Mori Ogai’s Chiebukuro

The book gathers short entries on themes like how to get along with people, how to carry yourself, and how to settle your own mind. A collection of maxims, basically.

Mori Ogai himself wrote in classical Japanese, but
the book includes a modern Japanese translation alongside it, so it stays readable even if classical Japanese isn’t your thing.

The content, if I had to sum it up, is the art of living in society.
The advice is all built on the premise that we live among other people, and that’s exactly what gives it such a concrete, ah, that makes sense quality.
He may have been a Meiji-era literary giant, but so much of it still applies today — it’s a fun read. Maybe people just don’t really change, no matter the era?

If any of this caught your interest, do give it a read sometime.