There is not a conflict between “it’s OK to be angry” and “it’s not OK to lose control and explode at other people in anger.”
Anger is a feeling. It exists inside your mind. Like other things that exist inside your mind, it can be expressed, and we have a suite of basic general-purpose rules for doing that in an acceptably civilized way. Use your words. Be courteous. Give others their due. Y’know, basic stuff like that.
I am breathtakingly angry, like, all the time. And this is not a secret from the people around me! They are keenly aware of it! I publicize the fact frequently and with vigor! And this is not particularly a problem, because I do not do the sort of intemperate things that people do right before they complain about how they’re “not allowed to be angry.”
Self-control isn’t always easy, and it’s harder for some than for others across the board, and I understand that. I sympathize with people who fail at it.
That doesn’t mean that it’s not important.
…and now that I’m somewhat less angry myself, I think I need to walk this back a bit. My original framing may incorporate a soupcon of Just World Fallacy. Which certainly isn’t what I intended to convey, but – intentions get you only so far.
The world is not just. That’s as true when it comes to anger, and expressions of anger, as it is with regard to anything else. In some circumstances you can act like the meanest, crudest three-year-old throwing a tantrum, and it’ll work out great for you. (Maybe you’ll become President!) In other circumstances, even if your comportment is unimpeachably civilized and courteous and reasonable, you can be slammed for your “inappropriate anger” (or some such) and made to suffer for it – because some martinet feels that disagreement is the same as disrespect, because someone thinks that acting hypersensitive is a good way to make a power play, because any of a million things. That happens. Good conduct is not a royal road to fair treatment, let alone to unbridled social success.
I mean, it helps. On average. All things being equal. Often it helps a lot.
And yet.
My claim is a normative claim, not a positive one. It is OK to be angry, but your anger does not justify behavior that would otherwise be rude or cruel. This is true no matter how well, or how badly, the rest of the world comports itself in accordance with this ideal. And sometimes the rest of the world will be really shitty indeed.
I do not mean to make mock of anyone’s difficulties.