Sarah Harte: Anger has become the defining emotion of our time, it’s all the rage

Donald Trump and other politicians have normalised rage and bullying. It’s gone past the conventions of good manners being eroded. Picture: John Locher/ AP

This two stories — one about antisocial behaviour on Cork buses and the other about Trump’s rally in Madison Square Gardens — made me think that Western society has become enculturated in anger despite the different contexts. In some ways, public rage has become the defining emotion of this century.

Incrementally, we have been conditioned to accept a coarser way of expressing ourselves, with a resultant decline in civility and mutual respect.