The angry brigade was out in force again last week, dominating the national debate and crushing the life and character out of this country.

Protestor Alan O'Brien subjected broadcaster Pat Kenny to an unintelligible tirade of vitriol, no doubt to the satisfaction of the many who delight in such things. But his contribution to the national debate left most people disheartened.

Is his the new face of this country? If we have not become a national Alan O'Brien, then surely we are very close to it. Angry, intolerant, incoherent, begrudging of others' success, incapacitated by our collective fury to such a degree that we cannot even think straight.

If we look in the mirror as a nation, is this what we see?

Equally disheartening was the march of frontline public-sector workers. Angry nurses, gardaí, firemen and prison officers tell everybody they aren't well paid and can't afford to contribute any more from their salaries, overtime and allowances.

Meanwhile, angry private-sector workers call radio shows (whose ratings are rising on the back of all this anger) to tell them how angry they are that they will have to fork out higher taxes from their already reduced wages in order to pay for the overtime allowances and benefits of the angry public sector. Angry women whose husbands work all God's hours to earn €100,000 a year say they can't afford a cut in children's allowance because their mortgages are so huge. Angry women whose husbands have just lost their jobs and are in danger of losing their homes tell them to get real. And so it goes on and on and on.

So, quietly, respectfully of all who feel so let down and who have lost so much, we ask this: can we please stop?

Yes, nearly every policy of the last government has brought this country to its knees. Its incompetence in terms of economic mismanagement will go down in the history books as it prepares to introduce the first cut in social-welfare since Ernest Blythe in 1923.

Yes, it is a scandal that €4bn has to be cut from public expenditure in next month's budget just so that the economy can stand still. It is twice as scandalous that as much if not more will have to be cut in 2010 and 2011.

But while we need healthy discussion about the best way out of this mess, the national 'conversation' has begun to turn down a markedly poisonous route. Our reaction to the economic depression is causing a depression of the national psyche that is paralysing our ability on every level – as individuals, communities, local authorities, businesses, and government – to claw our way back to being a self-confident and mature nation that actually enjoys itself.

If we don't get our act together very soon the generation that, when it was youthful and hopeful experienced the fun-less, narrow, drab and grey life of the '70s and '80s – now the middle-aged generation more or less in charge today – is in danger of recreating a similar sort of fun-less, grey, hopelessness that will drive out their own sons and daughters. If unemployment doesn't reach 500,000 next year, it won't be because we had the energy, or the vision, or a joyous imaginative idea to create jobs here. It will be because, as they did in the '80s, those with drive and ideas will have left the country to find encouragement and inspiration elsewhere.

Andy Warhol might seem an odd sort of person to turn to but he was right when he remarked that "they say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself". This government deserves the lashing it is getting from every quarter but at some stage, we have to take individual responsibility and get on with rebuilding our lives and communities.

Life in all its diversity and glory has been removed from the national agenda in favour of dismal economics and the colour is draining out of us. It's time that everything that we are really about – music, art, family, food, babies, grannies, neighbours, the land, sports, walks, healing, comedy, caring, learning, academia, friendship, satire – shopping, for goodness sake – were all put back on the agenda.