I've little time this week to write as I am painting the holiday shack at Victor Harbor. I'm pretty tired in the evening.
But I have noticed a lot of anger in public life in Australia amongst the political elite. It mostly takes the form of revenge and payback for past wrongs, defeats and humilitations.
You hear about the anger in Tasmania where those in the forestry industry are consumed by anger towards the greens.
These examples of anger in public life reminded me of Seneca. He wrote about it.
This is his essay On Anger.
Why Seneca? Two reasons. First, I just happening to be glancing through Alain de Botton's The Consolations of Philosophy between the breaks in painting.
Secondly, I'm full of anger in my personal life. It is eating away at me, turning me into a different kind of person.
And De Botton? It is easygoing, well written, easily understood, peppered with illustrations and pleasant to read. From what I can make out consolation is about soothing our spiritual aches. It is a kind of like those self-help books about achieving happiness that are touted on daytime TV.
He's a doctor of the soul who deals with life's emotional problem. Hence his text is working within the tradition of philosophy as a way of life.
Can he help us to deal with anger in our personal and public lives?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at October 20, 2003 11:51 PM | TrackBackI find writing my blog makes me angry, gotta give this one up when the year comes round, got another planned, all sweetness and light...
meatspace friends tell me my blog is 'so dark' compared to the me they know...
Posted by: meika on October 22, 2003 10:10 AMhmm,
anger is seen as bad. Is it just dark?
Should there be anger in public life? Or should it be banished.
What would public life without anger be like?
Posted by: Gary Sauer-Thompson on October 22, 2003 03:16 PMGary, Howard has made us party to the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocents and the interminable incarceration in cages of yet more innocents. If Seneca thinks the emotions this arouses in the civilised breast inhuman, I'm angry at him, too.
Posted by: Rob Schaap on October 25, 2003 12:46 AMIt is less about us becoming inhuman that a way of governing our passions in private and public life.
Why is governance be necessary? Because the anger of some becomes a fury that treats others as inhuman; or worse as an enemey that has to be exterminated.
A lot of Australian public discourse is build around this.eg. the history or the cultural wars.
Hence we should look at the role anger plays in public life.
Posted by: Gary Sauer-Thompson on October 27, 2003 06:18 PM