I have a deep resistance to the Stoic extirpation of the passions in public life. I think that anger is perfectly justified, but that it should be moderated. Let me give an example from this post.
In South Australia, when the Olsen Liberal Government fought a state election, it stated very clearly that it had no intention of privatising the publicly owned electricity utility. It was duly re-elected (the Australia Labor Party was still on the nose). Then it set about privatising the publicly owned electricity infrastructure. After a lot of political fighting it suceeded in passing the necessary legislation through the Upper House (the Legislative Council) when the Labor members split, fractured and crossed the floor.
The consequences of that privatisation, and the embrace of the national electricity market, is that consumers are worse off. Our power bills are 25% higher than they were, and they likely to remain so. This is the new order of things. Its all a bit like the saga in California.
As a citizen I'm justifiably angry. The Liberal Government lied to get re-elected and it spun lies about how entering the national electricity market would result in reduced prices consumers. It said that we would be better off, even though it knew that prices for electricity would increase dramatically.
If you like, I"m very angry about being on the receiving end of Plato's noble lie. It is a similar situation with many Americans over the deceitful neo-con justifications for going to war with Iraq.
To his credit Seneca engages with this position that anger is an important part of self-respecting public response to political deceit, cunning and nastiness. His text On Anger affirms the common ground, before it moves on to argue that anger is a bad motivational force compared to virtue and duty.
This is then coupled to the argument from excess. If we rely on anger as a motivational force then it can exceed the boundaries set by reason: soldiers wiping out a whole village in Vietnam. In such situations we are out of control because of the anger, and are unable to stop. Anger is double edged and is capable of turning back on us.
True. These are good points. Anger can be and is linked to excess and being out of control However, the example of citizens being angry about deceitful politicians, (including Prime Ministers and Presidents) indicates that a deliberate wrong has been done and that this is important to me. The judgement is that there ought to be some punishment for the wrong-doing politician. These, I would hold, are good judgements as they offend values of the Australian polity that are deemed to be important: honesty and trust. The judgement is that politics need not be conducted in this deceitful way.
This throws the ball back into the Stoic court.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at November 12, 2003 11:06 PM | TrackBackI too believe anger is more positive than negative but what stems "good" anger? Is anger more proper when it's a response to ignorant pride and action? Or is that just being judgemental based on your own pride?
Posted by: on January 22, 2004 04:46 PMThe original post was entitled RESISTING THE STOICS ON ANGER, but it made no attempt whatever to do any resisting. All it said was that anger is, or can be, good (which is contrary to what Stoic believe, to be sure) -- and that was it.
To do any resisting you have got to offer a reasoned argument why the Stoic view of anger is wrong or otherwise mistaken or in error.
The Stoic claim is that anger can occur only when you assent to a false judgement about what is good and bad and whether or not something happening has harmed you. Stoics hold that the only good is virtue and action motived by virtue, and that the only evil is vice and action motived by vice. So if you think that you are harmed by someone's insulting you, say, you are mistaken. The harm you suffer arises from the violent emotion (anger in this case) that results from your mistaken belief that something bad has happened.
People who get angry (and suffer other violent or disturbing emotions) fail to distinguish their undertakings (the things they do) from their essence as thinking, self-conscious beings. The things that people get angry about concern their undertakings. If they can see the difference between themselves and what they do, they can see that no harm can ever befall them, no matter how often their undertakings are wrecked or ruined.
Posted by: Keith on January 23, 2004 09:25 AM"I think that anger is perfectly justified, but that it should be moderated."
This view is typically the view of the short-sighted layman and demonstrates perfectly why stoicism will never be popular as a philosophy thank god!
Why? Because the layman wants to cling to the world of illusion he inhabits. Without his anger and his misery and his euphoria and his generally unstable inner world he is lost.
He is the man that will never know peace.
Posted by: peter on March 12, 2004 04:50 AM