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November 12, 2003
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.
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I 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?