The Philosophy of Anger

"Anger treats its target as someone capable of recognizing that she has done wrong... "

This is true in some cases, but not all. Had a girlfriend once who used anger to get what she wanted. It was like cash to her - a simple means to an end.

When I pushed back it spiraled into abuse. She became ever more hurtful instead of being conciliatory tory. Blew my mind.

I'm firmly in the camp that seeks to eliminate all anger from my life, and avoid it in others. Like the plague.

> I believe that, when faced with injustice, we should sometimes get somewhat angry. Such anger is not “pure” and entails submitting oneself to (some degree of) moral corruption, but the alternative, acquiescence, is often even worse. The point I want to emphasize, however, is this: just because the moral corruption of anger is our best option doesn’t mean it is not corruption.

> The consequences of acknowledging this point are sobering: victims of injustice are not as innocent as we would like to believe. Either these victims are morally compromised by the vengeful and grudge-bearing character of their anger, or they are morally compromised by acquiescence. Long-term oppression of a group of people amounts to long-term moral damage to that group. When it comes to racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, ableism, classism, religious discrimination, anti-neurodiversity, elitism of any stripe, this argument entails that the oppressors have made the oppressed morally worse people.

While I actually don't disagree and I think the conclusion (and the piece) has value and is even novel, and am utterly scared of how this can be twisted if it becomes widely discussed.

For me, the correct/helpful implications go as such: when it comes to oppressors and the oppressed, this is a very compelling argument that tone policing revolution from the oppressed is only doing further harm, and that we must see anger (and its resulting symptoms) as a natural and blameless response to said oppression. If you want to help people who are being oppressed, you need to be constructive to a message, not in pursuit of making it perfectly moral and clean when oppression literally becomes an attack on the morals of those being oppressed. I don't think it's hard to imagine how this extends to hot button issues like racial equality and policing in the US today.

What I am scared of is that this will only embolden the crowd that is morally policing revolution and activism today to point and be like "look see, you aren't perfectly moral, fix it so we can stop your oppression!", missing the entire point and putting more ideological, emotional, and literal labor back onto oppressed groups. I only hope others can highlight this distinction if/when this idea gains notoriety.

With that said, an exception to a case doesn't invalidate an entire article or philosophical argument. In this case, I think it mainly narrows the application, if anything. This premise is a side piece at best to the argument, so I would pause before even going that far. Specifically here, I think it is important to distinguish between anger at a person and anger directed at larger injustices.

Philosophers tend to generalize in order to get to conclusions in the same way that macro-economists work at a high level. Without either, neither field would be able to arrive at anything meaningful.

And what’s wrong with being angry anyways? The world is shit, there’s a lot that’s worth being angry about. When someone insults you, get angry! When someone bullies your kid, get angry. When hitler marched on France, get angry.

There is a blanket of guilt about anger on the internet, and I find it childish.