Anger
Anger
I read with interest Darwin’s discussion of anger in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (I am very familiar with that emotion, unfortunately). His discusses in detail the expression of anger in bodily posture, hand gestures, and the baring of the teeth. It made me think of Melville’s Billy Budd, a story of accusation and reaction (in case you haven’t read it, Billy is completely innocent of Claggart’s evil accusations). The climax is reached in this terse passage: “The next instant, quick as the flame from a discharged cannon at night, his right arm shot out, and Claggart dropped to the deck”. The blow kills Claggart—“A gasp or two, and he lay motionless”. Asked to explain his action (it is a capital offense), he replies: “I am sorry he is dead. I did not mean to kill him. Could I have used my tongue I would not have struck him. But he foully lied to my face and in presence of my captain, and I had to say something, and I could only say it with a blow, God help me!” Billy is duly executed for the crime, to no one’s satisfaction. Melville’s description is psychologically apt and could be added to Darwin’s list of physical symptoms of anger: Billy’s arm “shot out” as if automatically; his voice impediment prevented a verbal denial, so his motor system took over; its effect exceeded what Billy wished; it was quite predicable given the circumstances. This is what anger, justified anger, moral indignation, may lead to, especially in response to the malicious lie (it is surprising Claggart didn’t anticipate it). A primitive response of Billy’s nervous system triggered his lethal action as a kind of reflex—childlike, maybe simian. Anger obviously has deep roots in the animal mind and excites extreme expression. It is not easily managed. It is wise not to evoke it in others. Its surest cause is evil. Billy Budd’s young life is cut short by the laws of emotional expression in the human animal. Claggart got what he wanted, though he paid with his own life.[1]
[1] I discuss Billy Budd in more detail in my Ethics, Evil, and Fiction (1997), chapter 4, “The Evil Character”. Billy is a naïve young man, full of life and promise, a “bud” of sorts, soon to be nipped by an evil authority figure.
I’ve long been fond of this quotation: “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the only one who gets burned.” (And that gave me a thought: Why is it people wear crucifixes, but I’ve never seen anyone wearing a Buddha pendant?)
Isn’t it more that anger holds onto you? And burns everybody in sight.
“Doesn’t anger hold onto you?” is an interesting question — it reverses the who or what is doing the holding — but the quotation was from Buddha; and I suspect Buddha would argue anger can’t get a solid grip on us unless we conspire with it to let that happen. I suspect Einstein would agree. Being a Jew who fled Nazi Germany, he certainly had ample reason to hold within him much anger. But he always seemed so peaceful and calm, from what I can tell. I remember once hearing a radio talk show host mention on air years ago about the need for teaching in our schools things like anger management, for example. I thought it was a great point. He mentioned, for example, how students would be suspended for committing a violent act; but then just return again (or again and again), as though, basically, nothing had happened.
Violence from anger is never acceptable; anger itself is another matter. The trouble with the Buddhist position is that anger is often based on sound reasoning (knowledge, justification) and this cannot be “let go”. It is only rational to be angry at someone who has committed an injustice against you. If Einstein was not angry at the Nazis, there was something wrong with him. What emotion would be appropriate in a case like this?
Is anger easier to direct and curb in individuals or groups? Even though mobs have gone the way of subway tokens, mob psychology in this age of social media rocks on.
The mob psychology of philosophers is a phenomenon worth noting. They are not immune to it, to their great discredit. What hope is there for other people?