Anger and Lust

Anger and Lust

Anger is closely related to hatred. The OED gives us “strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility” for “anger”. For “hate” we have “intense dislike; strong aversion”. Hatred typically begins in anger at a perceived wrong; anger becomes hatred. It isn’t exactly the same as anger: there can be hatred without anger and anger without hatred. But the two are frequently found together. Anger is typically expressed in certain kinds of behavior: hostile, punitive, violent. Hitting is characteristic of it. It is therefore body-directed in its intentionality: beating a child or animal, striking someone, slapping, kicking, etc. It is an emotion hard to control, often morally bad, seeking outlet. It is dangerous. When it congeals into hatred, we have a toxic or explosive situation; the angry hate-filled person is best avoided, especially if you are the object of it. The irascible individual is not fun to be around and is roundly condemned.

Love is the opposite of hate. The OED gives us “an intense feeling of deep affection—deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone”. Here we are thinking of ordinary adult love and marriage—not more abstract forms of love with other objects (e.g., love of literature). But what is the analogue of anger in the case of love—what often precedes love or turns into love? Is it friendship or moral approval or respect? None of the above. Surely the answer is lust: first strong sexual attraction, then enduring love. There is generally a lust stage in the formation of romantic love—though lust may not lead to love in all cases. Lust and love are not identical. Lust, like anger, is a strong emotion that can easily develop into something deeper or more serious or longer-lasting. Notably, it is body-directed: the intentional object of lust is the other’s body, and characteristic forms of behavior may be predicted. In the case of anger, hitting is the indicated behavior; in the case of lust, touching is the preferred expression. Hitting and touching are powerfully present in anger and lust. A person may need to show serious self-control in order not to express the emotion in these ways, and of course not always succeed in suppressing the indicated action. Bad things can happen in both cases. What is interesting, conceptually, is the natural pairing of these emotions: love and hate going with lust and anger, along with their characteristic behavioral expression. There is a settled long-term emotion that is tied to a more episodic short-term emotion with urgent behavioral consequences. Thus, love and hate have a shared “logic” in respect of etiology and background. Anger is hatred’s lust, and lust is love’s anger. Anger and lust are functionally similar: both involve body-directed action—striking and stroking, respectively. Your body makes contact with the other’s body.

The brain must organize these reactions appropriately: it must not substitute one for the other—striking instead of stroking, or stroking instead of striking. It might get confused on occasion. Lust might come out in the shape of violence, and anger might come out in the shape of erotic touching. The two are uncomfortably similar, perhaps sharing brain circuits. Love and hate may coexist, notoriously, and anger and lust may share a deep structure. This could lead to a conflicted psyche, a Freudian frenzy or foul-up. What if the object of a person’s anger is literally identical to the object of his or her lust? That could produce a combustible situation—does the person strike or stroke, or both? Is this what “make-up sex” is all about? (Just asking.) This is dangerous territory, rooted in the architecture of the emotional system. No wonder people are so messed up.