I'm going to move on to the second article: whether the object of anger is good or evil. It seems like anger is a bad thing; certainly our popular culture claims that it leads in bad directions.
Aquinas says that's wrong. The argument he give is striking: "Augustine says (Confess. ii, 6) that "anger craves for revenge." But the desire for revenge is a desire for something good: since revenge belongs to justice. Therefore the object of anger is good."
Is that right? Is revenge good? You have here the authority of two canonized saints that it is.
You know, I'm just going to stop there for today. That's already plenty to discuss.
7 comments:
My understanding has always been that anger in itself is neutral, neither good nor bad. Anger at injustice, or at evil, is good when used properly. Anger that becomes wrath, or that is directed to wrong ends (gratifying one's pride, deflecting from our own errors) is bad.
Anger without control and discernment is the problem, not anger per se, even if it is a passion.
(Note: I come from a blend of Protestant and Jewish traditions, mostly Calvinist, with some independent study of Greek philosophy, the Roman Stoics, and Aquinas.)
LittleRed1
I think there are distinctions that have to be made at tow different levels, the purely theoretical and the "what is going on in your heart really?" angle. Attempts to remove either can lead to ridiculous answers, but held in tension they can inform each other. Revenge and avenge and vengeance are related and overlapping but not quite the same thing. As for one's own heart, good luck with that. We seek the counsel of wise others when we have doubts.
Often it is purely in the moment, and we pray that we have previously been trained in virtue or are listening to the Holy Spirit so that we may choose aright in a tight spot. But sometimes there are no good choices. Grace is real.
Anger without control and discernment is the problem, not anger per se, even if it is a passion.
That's a plausible position, but it's definitely more Aristotelian than the Christian position being advocated here. Aquinas and Augustine are arguing that revenge and vengeance are good: and indeed they have to be, don't they, if God is in fact the author of the universe? Vengeance is his, and not in a moderate or moderated way but eternally and fatally.
For we who trust God, perhaps that's ok. But it's one of the most terrifying things I've ever heard a man say: and here it's two men, each of them a saint.
"But sometimes there are no good choices. Grace is real."
Yes, it isn't wisdom but mercy I find I pray for, forgiveness, more and more.
“Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”
― Augustine of Hippo
( Grim, the point is , You can not look at Anger by itself, hope anger and courage are a family, and our leaders have absolutely no courage as observed by Solzhenitsyn. It was true in 1978 and its more so today, so read the snippet )
A Decline in Courage
......may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party and of course in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. Of course there are many courageous individuals but they have no determining influence on public life.
Political and intellectual bureaucrats show depression, passivity and perplexity in their actions and in their statements and even more so in theoretical reflections to explain how realistic, reasonable as well as intellectually and even morally warranted it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice. And decline in courage is ironically emphasized by occasional explosions of anger and inflexibility on the part of the same bureaucrats when dealing with weak governments and weak countries, not supported by anyone, or with currents which cannot offer any resistance. But they get tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists.
Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?
Solzhenitsyn - A World Split Apart 1978 Harvard Address
https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/1544016/posts
and off we go to the solution.
Mary: The Missing Key to Courage
https://padreperegrino.org/2022/02/mary-the-missing-key-to-courage/
Greg
Anger is a feeling...
Its the wind in the sail.....
..It just is..
How will you harness? That is where courage and hope come in
That is where the Virgin Mary is the Key for modern Christians...
How is that so?
READ THE WHOLE THING AT THE LINK!
Greg
https://padreperegrino.org/2022/02/mary-the-missing-key-to-courage/
Grim I also found this - Greg
In Defense of Anger
Have we lost the ability to truly love good and hate evil?
By Rob Agnelli
https://www.newoxfordreview.org/in-defense-of-anger/
....In what may be his most prophetic book, The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis examines the long-term effects on a culture that has swallowed the poison of moral subjectivism. Lewis envisions a future in which men have evolved to have no heart — where, absent any objective values, the rule that governs man’s emotional life is dissolved.
These “men without chests” are either cold and calculating or entirely visceral, and neither has the ability to truly love good or hate evil. There is, perhaps, no greater example of this phenomenon today than the loss of righteous anger.
Anger, like other emotions, is part and parcel of the package of human nature and therefore good. Righteous anger is when this passion is put to its proper use. Anger is given to man so that, in the face of some evil, he will fiercely act to remedy the wrongdoing and punish the wrongdoer. How fiercely the person responds must always be governed by right reason and due proportion. Anger is disordered when the passion overcomes reason. But it is no less disordered when reason dictates we should be angry and we are not. A man can sin by having too much anger or not enough.
Any society, in order to be a just society, must have a sufficient supply of righteously angry men and women. Who can doubt that our particular society is wholly lacking these necessary men and women? Simply look at the cultural response to various wrongs. Parents are told they should not be angry with their children and should not punish them. Teachers are not allowed to be angry with students or punish them in any way. Men who lie and fabricate hate crimes are given a free pass. “Compassion” for the plight of the mother rather than anger at the death of an innocent child keeps Planned Parenthood in business. Capital punishment is de facto violent and unjust. Any anger is “victim blaming” and, let’s face it, all of us (or at least most of us) are victims.
To clarify: Outrage is not the same thing as righteous rage. We have grown quite adept at expressing outrage over some slight, real or perceived. We may stoke the flames of the Twitter Mob or even organize a protest. Imagine Our Lord, when confronted with the money changers, starting a #NoCoininMyFathersHouse movement or having His followers gather in protest. Like Our Lord’s cleansing of the Temple, righteous anger ought to be both affective and effective. It ought to be both vehement according to right reason and actually do something to remedy the evil. Much of what masquerades as righteous anger is really what St. Thomas calls the vice of clamor, that is, “disorderly and confused speech” that is “full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.”
This is why Lewis says that the “men without chests” are so easily prone to propaganda. They have to be told when to be angry and for how long. We see this too when at various protests the participants can’t really say why they are there beyond a simple regurgitation of the company line. They don’t really know why they are angry, only that they should be. As the opposite side of the same coin, this also explains why there is so much indifference and apathy. Being told what we should be angry about merely leads to an atrophy of the heart and a loss of the capacity to get angry at all.
Grim, I found one other. but I did not want to subscribe to read the whole thing but I thought the distinction between "anger" and "wrath" was very important...... Here is a link if someone has a subscription.
The Virtue of Anger & the Sin of Wrath
https://www.newoxfordreview.org/documents/the-virtue-of-anger-the-sin-of-wrath/
"Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”
That is beautifully constructed; Augustine was a great writer. But she's a terrible, not only a beautiful, daughter. The pagan ancients wrote wonderfully of Athena, too, daughter of Zeus, mistress of wisdom and virtue and learning, lady of victory. Gift-bearer, deceiver, breaker of truces, lightning in her eyes and a hungry spear in her hand.
I was angry once; on 9/11 I was angry enough to shake the world. We probably killed a million innocent people because we all went into that divine madness together. I don't even regret it. War was the happiest time of my life. But when I pray for mercy, it's not because I lack courage: it's because I need it very desperately. May God have mercy on it, on me, who longs for grace and peace and forgiveness.
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