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Yeah... not quite. From the article - "Anger treats its target as someone capable of recognizing that she has done wrong... " This is true in some cases, but

Yeah... not quite. From the article - "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.

alexpetralia 6y ago
Similarly, I made a conscious effort during university to eradicate (a) drama and (b) anger from my life. It is almost surreal the extent to which I succeeded. When I see people experiencing these emotions, I almost marvel at the novelty of them because I haven't had them in so long. I distinctly remember watching a man one time walking on the sidewalks of NYC screaming into his phone with pure rage - "the angriest man I've ever seen" I recall - and I couldn't help but feel near admiration: He had truly reached some pinnacle of human experience. That said, there are parts of the human condition I feel better for having left behind.
- philosopher1234 6y ago
  This seems delusional. I don’t believe it’s possible to have eradicated the feeling of anger, no matter what you claim. It’s a fundamental feeling. Acting on your anger is a different story, but claiming to have muted the feeling utterly is preposterous.
  - alexpetralia 6y ago
    Well, you are entitled to your own opinions. I see another person in this thread already who must be as self-deluded as I am! Perhaps there are more. I believe Buddhist monks are rarely angry. That's where I would start.
    - philosopher1234 6y ago
      I believe a Buddhist monk who believes they have abandoned anger is self deceived. And surely my criticism of you made you angry, at least a little bit, somewhere deep down. 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.
    - maroonblazer 6y ago
      I think most Buddhists would say they still get angry but it doesn't consume them. That's one of the takeaways of Buddhism with respect to all emotions, as well as every thought that arises in consciousness. These things happen to you, but you don't identify with them, you merely recognize them as feelings and thoughts. The result is the glide path from that emotion or thought to homeostasis (where you were prior to the occurence) is much faster than it would be otherwise.
      - apostacy 6y ago
        Yes, I don't think Buddhist monks claim that they are robots. What matter is your reaction to your emotions. I believe that anger is a signal. But anger can be really dangerous and addictive. However, it does have a place in the human experience, but you should learn to listen to your anger when it really matters.
  - bladegash 6y ago
    I guess it depends on what you mean by “fundamental”. Anger is typically considered a secondary emotion, stemming from primary emotions. While I’m not sure it is possible to get rid of anger as OP suggests, it may not be outside the realm of possibility to create thought patterns that lead your primary emotions to secondary emotions other than anger.
    - philosopher1234 6y ago
      I find this a little bit more plausible, but still don’t believe it. I don’t think we’re in control of what we feel to the degree that we can redirect our thoughts and entirely or mostly prevent certain feelings. I do believe you can construct defenses that hide your anger from yourself, like GP perhaps has or Buddhist monks, but I believe the anger is still there under the surface.
      - bladegash 6y ago
        It’s not so much about conscious control as it is reconditioning your reaction(s) to different stimuli. It’s essentially the premise of cognitive behavioral therapy, which is that your thoughts, lead to feelings, and feelings lead to behaviors. Successful therapy usually includes reworking of thought patterns via neuroplasticity. I do agree with you though, that for me personally, I could try to get rid of angry reactions until the day I die and I know I will never be successful. I have settled upon finding better outlets for my anger and conditioning reactions that are less destructive than, say, lashing out at someone.
        philosopher1234 6y ago
        Yea I’m with you there. I think the problem of anger is finding healthy strategies for coping with it. I think feeling anger is inevitable and natural, it’s the actions you take to manage it that are worth being mindful about.
      - adjkant 6y ago
        I think you were stuck on the literality of "eradicate" here a bit. If you think anger can be managed, kept from the surface, have defenses constructed against it and the like, is that not more or less an informal meaning of "eradicate" what compared to how society casually sees anger? There's value in specificity but I think you jumped pretty quickly to "delusional" in response when as you've seen you both share a decent deal of middle ground. The questions that arise to me from reading this exchange: 1. At what point is anger "practically" removed from someone? 2. What methods can achieve that? Which are healthy to the longterm mental state of a human being? Personally, my greatest tool against anger is understanding + my belief in determinism. You can't be angry with a person for something they did not choose, and understanding how it happened leads to a larger issue or trend that you can then decide if it is worth spending time correcting or not. That understanding transforms anger into macro frustration, which I find is less harmful to others and I can constructively process into problem solving, which I find to be pretty healthy. Did I literally eradicate my anger? Not even close. Does anyone see or experience anger as we practically recognize it? Nope! So in terms of the actual world we live in, I very much did remove anger from my actions. My larger point here being that you have to bring practical readings to the table, even in the comments section of a philosophy piece :)
  - rossnordby 6y ago
    I think there might be a couple of things going on here: 1. Slightly differing definitions of what constitutes 'angry', and 2. Dramatically varying subjective experiences of anger. For example, in the case of #1, I usually separate 'frustration' from 'anger', but I could see someone else bundling them together. They share a lot of physiological effects, but I generally think of anger as a more focused and directed feeling. I could be frustrated while failing to debug something, but not meaningfully angry, because the bug is not an agent with malicious intent (or other common target of anger). And for #2, I've known people who get mad and have an extremely hard time controlling it. Someone or something slights them, it ruins their mood, and then sustains. And they're aware of it the whole time, wishing they weren't mad, because they hate feeling that way. But they're still mad. In comparison, I seem to be lucky. I have gotten genuinely mad before, but exceedingly rarely- maybe a few times in my entire life, and only then mostly in response to years of sustained bad behavior, and only when I was much younger. I wasn't trying to be a paragon of stoicism, I just don't get angry very often by default. Stack a little bit of effort on top of a baseline like that, and it's pretty easy to go beyond merely not acting on anger to smoothing away even the subjective experience of it. Maybe a short and mild response, here and there, but it almost always immediately fades. I strongly doubt I'm the most placid person in the world, so there are probably people out there who are even less angry by default. I bet others have put more effort into controlling their anger, too. It seems likely that "eradication" of anger is within the realm of possible for some.
- dmarchand90 6y ago
  I'm curious if you could elaborate what you mean by abandoning anger. I would imagine if someone at the office started claiming your work at your own you would probably experience something rather analogous to anger. I know it's a bit nitpicky but I would imagine that what you've done is become excellent at managing anger rather than banishing it entirely. (Which is an impressive accomplishment that you should feel very pleased and proud of nontheless.) My understanding from modern psychology as well as buddhism that one never really gets really of anger, but rather, can develop excellent control of it. It might also be your life situation is such that people don't really try to take advantage of you or mistreat you very often.
  - alexpetralia 6y ago
    I definitely feel frustrated at times! I don't really feel "anger" though. I think I know what it feels like: uncontrolled, fuming, yelling, on the verge of physical expression. It's as if I have trained my subconscious anger is useless effectively enough that it doesn't even really attempt it anymore. It channels into either resignation or frustration or problem-solving instead.
  - BurningFrog 6y ago
    I'm not OP, but I also abandoned anger long ago. Being human, I of course still get momentary bursts of anger now and then. But I don't hold on to it. After a few minutes, that impulse has passed, and I get back on even keel. I also try to remember that when I'm in that anger state, I am stupid and should not do or say anything rash. That usually, but not always works.
  - vincentmarle 6y ago
    > I would imagine if someone at the office started claiming your work at your own you would probably experience something rather analogous to anger. This is a false premise. If you control your anger you will train yourself enough to not get angry in the first place. After a long time of practicing this you will even forget how to get angry.
    - o-__-o 6y ago
- vincentmarle 6y ago
  > I couldn't help but feel near admiration: He had truly reached some pinnacle of human experience As someone who has left anger a long time ago as well, I have to say, I do miss it sometimes and I also look with envy to ones who can express their anger. To be angry is to feel alive. But yes, overall you're better off not being angry.
- apostacy 6y ago
  I was like you for a long time, but in the last few years, I've learned that in small controlled doses, in some circumstances, anger can be beneficial, and you should learn to harness it. Anger is probably our most dangerous emotion. But we are not robots, and no matter how rational we try to be, we still have to interact with people who are not. I notice that you keep describing people's actions, not their internal emotional state. Seeing how irrational and terrible angry people could be was why I tried eradicating anger. You can still let yourself experience anger without being a monster though. It is possible to be in touch with your anger without being enraged or being bad. How is anger good? I don't have time to find the sources now, but I read that people in a state of anger are more capable of discerning if they are being deceived or treated unfairly, which I have found to be true. Letting yourself experience anger can enable you to assert yourself. If you spend most of your time around reasonable people you trust, you should almost never get angry. But unfortunately sometimes you encounter people who deserve your anger. I can think of many instances where I was taken advantage of, and I regret that I had trained myself to completely suppress anger. And I can think of many more recent times when my anger has given me agency that I would not have otherwise had. The important thing is to treat your sense of anger as a call to action, and when you start to resolve your problem, your anger can quickly fade.
heavenlyblue 6y ago
I think it’s how you use anger that matters. I am pretty certain there’s a huge log of people with the kindest faces who gladly closed their eyes on the abuse happening to someone else for a simple example.
adjkant 6y ago
I'm so sorry you went through that. I fully agree about eliminating anger from my personal life. 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.
chapium 6y ago
After dealing with someone like this longterm, I jettison relationships that even tries these tactics. Be thankful you got out of it.
swozey 6y ago
I don't mean to vilify or diagnose but look into borderline personality disorder, it may (or may not) provide you some reasoning. It's a disorder of emotional dysregulation and often the people with it either cut/harm themselves or are physically abusive.
GavinMcG 6y ago
That likely was true in that case. Your ex's anger treated you as someone capable of recognizing having done wrong, because if you didn't, you wouldn't be manipulable. (That's not the same thing as saying you actually did wrong. Just that if you couldn't imagine having done wrong, her anger wouldn't have been effective, and she would have chosen a different manipulation tactic. Or alternatively, your ex's manipulative behavior may be distinct from anger - perhaps she found the appearance of anger to be useful, and so she acted angry.) This ties into a bigger picture: should we choose to be someone who can be victimized? I was cheated on and lied to, and in examining what I could have done differently, I concluded that yes, I would rather be someone trusting than someone with their defenses fully up.
apatters 6y ago
I think the article goes the wrong direction as well, but for different reasons. We should look to the field of modern psychology for answers about our emotions, not philosophy. We understand the brain a lot better now than we did in Aristotle's time. Anger's neurological function is to motivate action. It originates in the unconscious parts of the brain, and like all emotions it can arise involuntarily. It sounds like your girlfriend was putting her anger to use in a way that it's neurologically well adapted for (though absolutely in an immoral and unhealthy way). Most individuals possess some degree of ability to consciously regulate their emotions (brain damage reduces this ability, many other factors like genetics or past trauma can too). So after you experience anger you can influence what you do next. Modern psychology generally recognizes that like most emotions, anger has value but how you process it is key. Rationally examining the roots of your anger can defuse or redirect it and is the principle behind cognitive behavioral therapy and similar modern therapies. Repression isn't a healthy way of handling anger, it only builds up, becomes internalized, and resurfaces later in ways that are harder to understand. I think it's better to express your anger (there are limitations of course, we don't get a free pass to run around punching people, but venting to a friend is healthy). In my opinion as someone who buried his anger for 20 years, the key to handling it is to understand where it really comes from, and then harness the energy it generates to act in a way which addresses the root cause. To use the article's example of theft, if you get really angry because someone stole from you, maybe your emotion originates from a history of financial distress. If so then you may be able to change your actions, channel that energy into building financial security, and not experience this distress in the future. Anger in this situation becomes a force for clarity, good and purpose because you acknowledged, channelled and examined it. I think as a society we're in a place where we allow ourselves to be angry all the time, but couch it in superficial righteousness instead doing the uncomfortable processing work and owning our own role in it.

alexpetralia 6y ago

Similarly, I made a conscious effort during university to eradicate (a) drama and (b) anger from my life. It is almost surreal the extent to which I succeeded. When I see people experiencing these emotions, I almost marvel at the novelty of them because I haven't had them in so long. I distinctly remember watching a man one time walking on the sidewalks of NYC screaming into his phone with pure rage - "the angriest man I've ever seen" I recall - and I couldn't help but feel near admiration: He had truly reached some pinnacle of human experience. That said, there are parts of the human condition I feel better for having left behind.

philosopher1234 6y ago
This seems delusional. I don’t believe it’s possible to have eradicated the feeling of anger, no matter what you claim. It’s a fundamental feeling. Acting on your anger is a different story, but claiming to have muted the feeling utterly is preposterous.
- alexpetralia 6y ago
  Well, you are entitled to your own opinions. I see another person in this thread already who must be as self-deluded as I am! Perhaps there are more. I believe Buddhist monks are rarely angry. That's where I would start.
  - philosopher1234 6y ago
    I believe a Buddhist monk who believes they have abandoned anger is self deceived. And surely my criticism of you made you angry, at least a little bit, somewhere deep down. 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.
  - maroonblazer 6y ago
    I think most Buddhists would say they still get angry but it doesn't consume them. That's one of the takeaways of Buddhism with respect to all emotions, as well as every thought that arises in consciousness. These things happen to you, but you don't identify with them, you merely recognize them as feelings and thoughts. The result is the glide path from that emotion or thought to homeostasis (where you were prior to the occurence) is much faster than it would be otherwise.
    - apostacy 6y ago
      Yes, I don't think Buddhist monks claim that they are robots. What matter is your reaction to your emotions. I believe that anger is a signal. But anger can be really dangerous and addictive. However, it does have a place in the human experience, but you should learn to listen to your anger when it really matters.
- bladegash 6y ago
  I guess it depends on what you mean by “fundamental”. Anger is typically considered a secondary emotion, stemming from primary emotions. While I’m not sure it is possible to get rid of anger as OP suggests, it may not be outside the realm of possibility to create thought patterns that lead your primary emotions to secondary emotions other than anger.
  - philosopher1234 6y ago
    I find this a little bit more plausible, but still don’t believe it. I don’t think we’re in control of what we feel to the degree that we can redirect our thoughts and entirely or mostly prevent certain feelings. I do believe you can construct defenses that hide your anger from yourself, like GP perhaps has or Buddhist monks, but I believe the anger is still there under the surface.
    - bladegash 6y ago
      It’s not so much about conscious control as it is reconditioning your reaction(s) to different stimuli. It’s essentially the premise of cognitive behavioral therapy, which is that your thoughts, lead to feelings, and feelings lead to behaviors. Successful therapy usually includes reworking of thought patterns via neuroplasticity. I do agree with you though, that for me personally, I could try to get rid of angry reactions until the day I die and I know I will never be successful. I have settled upon finding better outlets for my anger and conditioning reactions that are less destructive than, say, lashing out at someone.
      - philosopher1234 6y ago
        Yea I’m with you there. I think the problem of anger is finding healthy strategies for coping with it. I think feeling anger is inevitable and natural, it’s the actions you take to manage it that are worth being mindful about.
    - adjkant 6y ago
      I think you were stuck on the literality of "eradicate" here a bit. If you think anger can be managed, kept from the surface, have defenses constructed against it and the like, is that not more or less an informal meaning of "eradicate" what compared to how society casually sees anger? There's value in specificity but I think you jumped pretty quickly to "delusional" in response when as you've seen you both share a decent deal of middle ground. The questions that arise to me from reading this exchange: 1. At what point is anger "practically" removed from someone? 2. What methods can achieve that? Which are healthy to the longterm mental state of a human being? Personally, my greatest tool against anger is understanding + my belief in determinism. You can't be angry with a person for something they did not choose, and understanding how it happened leads to a larger issue or trend that you can then decide if it is worth spending time correcting or not. That understanding transforms anger into macro frustration, which I find is less harmful to others and I can constructively process into problem solving, which I find to be pretty healthy. Did I literally eradicate my anger? Not even close. Does anyone see or experience anger as we practically recognize it? Nope! So in terms of the actual world we live in, I very much did remove anger from my actions. My larger point here being that you have to bring practical readings to the table, even in the comments section of a philosophy piece :)
- rossnordby 6y ago
  I think there might be a couple of things going on here: 1. Slightly differing definitions of what constitutes 'angry', and 2. Dramatically varying subjective experiences of anger. For example, in the case of #1, I usually separate 'frustration' from 'anger', but I could see someone else bundling them together. They share a lot of physiological effects, but I generally think of anger as a more focused and directed feeling. I could be frustrated while failing to debug something, but not meaningfully angry, because the bug is not an agent with malicious intent (or other common target of anger). And for #2, I've known people who get mad and have an extremely hard time controlling it. Someone or something slights them, it ruins their mood, and then sustains. And they're aware of it the whole time, wishing they weren't mad, because they hate feeling that way. But they're still mad. In comparison, I seem to be lucky. I have gotten genuinely mad before, but exceedingly rarely- maybe a few times in my entire life, and only then mostly in response to years of sustained bad behavior, and only when I was much younger. I wasn't trying to be a paragon of stoicism, I just don't get angry very often by default. Stack a little bit of effort on top of a baseline like that, and it's pretty easy to go beyond merely not acting on anger to smoothing away even the subjective experience of it. Maybe a short and mild response, here and there, but it almost always immediately fades. I strongly doubt I'm the most placid person in the world, so there are probably people out there who are even less angry by default. I bet others have put more effort into controlling their anger, too. It seems likely that "eradication" of anger is within the realm of possible for some.
dmarchand90 6y ago
I'm curious if you could elaborate what you mean by abandoning anger. I would imagine if someone at the office started claiming your work at your own you would probably experience something rather analogous to anger. I know it's a bit nitpicky but I would imagine that what you've done is become excellent at managing anger rather than banishing it entirely. (Which is an impressive accomplishment that you should feel very pleased and proud of nontheless.) My understanding from modern psychology as well as buddhism that one never really gets really of anger, but rather, can develop excellent control of it. It might also be your life situation is such that people don't really try to take advantage of you or mistreat you very often.
- alexpetralia 6y ago
  I definitely feel frustrated at times! I don't really feel "anger" though. I think I know what it feels like: uncontrolled, fuming, yelling, on the verge of physical expression. It's as if I have trained my subconscious anger is useless effectively enough that it doesn't even really attempt it anymore. It channels into either resignation or frustration or problem-solving instead.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  I'm not OP, but I also abandoned anger long ago. Being human, I of course still get momentary bursts of anger now and then. But I don't hold on to it. After a few minutes, that impulse has passed, and I get back on even keel. I also try to remember that when I'm in that anger state, I am stupid and should not do or say anything rash. That usually, but not always works.
- vincentmarle 6y ago
  > I would imagine if someone at the office started claiming your work at your own you would probably experience something rather analogous to anger. This is a false premise. If you control your anger you will train yourself enough to not get angry in the first place. After a long time of practicing this you will even forget how to get angry.
  - o-__-o 6y ago
vincentmarle 6y ago
> I couldn't help but feel near admiration: He had truly reached some pinnacle of human experience As someone who has left anger a long time ago as well, I have to say, I do miss it sometimes and I also look with envy to ones who can express their anger. To be angry is to feel alive. But yes, overall you're better off not being angry.
apostacy 6y ago
I was like you for a long time, but in the last few years, I've learned that in small controlled doses, in some circumstances, anger can be beneficial, and you should learn to harness it. Anger is probably our most dangerous emotion. But we are not robots, and no matter how rational we try to be, we still have to interact with people who are not. I notice that you keep describing people's actions, not their internal emotional state. Seeing how irrational and terrible angry people could be was why I tried eradicating anger. You can still let yourself experience anger without being a monster though. It is possible to be in touch with your anger without being enraged or being bad. How is anger good? I don't have time to find the sources now, but I read that people in a state of anger are more capable of discerning if they are being deceived or treated unfairly, which I have found to be true. Letting yourself experience anger can enable you to assert yourself. If you spend most of your time around reasonable people you trust, you should almost never get angry. But unfortunately sometimes you encounter people who deserve your anger. I can think of many instances where I was taken advantage of, and I regret that I had trained myself to completely suppress anger. And I can think of many more recent times when my anger has given me agency that I would not have otherwise had. The important thing is to treat your sense of anger as a call to action, and when you start to resolve your problem, your anger can quickly fade.

heavenlyblue 6y ago

I think it’s how you use anger that matters. I am pretty certain there’s a huge log of people with the kindest faces who gladly closed their eyes on the abuse happening to someone else for a simple example.

adjkant 6y ago

I'm so sorry you went through that. I fully agree about eliminating anger from my personal life. 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.

chapium 6y ago

After dealing with someone like this longterm, I jettison relationships that even tries these tactics. Be thankful you got out of it.

swozey 6y ago

I don't mean to vilify or diagnose but look into borderline personality disorder, it may (or may not) provide you some reasoning. It's a disorder of emotional dysregulation and often the people with it either cut/harm themselves or are physically abusive.

GavinMcG 6y ago

That likely was true in that case. Your ex's anger treated you as someone capable of recognizing having done wrong, because if you didn't, you wouldn't be manipulable. (That's not the same thing as saying you actually did wrong. Just that if you couldn't imagine having done wrong, her anger wouldn't have been effective, and she would have chosen a different manipulation tactic. Or alternatively, your ex's manipulative behavior may be distinct from anger - perhaps she found the appearance of anger to be useful, and so she acted angry.) This ties into a bigger picture: should we choose to be someone who can be victimized? I was cheated on and lied to, and in examining what I could have done differently, I concluded that yes, I would rather be someone trusting than someone with their defenses fully up.

apatters 6y ago

I think the article goes the wrong direction as well, but for different reasons. We should look to the field of modern psychology for answers about our emotions, not philosophy. We understand the brain a lot better now than we did in Aristotle's time. Anger's neurological function is to motivate action. It originates in the unconscious parts of the brain, and like all emotions it can arise involuntarily. It sounds like your girlfriend was putting her anger to use in a way that it's neurologically well adapted for (though absolutely in an immoral and unhealthy way). Most individuals possess some degree of ability to consciously regulate their emotions (brain damage reduces this ability, many other factors like genetics or past trauma can too). So after you experience anger you can influence what you do next. Modern psychology generally recognizes that like most emotions, anger has value but how you process it is key. Rationally examining the roots of your anger can defuse or redirect it and is the principle behind cognitive behavioral therapy and similar modern therapies. Repression isn't a healthy way of handling anger, it only builds up, becomes internalized, and resurfaces later in ways that are harder to understand. I think it's better to express your anger (there are limitations of course, we don't get a free pass to run around punching people, but venting to a friend is healthy). In my opinion as someone who buried his anger for 20 years, the key to handling it is to understand where it really comes from, and then harness the energy it generates to act in a way which addresses the root cause. To use the article's example of theft, if you get really angry because someone stole from you, maybe your emotion originates from a history of financial distress. If so then you may be able to change your actions, channel that energy into building financial security, and not experience this distress in the future. Anger in this situation becomes a force for clarity, good and purpose because you acknowledged, channelled and examined it. I think as a society we're in a place where we allow ourselves to be angry all the time, but couch it in superficial righteousness instead doing the uncomfortable processing work and owning our own role in it.