Anger – a cleansing or destructive experience?

Anger is generally understood as a negative emotion. We often identify it with an aggressive attitude and reaction to a specific stimulus that we perceive as an attack. This is why anger is often interpreted as a weakness or a defect of character. Christianity even recognized it as one of the seven deadly sins, equating it with a violent, irrational act that, in its blind rush, destroys everything it encounters in its path.

Ancient thinkers already, especially the school of Stoics, considered anger to be a passion that sows harm and disrupts the stable and sustainable functioning of man. Among Roman thinkers, it was Seneca (4 BC‒65 AD) who seems to have spoken most emphatically about anger, attributing it a destructive, almost apocalyptic force, writing: “People overwhelmed by anger wish death to their children, poverty to themselves, ruin to the whole house, and claim that they are not angry at all, just as fools do not admit their folly.”

Two types of indignation

It seems, however, that anger is a far more complex and complicated experience. Those who argued that no important decisions are worth making in anger would be right. The state of indignation is not conducive to well-thought-out choices, so it is better to wait until the emotions subside and only then make a specific decision. Theophrastus (370‒287 BC), a friend and successor of Aristotle, warned: “Indeed, reasonable men should do nothing in anger, for anger is devoid of reason and can never act with consideration,” which seems to perfectly reflect the reality of this experience. It is not worth trusting ourselves in a state of indignation, because what the passions that trouble us at that time suggest does not lead to mature reactions or reasonable answers.

Digging deeper into the nature of anger, we can point to two types. It seizes us as a sudden emotion, but often as a growing one. It can be caused by one impulse: An ordinary sentence, a decision made by someone, a short comment, or a gesture that can infuriate us in time. Anger can also accumulate in us, “bud”, gradually, from day to day, when the other person, step by step, awakens in us increasingly negative emotions, which eventually leads to an explosion. The first kind of anger can be described as impulsive, and instantaneous, which manifests itself at once as an outburst.

Epictetus (50‒135 CE) rated it as a positive reaction of the body because it led to the immediate discharge of internal tension. This kind of anger can be treated as a real catharsis, and thus the purification of the psyche, which instantly opens the way to calmness and rational thinking. However, this second type of anger – increasing, gradually accumulating in the body – seems to be much more dangerous. Rene Descartes (1596‒1650), the father of modern rationalism, distinguished them in this way: “Two kinds of anger can be distinguished; one is very quick and is visible on the outside: It is not very efficient, however, and can be easily relieved; the other is not so manifested, but it is eating all the more into the heart and has more dangerous effects.” (The Passions of the Soul)

Is anger always inadvisable?

So how to judge this kind of emotion to do justice to it? The daily experience usually shows the negative effects of anger, but it is also worth remembering the positive ones. Since anger is an emotion, it is also a natural condition for man. This could testify to the fact that it cannot be removed, and perhaps one should not even seek to do it. However, it is undoubtedly necessary to set boundaries for it and, as far as possible, to try to control its course. Anger becomes dangerous when it gets out of our control. Then we do the most harm to other people, without stopping in our words and deeds. For ourselves, this condition is also not beneficial, because it burns us out from the inside, leaving behind emptiness, remorse, or guilt.

On the other hand, a man who is incapable of anger can remain indifferent and dispassionate about the bad or indecent behavior that they observe in someone else and may not react. In this type of situation, a knee-jerk reaction seems justified and even recommended. It’s hard not to get upset when we see someone’s hurt or injustice. However, our reaction must not be overwhelming and result in a positive change, rather than make an already difficult situation even worse. Anger can also be useful because it signals some of our needs that have not been met. In such a situation, it plays an eye-opening and reminding role.

Therefore, it is worth remembering that in itself it is not necessarily a negative emotion. It turns out to be crucial how we experience and manifest it externally. It is important to go through anger in a wise and thus controlled way and express it so that it does not hurt other people. This is not an easy task, of course, but we can – and even we should – work on it because practice makes perfect. 

Translation: Marcin Brański