In the last newsletter I included a quote from the Philosophy/Classics professor Margaret Nussbaum. It is taken from her examination of Hellenestic ethics called ‘The Therapy of Desire’. Here it is:
‘A person who notes and reacts to every injustice must, in reacting to them all with anger, become, in the end, similar to the raging and furious people against whom he reacts. Anger hardens the spirit and turns it against the humanity it sees. And in turning against humanity, in evincing the rage and disgust of the angry, one then becomes perilously close to the cruel and aggressive types who arouse the disgust.’
Her discussion on anger and public anger is fascinating and relevant in the contemporary climate. There are the discussions in the US over the media and the rhetoric surrounding the shootings in Arizona.
In the Church of Scotland we will presumably be discussing ordination and same-sex relationships within the church at the General Assembly in May. At one of the meetings at St. Philip’s a minister with much involvement at the national level encouraged all people to do that which the public context doesn’t seem to encourage: discussion, listen gracefully, disagree without being disagreeable. Where anger is possible it can be replaced not by conflict but by listening. Our conversations at St. Philip’s were exemplary: vastly different viewpoints carefully expressed and heeded. May that prevail in May.
And a member of the congregation e-mailed back to thank me for the quote. Often on his bicycle he is cut off and treated less than generously. Instead of reacting angrily he has recently been raising an eyebrow or tapping his eyes/side of his head. He said the temperature of the responses have thus been lowered. Human beings interacting and admitting that we are human and make mistakes.
Nussbaum wonders about the role of public anger. The Stoics would have argued for its complete extirpation along with all of the passions. They prevent us from a state that contributes to human flourishing. On occasion they are correct: anger can lead to awful decisions and states of mind. She refers to a conversation with lecturers at West Point and discussing three incidents of anger. There was the razing of Mai Lai in Vietnam. There was Schwarzkopf’s description of evidence of torture in Kuwait during the first Gulf War when the image began to depict all Iraqis as somehow responsible in a manner that was moving towards dehumanisation. Two examples of anger that were destructive and potentially so.
But Nussbaum presents another description of anger which is not necessarily destructive. Elie Wiesel describes his sight of an African-American soldier entering the concentration camp where he had been imprisoned. On seeing the utter horror of the scene the soldier let out a scream, a howl of heartwrenching proportions. With that howl, Wiesel said, he knew that humanity had returned. Anger when that which is held dear is transgressed and trampled.
In Luke, chapter 6, we have Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount, called the Sermon on the Plain. In it Jesus gives his own take on anger. Instead of extirpating it as the Stoics might have argued, he suggests that perhaps we should love our enemies; turn the other cheek; remember the plank in our own eye instead of focussing on the speck in another’s eye. He has seen the destructiveness of anger and is attempting to transform it.
There is wisdom here, is there not? And he ends this chapter with the story of the wise man who built his house on rock rather than sand. A house, a life, built on the reliable and trustworthy, rathe than the shifting and soft.
Jesus is often portrayed as God’s wisdom come to earth. The connection between John. 1.1-14 and Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 8 is clear. In Proverbs 15 we get a beautiful description from the sages of ancient Israel, encouraging the student to be careful with words spoken. These sages believed that God had created the universe through wisdom and that, through study, prayer and contemplation, we could see this wisdom and live according to it.
On one level, Jesus in the tradition of the sages, moving the disciple towards wisdom. On another level, Jesus as the personified wisdom of God.
There is an interesting overlap between our biblical texts and some of these Greek thinkers as presented by Nussbaum. She notes that anger can be destructive but that it can be a motivation for good. Anger is a response that can spur people on to good actions, a view favoured by Aristotle, but with the corollary that it should be kept in check by reason (the Stoics wondered if this were possible). If anger is not extirpated perhaps, she thinks, it could at least be transformed, transmuted into mercy.
Haven’t we heard that before?
Hadn’t Jesus got there too?
And if we look at his life, didn’t he envelop, enfold, ingest the poisonous anger in his last days? The anger of the Zealots, who wanted a suicidal war to throw the Romans out? The worry and nerves of the Romans, and their undoubted anger at this man who was stirring things up? The anger of the religious establishment, who thought this rabble rouser would lead to horrible conflict? Jesus took this anger, suffered for it and yet in his wisdom transformed it into grace, into understanding, into love. This transformation became most complete with the resurrection: here, truly, is anger, human anger, transformed into something positive, merciful and loving.
I have always wanted to be more clever than I am. A learned philosopher. A professor. A stunning preacher who can move hundreds to tears, action, hope. But it is not to be.
But I can be wise. Not just in the love of wisdom. But in the wisdom of love.
So too can you.
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