I'm Angry

The last few days have had me reflecting on anger. I’ve felt a lot of it and been faced with a lot of it. In situations such as that it can be tempting to lean into it - to become consumed by it, lashing out at small things interpreted uncharitably as proof that someone is stupid or incompetent or immoral. One of the reasons that I’ve taken a break from Twitter/X is that I was getting increasingly angry and didn't like the person I could feel myself becoming. But one of the reasons I’m writing this post is that I still feel angry and I need to get this out of my system.

We often hear that social media is not a place to have careful, nuanced conversations about contentious topics. It’s not. But it’s also one of the best places to have those conversations; it’s a forum where we can meet and learn from people we never otherwise would. A consequence of this, however, is the anger that saturates social media,

I want to be clear. Anger is sometimes very important. It can be a source of knowledge and sometimes is the only appropriate response to injustice. If you’re not responding to some things with anger, you're not taking them seriously. But anger is also intoxicating. It can give one a sense of righteous that justifies a lack of charity when dealing with others. It allows us to be rude and insulting when it’s not appropriate.

So how do we know when responding in anger is appropriate? I’ve written elsewhere that for anger to be a useful source of knowledge or a justified response to injustice it must be apt. By this I mean that apt anger responds to a specific moral violation; it requires not only that one be motivated by the reason to be angry, but also that this anger be proportionate to the violation. Importantly, proportionality should not only be understood as a condition you violate only by excess, but also by underplaying the scale of an injustice. In responding to, say, the legacy of Apartheid or male violence against women, you can have a disproportionate response either by dismissing the issue or by using it to excuse an excessive response or lashing out at people who may not deserve it. The fact that male violence against women is an atrocious moral wrong does not justify any and all aggressive behaviour motivated by anger over it.

The problem is that sometimes anger is the only appropriate response, especially to people who are failing to take a moral issue seriously. So if you’re being faced with a wave of anger - as I was this week - it’s imperative to take stock and ask whether this anger was apt.

Here is what I understand the anger I faced to be. Many women are angry at the injustice they saw during the Olympics boxing controversy. They are outraged at the moral failure of the IOC to take seriously the safety of women or their right to fair sporting competition. They are tired of every injustice they see in this area becoming the site of detached debate among talking heads on social media. They don’t think these topics should be up for debate and they are angry when people discuss edge cases or present this issue as anything other than a very simple one. They may see those of us who talk about these issues from first principles as failing to respond appropriately to the injustice because they are not signalling or preforming anger.

Some may go further than just anger. They might begin to treat those they are angry at with contempt. Contempt is a fundamental reactive attitude or moral emotion we have in response to a perceived act of disrespect or deficiency of character in another person. Contempt is often focused on flaws of character in other people and not simply one-off, minor wrongs.

The danger of inapt contempt - treating someone with contempt when they do not deserve it - is that it narrows ones capacity to accept reasonable disagreement, making people arrogant and self-righteous in thinking that they have the only sensible response to a particular issue. This week, I could feel myself begin to treat others with inapt contempt and so I’ve taken a step back.

The problem with contempt is that it requires you to place yourself in a position of authority to view another as being in an inferior moral position; their actions which angered you are evidence for their character flaws - flaws which you, obviously, do not share. People don’t debate or argue with moral inferiors. Nor do they listen closely and consider their insights. This might not necessarily result in ‘abuse’ strictly speaking. But it creates an environment devoid of anything approaching charity.

This particular self-righteousness inhibits the pursuit of truth; engagement will be thin, or in absolute bad faith, if you see the people with whom you engage as your moral inferiors. Such people are not worthy of serious or thoughtful responses. The result is that we may be tempted to withdraw from engaging with the target of our contempt and instead address third parties about just how reprehensible the target of her contempt really is.

I’ve thought a lot about the anger that I’ve faced - and felt - this week. What I felt was inappropriate. I responded to what I perceived to be failures on the part of others to engage carefully with what I was saying with inappropriate anger that bled into inapt contempt. But I do also think that some of the anger and contempt I faced was also inappropriate. This is part of the price we pay for being on social media. I like to think that I’m ordinarily very good at letting that stuff wash over me. This week I wasn’t. So, I’m taking a break.