I've been thinking about anger lately.

I try not to be angry. Anger, I am reliably informed, comes from a feeling of victimhood. It's better than fear, but not as good as reason. It indicates a wild striking out at real or imagined oppressors, which may be effective, but does not have the same chances as a rational response. Better than passivity or paralysis in the face of an attack. But no substitute for a calm, clear-seeing mind.

In any case, leaving aside the effectiveness of anger, what cause do I have to be angry? If I am doing the best I can to deal with the situation, I won't even need to control my anger: I won't feel it in the first place. From an active point of view, the situation is the situation, and the only question is how I plan to deal with it. Anger emerges when I look at things as happening to me. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hatred, &c., it all ends up with skin problems and no arms. Anger is something always to be avoided, both for its own qualities and because of what it indicates about my mindset. It's a very modern view, although often passivity and fear are disguised as a desire for understanding. Some people want to empathize themselves to death.

But I'm reconsidering this point of view. Aristotle's Ethics has this to say on the subject:

Now, a man is praised for being angry under the right circumstances and with the right people, and also in the right manner, at the right time, and for the right length of time. He may be [termed] gentle, since gentleness is used as a term of praise. For being gentle means to be unruffled and not to be driven be emotion, but to be angry only under such circumstances and for as long a time as reason may bid. But he seems to be more prone to going wrong in the direction of deficiency: a gentle person is forgiving rather than vindictive.

The deficiency, whether it is a kind of apathy or whatever else it may be, receives blame. For those who do not show anger at things that ought to arouse anger are regarded as fools; so, too, if they do not show anger in the right way, at the right time, or at the right person. Such people seem to have no feelings, not even for pain; they do not seem to rise to their own defense, since they do not show anger; but to let one's own character be smeared and to put up with insults to those near and dear to him is slavish.

I'm deliberately avoiding political commentary with regard to this quote. For one thing, any side might seize upon it, and, with a few examples, make a case against their opponent. I intend it as an internally directed criticism.

Aristotle says that anger, like other emotions, has a time and place in which it is correct to suffer it. Anger is not in itself wrong, but instead stirs us to action when, like Hamlet, reason might delay us unreasonably. I don't mean to endorse rash, thoughtless behavior. The conclusion I'm reaching is that anger is not inherently evil, nor does it disqualify one from making a rational response. We are meant to be angry with some things. I don't have the book with me right now (stupid moving boxes), but in Perelandra there's a scene where Ransom finds that his anger with the devil is perfectly acceptable. Like a child with an axe who finds a tree, I believe is how Lewis describes it. I don't mean to imply that anger with people is justified, but that anger in response to actions is both human and virtuous.