Ask a Stoic: Angry People Can't Do this

On goading the bull.

“Anita” Criticizes Stoic Calm:

I see you Stoics. You guys are always on about doing “view from above” takes on the world. Calm down and think straight, you say.

But we don’t need more calm here. Bro, this world is on fire! We need people waking up and getting angry and grabbing pitchforks. Bodies are piling up in Gaza. Our rainforest ain’t there no more.

You look up at the cosmos much more and you’re going to look down one day and there won’t be nothing down here. What I hear when people say “calm down” is you’re not an ally. You want to distract us and you’re part of the problem. We calm down and we become disunited. We lose focus. We got to get angry and unite. Change my mind!

Andrew’s Response:

Why did Martin Luther King lead his people onto the streets to be beaten by racists, savaged by dogs, and imprisoned by dirty cops? Why do boxers ridicule their opponents? Why do people liquidate stock portfolios after a crash and lose everything?

The age-old answer: fools rush in. Those who do are easy marks, and almost everyone becomes a fool when they’re angry or fearful. Good strategists manipulate opponents into mistakes by pushing their emotional buttons.

We can make two big mistakes when emotions surge: suppressing them and letting them rip. One degrades us. The other undermines our objectives and erodes our character.

But if we consider emotions calmly, we might notice they point to the sacred. Sadness and anger are often signposts for deeply felt values worth acting upon, perhaps even worth dying for.

Innocent children slaughtered by war. Garbage islands floating in the Pacific. A warming planet. Dying forests. This world has no lack of injustices to address.

Your Stupid Angry Mistakes:

We must always ask: does this way of relating to my emotions increase agency or leave me impotent?

If you hold on to sadness so tightly that you’re depressed and unable to act, does it serve the sacred? If you rage so strongly that you go off half-cocked, or dance like a puppet for someone seeking foot soldiers, is your rage agentic or a menace?

The agentic change the world and right injustices because they can plan and follow through. They don’t burn out or end up jailed when that’s not useful. The agentic use their opponents’ anger to accomplish their ends because they’re not lost in a red fog; they see clearly.

If you can’t act without anger or unite without demonization, maybe your cause isn’t as compelling as you thought it was. Maybe you don’t actually know what solution will move the needle.

If that’s the case, the answer isn’t more anger, but more knowledge.

Your Joyless Life:

And if we put aside justice for just a moment, here’s a sad bit of perspective: there’s always another injustice waiting in the wings. Injustice is endless. Solve one problem and another pops up to fill its place.

So if you must be angry to combat injustice, then you’re going to have a joyless, miserable life. Seneca made a good point:

“If the wise man is to be angered by low deeds, if he is to be upset and unsettled by crimes, surely nothing is more woeful than the wise man’s lot; his whole life will be passed in anger and in grief. For what moment will there be when he will not see something to disapprove of?” — Seneca, On Anger, 2.7.1

For your sake, I hope you learn to do good without anger. The alternative isn’t pretty.

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