A possible definition of anger is: A state of mind that blames another for our perceived problems.
A possible definition of hate is: A state of mind that is fuelled by anger that then identifies a person or thing as the source of our perceived problems.
If we made a list; downfalls of anger/hate on the left and benefits of anger/hate on the right,
The list will either be larger on the left or smaller on the left in direct dependence upon the level of anger/hate in our minds.
From this I can draw this conclusion:
The more anger/hate we feel — the more we believe it is justifiable.
How does an angry or hateful person become less angry?
The most common solution is to vent that anger on another person.
Anger/hate is also a state of mind that looks for an enemy and will create one even if one does not exist.
If we are angry/hateful we will always find someone to be angry/hateful towards.
But the nature of anger/hate is to always blame another — and so we are absolved of responsibility.
What do we think the downfalls and benefits of anger are; can we make a list.
What does this list tell us about our current state of mind?
Are we at War or are we at Peace?
Do we like War or do we like Peace?
The behavior of one type of person in anger, can be entirely different than the behavior of another type of person when in anger.
There is not one single anger, but instead there are many types of anger, each unique and not exactly the same as the others.
When I’m angry, i decide i want to solve problems or escape them. I feel motivated and intolerant of imperfection.
My anger is positive and rational. Not everybody is like this, but i am now, and i wasn’t always.
i nominally agree with the general principle you’ve put forth here, Dan, really - especially the italicized, and especially in relation to myself, i am motivated by my imperfection
but that which is in bold bespeaks of something else entirely - “i am creation perfected - i am eternal master and commander of myself”
i dunno about that one chief - that’s a bold claim, all the bolder the deeper it claims to be
to never fall in relation to yourself, to never at any moment be deceived by yourself?
Dan~ the conquerer of time, the divine incarnate?—or Dan~ the hopelessly deluded?
Yes, there are many different types of anger and every anger is unique, but they must have something in common.
We humans must think there is something in common otherwise we could not give it a name.
Somewhere, in the depths of our minds, we have a generic representation of what anger is and thus we have named it.
For example: There are many different types of tables in the world, with many artists, designers, and manufacturers.
But, we still have a generic image in our minds of what a table is and how it is supposed to function.
A stool is not a table when it is sat upon — it is a form of a chair.
If we only use a stool as something to place things upon — then it is not a chair, it is a small table.
From this I can conclude that anger is not some concept without definition.
We have labelled anger and thus all the different types of anger/hate must function in a common manner.
If they do not function with this commonality then we are not talking about anger.
Naturally, I can be happy and use the word anger as a word to describe this experience (after all it is just a word), but this is not anger as it is commonly understood and agreed upon by the broader community. The actual definition is meaningless but there is a broad agreement as to the generalised meaning of the word anger.
What is this meaning, how does it function and how is it fuelled?
I have proposed a definition that comes from my own experience. What are other people’s definitions?
I think both are right, and I believe the answer is relatively simple and starighforward. What we define as anger is merely the observation of the emotion in action ie. the physical reaction and expression of the emotion. So what you’re arguing about above is merely the source.
Therefore, going back to the original question of the function of anger, you are really asking why we react the way we do to all these different sources. And the answer I think is relatively biological - it’s something that threatens us and is part of the whole “flight or fight” thing. Same with hate. Humans can feel threatened by many things, and some will feel threatened by some things more than others. This is why the source can seem different, but the reaction to threat is the same. Anger is the reaction to a single threat, hate is a reaction to a persistent threat or set of single threats embodied or generating from a thing - a person, for instance, who constantly threatens me. I learn not just to get angry at the many things this person does but, seeing the person as one who constantly does threatening things, I extrapolate or induce the feeling onto the object itself and that is hate.
And the purpose of these emotions - to promote survival of the self.
the weird thing is that Kant is actually realistic and honest enough to see reason not as a staring point, not as a means but actually an end goal of history and lots and lots of history at that.
He starts with us as we are - with a brilliant definition of man as “unsociably sociable” (Hegel couldn’t have bettered this! ) This is actually the driving force to reason as we constantly feck things up via anger and hatred etc.
Kant rightly realises that a society with no antagonism is dead in the water
(Though, of course weirdly, this is his end goal I think he may be implying that its a very long term, far way limit we may never reach)
Meantime nature has very kindly made us antagonistic our drives will (over the very long term and in the sense of a limit) set us towards reason and universal peace!
(he sees a teleology in nature - not necessarily inherent but as being a very good way of understanding it - so something imposed from the mind that works - normal Kant I guess!)
It was a bit of a revelation for me and more and more makes me wonder about the shady path (via Schopenhauer) from kant to one Fredrich Nietzsche…
