Seneca did not like irritated people. Almost all of us will agree with him on that. The Hispanic philosopher, however, was so angry about the angry people (apparently the irony) that about twenty centuries ago he dedicated an entire treatise to them. (‘Of Anger’)a work in which he reflects on what anger is, its causes, effects, nature, whether or not it is manageable and how we should act when we feel that we begin to hyperventilate and all kinds of expletives gather in our throats.
The problem is that Seneca wasn’t entirely right.
“Somber and wild”. Seneca’s work does not leave much room for interpretation. It is titled ‘De Ira’ and throughout its three volumes (available online in the Cervantes Virtual Library) the author is dedicated to telling us about what it is, where it comes from and, above all, how to act in the face of anger. His words connect with the best Stoic tradition when advising us to flee from the slavery of impulses and embrace a serene and reflective attitude.
“You demanded of me, dear Newbie, that I write to you about the way to control anger. And I believe that, not without cause, you fear very mainly this passion, which is the darkest and most unbridled of all,” Seneca starts in the first chapter of his treatise, addressed to his brother. “The others undoubtedly have something quiet and placid, but this one is all agitation, unbridled resentment, thirst for war, blood, torture, outburst of superhuman fury.”
A form of madness? If the above is not enough to make Seneca’s position clear, throughout the following pages he expands on explaining the meaninglessness of anger. The reason? It leads us to forget ourselves in order to harm others, “throwing ourselves into the midst of swords.” “For this reason some wise men defined anger by calling it ‘brief madness’. Powerless like that to control itself, it forgets all convenience, ignores all affection, is obstinate and stubborn, deaf to the advice of reason, agitated for vain causes.” follow the author.
The work is full of reflections that go along that same line, but there are a passage especially eloquent in which Seneca warns us of the extent to which anger can distance us from our purposes, even from who we are:
“Man was born to help man; anger for common destruction. Man seeks society, anger isolation; man wants to be useful, anger wants to harm; man helps strangers, anger hurts even the most intimate friend; man is willing to sacrifice himself for other people’s interests, anger rushes into danger in order to drag another along.”
It makes sense, right? More or less. Anger may condition our behavior, making us act differently than we would if we were calm, but… Is that necessarily bad? Is anger always “the darkest” of passions, as Seneca says? In the 21st century there are authors who are not so clear. one of them is David Robsona popularizer who has published ‘The intelligence trap’among other psychological essays.
In July 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, with thousands of people feeling helpless and frustrated at not being able to move freely, Robson published an article on BBC in which he talked about just that: the positive side of getting angry.
Its title is also transparent: “The benefits of anger: the good side of doing things with anger.” Beyond its provocative tone, Robson’s essay is interesting because it summarizes recent scientific research that suggests that acting out of rage may not be as bad as Seneca believed.
A source of energy. Which defends Robson is that, beyond its destructive power (something that is not denied) anger can have certain advantages. “Anger and related emotions, such as frustration or irritation, can also have advantages, as long as we know how to channel the energy that arises from them.”
Its premise is very simple: instead of investing energy and time in repressing anger, why not try to channel that feeling, take advantage of it, use it as a source of motivation? It may sound crazy or self-destructive, but the author recalls studies that raise the same idea: how disturbance (well managed and channeled) can help us in certain contexts.
Angrier, higher performance? Robson’s approach is not far from that of Britt Q. Ford, a professor at the University of Toronto, who define anger as “a mobilizing emotion that is physiologically activated”, generating an activation that can be used for certain physical objectives.
He doesn’t talk just to talk. Years ago, a group of scientists found that, when they imagined annoying scenes, the subjects of their experiment performed certain physical tasks harder and faster. Their performance seemed to increase when they felt frustrated because they channeled it through physical activity.
Robson cites more studies that show similar effects in athletes who throw balls and jump or even among players in the NBA and National Hockey League in the United States. When suffering flagrant and frustrating fouls, players seemed more motivated to score points. “The angrier they got, the faster they threw or the higher they jumped.”
Interesting, but with limits. Of course, it has nuances. a study published in 2011 on “anger, aggression and athleticism” found that “a greater number of technical fouls” usually precedes greater “success in aspects of the game that require power and energy, such as making field goals, rebounding and blocking shots,” but that relationship is by no means infallible.
Ball throwing requires mechanical movements, the result of repetition and training. Things changed if we talked about aspects of the same sport that require other skills, such as “care.”
Goodbye muses, hello pissed off. A good dose of rage can not only have its advantages on the court. Robson quote another study which suggest that anger can improve our “persistence and perseverance in the face of cognitive challenges.”
How did they come to that conclusion? Scientists frustrated a group of people by giving them tests that in theory tested their intelligence but were actually impossible to solve. Who were the most persevering, the most dedicated to the challenge? The pissed off ones.
Their response was in some ways more helpful than those who simply became frustrated or depressed. To this advantage Robson adds another: “A burst of anger can also provoke greater creativity,” since when we feel more excited our mind establishes new connections.
It’s not all laughter. “For a long time it was believed that being positive at all times was synonymous with a full life, that that was what we should aspire to,” remember Heather C. Lench, professor at Texas A&M University, in The New York Times. “But there is growing evidence that a life balanced by a sum of emotions appears to be more satisfying in the long term.”
His conclusion is based on published academic studies in ‘Journal of Personality and Social Psychology’ who agree that anger can help us be faster and more reactive, it helps us overcome obstacles. Anger may be a hindrance in certain cases, but no more so than false positivism.
Everyone pissed off then? It’s not about that. The studies cited by Robson are not a plea in favor of passionate rage. Rather, they provide an alternative vision to the dominant story that, in line with Seneca, denies all the implications of anger. To take advantage of it, however, it is important to keep in mind a maxim that the Stoics also liked: moderation.
In fact, Ford herself suggests the advantages of anger channeled for constructive purposes when we must confront opinions. Anger can be a lever, but it can also, as Seneca warned, throw us between swords.
It’s all in the classics. The ideal posture summarizes it on BBC R. David Lebel of the University of Pittsburgh: “Recognize your anger and then wait a few hours or a day and think about how you can get it out constructively.” In reality it is not a new or revolutionary position. Another classical thinker who preceded Seneca on the Olympus of philosophers said something similar: Aristotle.
Plato’s pupil I already recognized There is some good in anger and he advised handling it with an appropriate approach: “Getting angry with the right person, at the right time and for the right reason is not easy.” In ‘Of Anger’, Seneca himself remembers that Aristotle asserts that rage “it is necessary” in certain contexts, although Hispanics do not seem too convinced with that idea. “If you listen to reason and let yourself be led where they lead you, it is no longer anger,” he replies.
Images | Mick Haupt (Unsplash), Wikipedia and Andre Hunter (Unsplash)
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