What first drew me to Śāntideva was his critique of anger. I had students read him for a tutorial course on comparative ethics, and one student was shocked by his almost total criticism of anger as an emotion. “What about righteous anger?” she asked. I replied: “according to this text, I don’t think there’s any such thing as righteous anger.” The more I thought about this teaching afterward, the more profound it seemed: the number of times in my life I’d been glad I got angry, I could count on the fingers of one hand.
I would still tend to agree with Śāntideva against that criticism; I don’t see the righteousness of any cause as justifying anger. But there’s another common modern criticism of Śāntideva’s position that I think has more force. Namely: is it even possible to get rid of anger, as Śāntideva recommends we do? Don’t you just wind up repressing it, so that it comes back as a passive aggression that’s ultimately more destructive than the original anger?
This is the kind of objection we would likely associate with Freud, though one sees versions of it in Nietzsche’s attacks on morality – moral blame and criticism, for Nietzsche, is its own form of passive aggression, a less healthy outlet for anger than angry words or blows. Does their objection defeat Śāntideva?
I think it’s possible to put the two together. Śāntideva is not criticizing only the outward manifestations of anger, after all. Anger expressed in the passive-aggressive’s sighs and eyerolls is still anger, just like anger expressed in screams and fists. Anger that has been repressed hasn’t really been eradicated in the way that Śāntideva advocates.
The question remains: is it possible to genuinely eradicate anger, as opposed to merely repressing it? I suspect that the answer may be no – in the context of the hubbub of everyday life. (Śāntideva tells us to be monks, and the monk’s single-minded focus on virtue may make it a more serious possibility.) Nevertheless, I think it’s still possible to reduce anger in a way that does not repress it. Sometimes anger really does go away without resurfacing – through talking it through, through understanding its causes, through meditative introspection (all practices that Śāntideva recommends). The trick is in distinguishing the two; and that may be something you can only learn through practice.
(I don’t think Śāntideva actually says any of this, mind you, and I wish he said more; but I do think this position is compatible with what he does say.)
Hia Amod – sorry for the long absence and many thanks for the honorable mention a while back; I’m still striving to make that voice in the wilderness a bit louder.
Concerning anger, H.H. the Dalai Lama’s book on the topic was one of the first I read as an undergrad studying Buddhism. Even the D.L. says he gets angry from time to time. But I think the difference between him and most of is having the mental clarity to see the anger as it is and not react to it/allow it to take over.
Depending on our own individual wiring (or bijas), anger might simply be something that ‘comes up’ throughout our lives. And yet meditation practices that re-wire our brains toward a caring disposition and those that simply increase awareness are sure to reduce anger. As one of my teachers is fond of saying, “through meditation you do not change the mind, you change your relationship to the mind.”
I’m not sure if that adds anything to your thoughts, but I figured I’d toss it out.
Hi Justin – good to have you back around! I remain skeptical about interpreting Buddhism as Kantian, but as always I’m excited and eager to see what you come up with.
On the topic at hand: the DL’s tip is quite a helpful one, I think. To see anger as anger – objectively, one might say – is something that can help with passive aggression as well. The majority of the time that we’re being passive-aggressive, we’re not aware of it – we try and make ourselves believe we’re not really angry. I think the problem is we want to see ourselves as being better than we are, thinking we’re bodhisattvas when we’re not. That’s what makes this advice hard to follow: if you’re trying to reduce your anger, you don’t want to believe that you’re still feeling it.
Nietzsche would see the impugning of righteous anger, the human version of the wrath of God as the invention of a clerisy in thrall to the ruling class of an hierarchical society. ‘Yes ye little ones supress the emotion which is bigger than you are, let resentment of your masters be the cause of harmless muttering’.
In sadhana our own irascibility might be used against our other faults as a readily available free floating energy. Reidy you fool, you’re at it again! Cultural Note: Passive Aggression seems to be a North American affliction. Perhaps it has to do with the favoured virtue of being pleasant as it comprises the twin goals of expression of irritation and pleasantry. ‘Woe to you should your testicles descend’.
I’ve been wondering about the extent to which passive aggression is culture-bound. I certainly don’t think it’s limited to North America. Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther, from eighteenth-century Germany, seems to me to depict a passive-aggressive character, never actually trying to win over the woman he wants but instead hurting everyone by killing himself.
Beyond the West, I wonder. I don’t know the details of life in other cultures enough to be able to say. Passive aggression does sometimes seem to be one of the natural ways women get what they want, in societies where they are not supposed to express what they want openly. A cross-cultural study of women’s social behaviour would be very interesting.
Amod, this was a fascinating post, namely as a critique of a critique of a critique of anger.
Whether righteous anger can exist probably depends on who is benefiting from the anger.
I certainly hope to follow your blog more closely.
Best regards.
Thanks, Evan, and welcome to the blog. I hope you stick around and I’d love to hear your comments. Critique of critique of critique is likely to happen a lot here!
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Amod:
Not so much that ‘passive aggression’ does not occur but that therapy jargon is out of favour. It has an alienating, objectifying aspect to it. I believe it is more useful in dealing with individuals to stay with the personal. Thus the other is sulking, non-cooperative and giving you the silent treatment.
That’s an interesting question you’re pointing out, Michael – basically, to what extent should we theorize and generalize about our personal lives? My sense is that passive aggression also includes surprise lashing out – angry outbursts that could have been avoided if the angry person had spoken up about their wants before the anger got worse. That’s a different thing from sulking in silence, which is in turn a different thing from refusing to cooperate or help another person out. But each of these, it seems to me, has a common cause: a refusal to engage in potential conflict, which has worse consequences than the conflict itself. I think it’s worth identifying passive aggression as this common cause. The Buddha said we need to discover the causes of suffering in order to eradicate it; passive aggression seems to me like a real cause.
(Incidentally, to a certain extent, I might actually be ready to classify the mainstream culture of central Thailand, where I lived for six months, as passive-aggressive in its orientation: one is always expected to smile and never supposed to raise one’s voice in anger, but violent outbursts are common. If memory serves, the Thai crime rate is very low on almost everything except manslaughter, where it’s one of the highest.)
Amod,
To clarify: Passive Aggressive behaviour comes in various forms, it exists qua sulking, non-co-operation etc. It takes some individual, specific, substantial, and personal form. Passive Aggression is always instantiated in some way and we can deal with it in the way that it presents itself. To say that passive aggression exists in the same sense as sulking for instance, may I tentatively suggest, verges on a category error.
This is the point that I was making, not a plea for sharing or anything of that sort. We chaps don’t go in for that sort of thing!
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