Chronic Anger and Rage
Yesterday I dealt with the Epicurean idea of justified anger. The next two forms of anger are pathological and represent a loss of reason, that is, they are irrational (even if sometimes they have natural beginnings).
The second type of anger is chronic or addictive anger. This is not natural, but a disease of the soul. Its continuity shows how irrational it is, preventing one from enjoying the pleasures of life, and responsible for many evils.
Like depression (which is chronic sadness), chronic anger is a destructive disease of the soul. Obsessive anger is often about revenge – persistent, uncontrolled, intense and violent. One symptom of this form of anger is that it’s oftentimes carried to the grave; another is that parents often teach it to their children, and their children’s children, leaving a sad legacy of violence, miscommunication and lack of love.
The third type is rage, an excessive level of fury that deserves a name other than anger. In this case, the person enjoys imagining or enacting the punishment of the enemy. Philodemus describes this fury as wild and irrational: that is, its intensity is not deserved and doesn’t correspond with the initial pang of indignation, as we would expect with rational anger. This madness is temporary, yet the sufferer punishes himself in the worst way, so it deserves treatment.
However, Philodemus says that even the wise experience it sometimes as “a brief fury and, so to speak, aborted”. That is, the sage is a natural being subject to the natural conditions of mortality and pain, but does not become insane because of his or her anger or consider it a weakness. The important thing, again, is to subject these impulses of indignation and anger to reason and the hedonic calculus.
The wrath of the gods
In one passage, Philodemus talks about how some men mimic the wrath of the gods. It’s reminiscent of how modern preachers of fear-based religion still cite God’s anger to justify man-made and natural disasters. He is not exactly arguing that belief in mad gods produces neurosis (perhaps he sees a correlation, not a cause), but thinks that fables can legitimize evils. He therefore blames the poets (or the prophets) for having imagined the wrath of a grotesque god who sends pestilence, kills innocent children and orders genocide.
On the other hand, Philodemus also imagines popular religion, possibly, as a poetic function, and therefore as art or form of self-expression, one that could have some therapeutic use and help diagnose the ills of the soul. This, he thinks, might be a valid way of understanding religion from a secular perspective.
Just a few thoughts on Philodemus’ views on religion. It’s certainly true that religion can legitimise both good and evil. For instance, you could read the story of the Good Samaritan, and as a result, go out and help the poor. Or you could read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and conclude that genocide of a people deemed ‘evil’ enough is justified. Religion is man-made, and therefore it expresses both the best parts and the worst parts of human nature.
I definitely agree that religion has a therapeutic use. That’s why it tends to be more popular in poorer countries (the US being a notable exception.) It’s also why Marx concluded that in the ideal Communist state where all needs are provided for, there wouldn’t be a use for religion, so it would naturally wither away. But this is my criticism of religion. It’s a bit like telling your child that the bully at school will eventually be punished because of karma, or because a magical fairly will come along and curse them. It may comfort the child, but at the end of the day, it is a lie. Telling people that the world is harsh and brutal, and the good guys don’t necessarily win may not be what they want to hear, but we must tell them nonetheless.