Alessandra Tanesini August 2019 The Age of Anger

Alessandra Tanesini August 2019

§ The Age of Anger? § Anger as an emotion and reactive attitude § Angry Speech and Hate Speech § Arrogant Anger as status anger § The abuses of anger: humiliation and intimidation § Liberatory Anger as Moral Indignation § The uses of anger: prudential, epistemic, moral § Epistemic Injustice and the abuses of muting and silencing anger

§ Anger appears to dominate public debate. § Witness the anger expressed by Trump supports at Democratic Congresswomen of colour § The vitriol over trans-issues on-line and in philosophy circles § In the UK, heated debates over Brexit

§ Anger is a “desire, accompanied by [mental and physical] distress, for apparent retaliation because of an apparent slight that was directed, without justification, against oneself or those near to one” (Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1378 a 30 -33). § Anger is a negative emotion in response to a perceived slight § Anger includes: § Feelings of heat and sometimes aggression § Thoughts that one (or those dear to one) have been slighted § Tendencies to get the other to acknowledge the harm that they have caused, make amends, sometimes to get even, to seek revenge.

§ Anger evaluates the situation as “angersome” (Shoemaker, 2015) § A situation is angersome when one (or those one holds dear) has been slighted § A slight occurs when someone has done something intentionally and without due regard for another person’s needs or interest. § Anger is fitting if and only if § The slight has occurred § The emotion is proportional to the slight § Anger might be fitting without being justified

§ Anger is a reactive attitude § Anger is a responsibility-response because to be angry at a person is to hold that person accountable § Anger as an emotion has a communicative function (Mc. Namara, 2015). § What anger communicates: § You have slighted me (or those dear to me) § This failure is for me a serious matter § Anger purports to communicate how things are rather than the state of mind of the angry person. § Anger communicates this message by purporting to elicit self-directed anger (guilt) in its target § Expressed anger is also a form of moral address. A call that demands a response in the form of an acknowledgment.

§ Anger is not always uncontrollable and involuntary. § Anger can be deliberate and controlled. § Thus, anger can be used intentionally to communicate one’s disapproval.

ANGRY SPEECH, HATE SPEECH AND HATEFUL SPEECH § Angry speech is not the same as hate speech. § Hate speech is useful conceived as threatening speech (or a subset thereof) § Angry speech need not be threatening when it seeks and acknowledge or an apology. § Angry speech need not covey hate § Hate unlike anger is a global emotion § Anger is compatible with caring for or loving the person one is angry with. § Hate is not compatible with love

§ Status anger as anger in response to a perceived slight about status § Status anger is often a reaction to the thwarting of a desire about social status or about positional goods § Status anger can be effective (payback can restore one’s possession of the positional good) § Anger is an implicit acknowledgment of vulnerability to threats § Status anger is often a manifestation of superbia because it is a means to gain superiority by doing others down

§ Status anger involves a disposition to get even by lowering others’ social status. § Status anger is manifested in debate by behaviours designed to § intimidate (shouting down, dominating floor) § humiliate (mocking, dismissing, etc).

§ Anger is also a characteristic response of the subordinated to the slights and wrongs of subordination. § Anger in this context often takes the form of moral indignation § Member of minority groups and especially feminists of colour have long argued for the value of anger (e. g. , Lorde, 1981; Lugones, 2003).

BURNING INJUSTICES, BURNING ANGER § “I speak out of direct and particular anger at an academic conference, and a white woman says, “Tell me how you feel but don’t say it too harshly or I cannot hear you. ” But is it my manner that keeps her from hearing, or the threat of a message that her life may change? ” (Lorde, “The Uses of Anger) § “There is not a Negro alive who does not have this rage in his blood—one has the choice, merely, of living with it consciously or surrendering to it. As for me, this fever has recurred in me, and does, and will until the day I die. ” (Baldwin, Notes of A Native Son”).

§ Anger as efficacious in the fight against oppression § It supplies energy and motivation but is a burdened virtue (Tessman, 2005) § It scares and pushes away individuals who are dangerous for one (Malatino, 2019) § It creates communities because anger is, like fear, contagious

§ Fitting emotions are accurate representations of the situation. § Emotions can thus promote knowledge by being evidence for belief § Anger, like other moral emotions, directs attention to relevant evidence of a slight. § Anger can thus alert us that something is wrong and can do this even we lack the hermeneutic resources to understand the wrong. § Untrained anger is often not fitting. § It exhibits a tendency to record false positives § Anger might be difficult to train (Lorde 1981; Pettigrove 2014).

§ I am angry at you because you interrupted me whilst I was talking. § I give you a filthy look and say: “do not interrupt me” in an angry tone. § I demand that you do not interrupt but in being angry I also intend you (A) to acknowledge that you have slighted me; (B) to recognise my intention (A); and (C) acknowledge that you have slighted me partly in virtue of the recognition that is my intention § The acknowledgement of a slight is not just the acquisition of a sincere belief that one has committed a slight. § Acknowledgement also requires understanding, which is made possible by contagion, of what it feels like to be slighted § Finally acknowledgment must be a response to a call and thus a recognition of my entitlement to make demands on you.

§ Anger is muted when it is silenced and thus treated as mere venting or over-reaction rather than as a moral address. § Anger is suppressed when it is self- smothered so that it is not expressed but frequently inhibited.

MUTING ANGER AS CLAIMANT INJUSTICE § When anger is muted when it is silenced due to lack of uptake § Moral address becomes venting or overreacting § One is thus deprived of the ability to address some moral claims to others § Claimant injustice occurs when one is, because of prejudice, systematically and wrongly deprived of the ability to hold others responsible (Carbonell, 2019).

§ Calls for civility might be attempts to reign in hateful speech § More often they seek to promote selfsmothering of angry speech

§ Repeated self-suppression of anger might lead to the dampening down of anger because of § Rationalisation to reduce cognitive dissonance § Sheer depression § Dampening of anger damages one’s capacities to fully understand one’s situation § Rationalisation lowers self-confidence and atrophies some intellectual capacities § Denies one of a vital cue to develop understanding when conceptual resources are not already in place § This is an hermeneutic injustice since it harms one’s capacities to develop appropriate conceptual resources