On anger

THESE DAYS we are witnessing a lot of anger expressed everywhere and in every manner, much of which I can understand and empathize with. But it also brings to mind what Aristotle said: “Getting angry? That is easy. Anyone can get angry. But to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way—that is not within everybody’s power, nor is it easy.”

We are angry for very different reasons and in many different ways. The only thing that is common among us is how easily we can get angry.

That we are all angry also shows that we all care about something. There is something that matters to each one of us. And that something we assume to be good, at which everything we say and do is aimed.

Alas, Aristotle again tells us, that’s only as far as we can agree, that we all aim at “some good.” Beyond mere verbal agreement, we differ on what this good is. Can there possibly be only one good, one that is truly good for all, not just incidentally, but insofar as we are all human?

Aristotle suggests that we look at our ergon—that is, our function. For anything at all is judged to be good on the basis of its function. A knife is good not just if it cuts, but if it cuts well, and is sturdy enough to be used again and again for that function. A good pianist is not just one who knows how to play the piano, but who plays it well.

And what is the one function that is unique to humans? It cannot be just being physically healthy, or having that 4 percent body fat. That is our nutritive and vegetative function—something we share with plants and animals, and therefore not uniquely human. It is not a coincidence that a person whose body is otherwise healthy but whose brain no longer functions is called a “living vegetable.”

But one does not have to have brain damage to be like that. If all I did in my life is hit the gym and be obsessed about my figure, but never care to read a book, or try to write, or be curious enough to study or learn something, I may indeed succeed in getting that perfect body, but I would simply be living a vegetable life.

Vegetables are good, of course. They make us healthy. But as humans we are called upon to be more than just vegetables.

Aristotle thus locates our unique human function in our soul, specifically in the rational part of the soul. Thus, the good that we humans must aim at must concern our soul. If I find myself involved in an ugly road altercation, I can get so carried away by my instincts and emotions that I might end up in a fit of road rage. But I can also use that rational part of my soul, and tell myself that it’s not the right extent of anger that I act on, and choose to stay calm.

Aristotle thus arrives at a definition of what doing well as a human being means—that is to say, what happiness means. (That is why when someone asks me, How are you doing? I respond by saying, I’m doing well, and I also mean I’m happy.)

Happiness is this: the activity of the soul that manifests excellence. It is not enough simply to have a soul, for as humans we all have a soul. But our soul must not be left idle. Our soul must be active—active in such a way that it manifests excellence, and active for the purpose of achieving the highest good.

Happiness is neither a feeling nor a state. It is something we do in such a way that it manifests the best in us—that is to say, our human excellence. The other word for excellence is virtue. That is why someone who plays the violin excellently, for example, is called a violin virtuoso.

These days when it’s so easy to be angry, we must ask: What is it that which we assume to be good, that makes us all angry, and which we are so convinced we should aim at (and makes us angry if the others don’t get it)? Is it something that brings the worst in us, or the best in us? Does our anger manifest virtue, or—its opposite—vice? Are we aiming for human excellence? The best that we can be?

For Aristotle, the good toward which we must aim is more like a moving target. We cannot hit it with a single shot. It is a lifelong process. We keep doing the right thing over and over again, until we get as close to the target as possible. One does not become a just person overnight. One becomes a just person after many, many years of doing just acts, when justice (instead of injustice) becomes second nature to us.

There are many human virtues. But for Aristotle, justice is the complete virtue, the perfect virtue, the virtue of all virtues. That is why the good person is also the just person. There is no shortcut to justice. One becomes just only by repeatedly doing just acts. In turn, only the just person can do just acts.

Remember the Tankman in Tiananmen Square, who faced a line of military tanks without noise, and carrying nothing but what looked like mere grocery bags? More recently, a woman named Tess Asplund faced neo-Nazis in Sweden all by herself, raising her fist in protest, and was reported to have said, “The Nazis are very angry, so I am a little ‘Oh sh*t, maybe I shouldn’t have done that, I want peace and quiet.’ These guys are big and crazy. It’s a mixed feeling, but I am trying to stay calm.”

Imagine if the collective energies we spend getting angry these days—the wrong kind, the vicious and not the virtuous kind—imagine if those energies were instead used for social justice, that the land that belongs to all of us may be set free to feed all of us, and no one, least of all those who till the land, may go hungry. Imagine what that kind of just anger can do.

Let us then aim all our efforts, all our energies and all our dreams toward that which will bring out the best in us. Let us aim for what is just. Let us aim to be just.

Come Election Day, let us choose what is just. If we succeed in doing so, we can hope for a future where we will all be doing well.

Remmon E. Barbaza is with the Department of Philosophy, School of Humanities, Ateneo de Manila University.