The Price of Anger

IT was in the winter of 1889, the year Lafcadio Hearn was in New York, and we were talking as usual until late into the night with great earnestness and ardor concerning all the things there are. He was about forty years old at the time, and I was in the glorious twenties.

‘There is nothing,’ I exclaimed, ‘eternally right or eternally wrong!’

‘Oh, yes, there is!’ said he, and this with finality, although his statements were usually offered in the form of a suggestion. ‘One thing is always wrong—always: to cause suffering in others for the purpose of gratifying one’s own pleasure, — that is everlastingly wrong.’ He usually ended his sentences with a rising inflection, by way of asking his companion if he did not agree, but I remember clearly the intense conviction with which he said this. ‘Once,’ he continued, ‘I was in Tennessee, walking along a country road, and a man passed me. Some distance ahead was a kitten, also walking along the road, —a pretty little kitten, that was doing no harm to anybody or anything. When the man overtook it — he must have been crazed by anger — he picked it up, and just for his own satisfaction and pleasure, he blinded it — and threw the poor creature away.’

‘That is hard to excuse,’ I said.

‘Oh, I “m sure that to cause suffering for one’s own pleasure is always wrong. I ran after the man as fast, as I could and I fired all the four shots that were left in the revolver that I had with me, but I missed him. You see, with my defective sight I can’t, see to shoot, and have to beware lest I stumble. It has been,’ he continued with a whimsical sigh, ‘one of the great regrets of my life that I did not kill him.’

In all the years that have passed since then, I have been unable to justify that Evil Thing, the infliction of an injury or pain to gratify the pleasure of him who causes it. It is the substance of vindictiveness, and we may well fear it. This thing is not anger, but it is the sequel of it.

Now, anger is of vital importance; it is a remarkable and necessary attribute of human nature. It is not always an evil. There is great merit in righteous anger. It is a normal reaction; just as normal as the processes of digestion. Without the capacity for anger we become inert, flabby, —anybody’s meat . Anger is one of the great human passions, often useful, although more often loaded with a power to destroy. It is also at times an enjoyable experience. A real good fight is a delight, no matter what the old ladies may say. Moreover, it is wholly idle to demand of men and boys that they shall not fight. The joy of conflict is a genuine joy.

I remember once a man did me an injury. In point of fact he was looking after his own interests, and his interests conflicted with mine. He did not act according to the rules of the game as I understood them, but then, my understanding was not large. We had a little encounter, and there was a resounding contact of my right, fist with his neck, whereupon he bounded backward in a series of beautiful curves, over a distance of nearly twenty feet. He arose and went his way, and had his way, — and it was all years and years ago. Since he had his way, and inasmuch as I am not of a repining habit, there should be no ill-will between us. But the joy of that punch tingles still, and I must say it is a comfort.

As we grow older the desire to fight dies out, but the reason is a physical one. I would rather have for mine enemy a young man in the vigor of his strength than an old man in his anger.

Suppose you have a big responsibility, and along comes somebody with the real spirit of evil, the lust to injure or to cause suffering for his own pleasure, and proceeds to undo the good thing you have been trying to do. You become angry, naturally and righteously, and you fight to overcome his evil design. Then you fight some more, doing evil unto this enemy until you are satisfied. He may have been satisfied some time before.

Anger also seems the only way to rouse some people. We young fellows who used to read the books of Walter Besant as they appeared remember All Sorts and Conditions of Men, and the spirited girl who owned the brewery. The girl, you may recall, came to the conclusion that the hopeless, dull, lethargic people of Mile End Road must be made angry as an introduction to thought. Dear little prophetess she was, full of ginger and zip and go, but

— here I fear I shall offend, nevertheless it is out of my heart that I say it

— I believe she was wrong. Not in her People’s Palace and the opportunities she offered, but only in the little kink in her mind to the effect that a dull and stupid man or woman is better in anger than in inertia. Yellow Journalism is born of this fatuous idea, that people must be roused in any way and at any cost, — as though madness were better than sleep!

Here is where the professor and I disagreed. ‘Anything,’ he exclaimed, ‘is better than inertia!’ He called my attention to cities, villages, communities, where the greatest need of nearly every male inhabitant is a good kick, to rouse him. I am free to say that I should well enjoy being the instrument of grace to accomplish this deed of mercy in some communities, but I am not at all sure that it would make for public welfare — quite apart from the consideration of what might happen to me. We argued around in a ring, and concluded where we started. The differences were rather of temperament than of logic; I being of easy-going disposition while the professor, when thoroughly roused, has all the calm and docility of a charging two-horned rhinoceros, — but no more.

Let us look this thing square in the face. It is dangerous to rouse people to anger, because, somewhere in the process, anger goes over into vindictiveness, and vindictiveness is wholly bad. There is no such thing as righteous vindictiveness. The evil and the danger are because of this cleavage that takes place as anger proceeds from what seems to be a passion for justice into a lust to injure and to destroy. The dividing line is not clear; sometimes vindictiveness begins at the very beginning of the experience, sometimes it occurs only after a long time, and sometimes it does not occur at all. In general, however, it may be said, without laying down any hard and fast rule, that the lower the order of civilization, the sooner the creature of anger desires to strike. Whether this be at the cause or not, does not seem important, — he is animated only by the lust to destroy. The higher the order of civilization, the longer people retain their heads and use judgment before giving way to anger.

Anger inhibits judgment and paralyzes the reasoning faculties. Why, then, incite the crowd to anger to the end that it may bring its insanity to bear upon public affairs? Those who do this thing are not necessarily of evil intent; the best adjective that I can find to describe them is naughty, used in the archaic sense.

Why do so many of us resent the orator, silver-tongued and spell-binding? Because he hypnotizes us and, for the time being, puts into disuse our own independent, reasoning faculties. We know that our conclusions are not to be trusted if we cannot think things over, using our best judgment. It is the same with the crowd: if roused only by appeals to its hatred and wrath, so that its lust to injure and destroy becomes an immediate sequel to its awakening, who can expect it to judge with sanity, to order its affairs so that permanent good may come?

In affairs of state the only safe appeal — we may say the only honest appeal — is to the intelligence. In matters of government, an explosion of the emotions has results very similar to those of an explosion of dynamite; and we are nearly unanimous in the belief that government by dynamite is not desirable.

As a nation we are confronted with many serious problems, — and it is probably good for us that this is so. But we shall not solve our problems with a hurrah that the Great American People can and does meet every emergency with consummate skill and abounding wisdom. Such phrases do very well for the orator, but they will not help those of us who are conscientious in our thinking.

The Constitution of the United States provides that public affairs shall be under the control of three departments of government: legislative, executive, and judicial. Since it was written there have arisen innumerable social problems formerly regarded as personal. With changing conditions they have ceased to be personal; they have become public. The machinery to provide for them may be in the Constitution as it was written; very probably it is; it is doubtful if the amendments help us much in this matter. But the whole subject, the whole business, is new; we do not know how to go about it. We may be agreed that a thing is bad, but we are at odds how to stop it.

We listen to orators at election time and they tell us that if we vote for Brown, Jones, or Robinson, he will get after those fellows who are keeping us all from growing prosperous and happy, and that as soon as he is elected the Golden Age will be at hand. The fortunate candidate then confides to us that what we want is a thing to be provided by the legislature, and we suffer vain regret that we did not look at the bottom of our ticket when we voted. But we take fresh heart and next year we elect some Talk Bacillus to Congress or to the State legislature — who continues to talk. He does not know the difference between constructive thought and what he calls an ‘Appeal to the People.’

In despair we turn to the bar, and its members tell us how defectively statutes are drawn, and lead us, somehow, to believe that our welfare is in the hands of the lawyers, — the while the courts continue to admit to membership of the bar, to be officers of the courts, men with neither conscience nor character.

All three departments of government claim jurisdiction over social questions, and neither they nor we " know how to handle them — yet. Really, it calls for the wisdom of an Aristotle to point the way. We are groping along, sometimes with wisdom, and sometimes with total blindness to the fact that there is such a thing as human nature. The Pure Food Law looks after the labels on our medicines, but there is no label to distinguish thought from demagogy; and some of our men most capable of usefulness utter the one and spit the other at us at one and the same time.

What we need is discrimination. Discrimination presupposes judgment, and judgment presupposes wisdom; and, God help us, we have not wisdom beyond our intelligence, our common intelligence, the thin thread of it that is common to us all, whereby we work together. But I believe that in the rule of things that has been provided for us, there is a way towards greater order and enlightenment. The way is to keep our heads and our temper.

To meet the great tasks that are before us, we require all of our intelligence, and we must be sound and wholesome of mind. We must proceed in order. The price of anger is failure.