Blameless, Constructive, and Political Anger

Abstract

Scholars of the emotions maintain that all anger requires an object of blame. In order to be angry, many writers argue, one must believe than an actor has done serious damage to something that one values. Yet an individual may be angered without blaming another. This kind of emotion, called situational anger, does not entail a corresponding object of blame. Situational anger can be a useful force in public life, enabling citizens to draw attention to the seriousness of social or political problems, without necessarily vilifying political officials.

The Emotional Ambivalence of Socially Just Teaching: A Case Study of a Novice Urban Schoolteacher

“…what could stop the cycle of violence, they responded that they couldn't imagine a world without violence, offering several reasons for their answer. Emotion, particularly anger, was one of the main sources of violence suggested by students: What is interesting in this excerpt is the emotional ambivalence that was being problematized by the students; that is, anger feeds the cycle of violence, yet another form of anger, what Aristotle called moral anger (Stocker, 1996), motivates people to raise their voices against injustice and can be used to inspire transformation and social change (Lorde, 1984;Spelman, 1989;Swaine, 1996). The students began to acknowledge not only the role of emotion in violence but also its role in political movements.…”

Gefühlvolle Entscheidung und entscheidende Gefühle

“…) oder Parteien und Politiker (Swaine 1996;Holmes 2004) ein wichtiges Instrument dar, um ein bestimmtes Kollektivgut salient zu machen. argumentiert -neue Ziele in der individuellen Präferenzordnung verankern, zu collective action mobilisieren und diese als Handlungsoption Erfolg versprechend erscheinen lassen.…”

Introduction

“…However, it is not politicized anger at injustice that is encouraged, but a 'harmless' (re)direction of angry feelings so that individual resolution can quickly ensue (see Craib, 1994). This arguably depoliticized understanding of anger is closely related to political anger because both rely partly on the Aristotelian assertion that only 'dolts' do not express anger when they should (Spelman, 1989;Swaine, 1996). Audre Lorde (1984), Peter Lyman (1981: 62), and Elizabeth Spelman (1989: 268) have used Aristotle's notion of the righteousness of anger in trying to understand it as fundamental in political responses to injustice.…”