Monday, December 21, 2015

Righteous Indignation

That book by William Irvine posits an interesting theory about anger. Anger is like a virus that can stay dormant within us for an indefinite period of time and flare up when we least expect it. Usually, most of us are sane enough to realize that anger is not enjoyable. We know it only serves to aggravate any situation and to stress us out. The one exception is the anger that comes from righteous indignation.

I have written in an earlier post about how when we are angry we are so sure we are right and then in another, a rejoinder from a friend who added that when we are angry we are also sure we have been wronged.

Righteous indignation stems from this feeling of having been wronged. It hits the most rational of us in irrational ways. We feel insulted. William Irvine has suggested a rather radical solution to this problem. He claims that for the last few years, he has become a collector of insults. His technique involves looking for insults so he can analyze them to try and figure out what exactly makes one angry.

Now there's a thought.

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