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Daily Advice 1.06.21
Jan. 6th, 2021 10:10 amAnother note on Anger from Seneca.
Among faithful Catholics, for whom the confession of sins to a priest is necessary for salvation, there is an issue known as scrupulosity. This is the process of constant self-judgment and self-recrimination which can drive a person insane if it goes too far.
Now, whether the Catholic Church, by mandating confession, sets people up for this sort of mental disorder is beside the point. If you look at manuals on how to make a good confession, scrupulosity is often addressed, and the would-be penitent reminded that they do not have to confess, as sins, those fleeting thoughts and emotions which enter their minds in response to external stimuli.
The sin is not a sudden feeling or thought. The sin is acting upon the sudden feeling or thought.
***
I've noticed that the comments have dropped off as I've pushed this particular piece of Seneca's, and I'm going to turn to something else soon. But there are at least two reasons I want to work with this one.
The first is straightforward enough. I think Seneca is right about the passions in general and anger particularly. When I was growing up, when a family member would fly off the handle and go on a screaming fit, it would be attributed to their "Italian temper." Later on in life, I heard the same things about "Irish tempers" and "Polish tempers." On a similar note, I've heard the following reasons given for drunkenness: Irish, Polish, German, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Korean. I conclude that people simply like making excuses for their bad behavior. (It's worth noting that in almost every case, the individuals in question were American, at least according to their passports.) I don't want to be that way.
The second is that anger, as I've written before, our society is designed to lead us about by our passions. PR men, advertisers, and political hacks use the instincts toward rage, fear, lust and sociability to overcome our reasoning minds and lead us toward whatever behaviors they like. They use tv shows, commercials, memes, and social media tricks like "Downvotes" and "Like buttons." And we end up like cattle, led to despise certain groups and behaviors, support this or that candidate, and repeat the words of others instead of thinking our own thoughts.
Just a few minutes ago, I looked at Facebook, and I saw the following "conversation." One woman posted a lengthy account purporting to be the story of a man who received the coronavirus vaccine and had a very bad adverse reaction. Another woman commented "I am grateful to have received my vaccine this week. Trust the science." Now, "Trust the science" is not even grammatical, since "The science" is not a discrete thing, preferably a person, in which one can place trust and distrust. Moreover, I can guarantee that the woman who insisted that we "trust the science" has not spent so much as 30 seconds looking at or considering any of the scientific research around the vaccine, nor would she even be able to do so if she wanted to. And, of course, the words "Trust the science" are not her own. It's a slogan which was probably cooked up by the kinds of think-tanks whose job it is to produce easily-marketable talking points. She either heard it on TV or read it on the internet somewhere.
Of course, the first woman is just as guilty. Her part in the conversation consisted of re-posting someone else's words, verbatim, without comment. Does she have her own thoughts on them? Who knows. In both cases, you have human beings acting not even like animals, because animals at least make their own yowls, cries and growls. They're acting, instead, like robots. When you were a kid, did you ever turn two wind-up toys loose on the kitchen floor, to try to get them to "fight" each other? That's virtually all that most of us are these days. Little toys, wound up and set against each other by people with the minds of children.
In the name of God, let's try and be better than that! "If you can control yourself, no one else can control you."
How often we seem to grow angry with Clodius for banishing Cicero, with Antony for killing him! Who is not aroused against the arms which Marius took up, against the proscription which Sulla used? Who is not incensed against Theodotus and Achillas, and the child himself who dared an unchildish crime? Singing sometimes stirs us, and quickened rhythm, and the well-known blare of the War-god's trumpets; our minds are perturbed by a shocking picture and by the melancholy sight of punishment even when it is entirely just; in the same way we smile when others smile, we are saddened by a throng of mourners, and are thrown into a ferment by the struggles of others. Such sensations, however, are no more anger than that is sorrow which furrows the brow at sight of a mimic shipwreck, no more anger than that is fear which thrills our minds when we read how Hannibal after Cannae beset the walls of Rome, but they are all emotions of a mind that would prefer not to be so affected; they are not passions, but the beginnings that are preliminary to passions. So, too, the warrior in the midst of peace, wearing now his civilian dress, will prick up his ears at the blast of a trumpet, and army horses are made restive by the clatter of arms. It is said that Alexander, when Xenophantus played the flute, reached for his weapons. None of these things which move the mind through the agency of chance should be called passions; the mind suffers them, so to speak, rather than causes them. Passion, consequently, does not consist in being moved by the impressions that are presented to the mind, but in surrendering to these and following up such a chance prompting.
Among faithful Catholics, for whom the confession of sins to a priest is necessary for salvation, there is an issue known as scrupulosity. This is the process of constant self-judgment and self-recrimination which can drive a person insane if it goes too far.
Now, whether the Catholic Church, by mandating confession, sets people up for this sort of mental disorder is beside the point. If you look at manuals on how to make a good confession, scrupulosity is often addressed, and the would-be penitent reminded that they do not have to confess, as sins, those fleeting thoughts and emotions which enter their minds in response to external stimuli.
The sin is not a sudden feeling or thought. The sin is acting upon the sudden feeling or thought.
***
I've noticed that the comments have dropped off as I've pushed this particular piece of Seneca's, and I'm going to turn to something else soon. But there are at least two reasons I want to work with this one.
The first is straightforward enough. I think Seneca is right about the passions in general and anger particularly. When I was growing up, when a family member would fly off the handle and go on a screaming fit, it would be attributed to their "Italian temper." Later on in life, I heard the same things about "Irish tempers" and "Polish tempers." On a similar note, I've heard the following reasons given for drunkenness: Irish, Polish, German, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Korean. I conclude that people simply like making excuses for their bad behavior. (It's worth noting that in almost every case, the individuals in question were American, at least according to their passports.) I don't want to be that way.
The second is that anger, as I've written before, our society is designed to lead us about by our passions. PR men, advertisers, and political hacks use the instincts toward rage, fear, lust and sociability to overcome our reasoning minds and lead us toward whatever behaviors they like. They use tv shows, commercials, memes, and social media tricks like "Downvotes" and "Like buttons." And we end up like cattle, led to despise certain groups and behaviors, support this or that candidate, and repeat the words of others instead of thinking our own thoughts.
Just a few minutes ago, I looked at Facebook, and I saw the following "conversation." One woman posted a lengthy account purporting to be the story of a man who received the coronavirus vaccine and had a very bad adverse reaction. Another woman commented "I am grateful to have received my vaccine this week. Trust the science." Now, "Trust the science" is not even grammatical, since "The science" is not a discrete thing, preferably a person, in which one can place trust and distrust. Moreover, I can guarantee that the woman who insisted that we "trust the science" has not spent so much as 30 seconds looking at or considering any of the scientific research around the vaccine, nor would she even be able to do so if she wanted to. And, of course, the words "Trust the science" are not her own. It's a slogan which was probably cooked up by the kinds of think-tanks whose job it is to produce easily-marketable talking points. She either heard it on TV or read it on the internet somewhere.
Of course, the first woman is just as guilty. Her part in the conversation consisted of re-posting someone else's words, verbatim, without comment. Does she have her own thoughts on them? Who knows. In both cases, you have human beings acting not even like animals, because animals at least make their own yowls, cries and growls. They're acting, instead, like robots. When you were a kid, did you ever turn two wind-up toys loose on the kitchen floor, to try to get them to "fight" each other? That's virtually all that most of us are these days. Little toys, wound up and set against each other by people with the minds of children.
In the name of God, let's try and be better than that! "If you can control yourself, no one else can control you."
