This article is an extract from The Stoic Gym’s How to be a Stoic When You Don’t Know How.

The misunderstood question of emotions

One element on which Stoicism is often misunderstood is the question of emotions – there is the idea that Stoics should strive not to feel any. In his book De Ira (On Anger), Seneca explains that this is impossible – emotions are not in our control. Rather, what is in our control is what we do about them, how we strive to overcome negative ones. Seneca writes,

The difference here between the Epicurean and our own school is this: our wise man feels his troubles but overcomes them, while their wise man does not even feel them. - Seneca, Letters from a Stoic IX

A passion with no positive outcome

So what does Seneca tell us about anger? First, that it is a passion that has no positive outcome. It destroys everything on its passage and prevents us form using precisely that which differentiates us from animals: our ability to reason and use our judgment.

Men are not totally themselves when under the spell of anger: they not only lose their mind, but they also become ugly, they forget even their closest bonds.

No plague has cost mankind so much. You will see murders and poisonings, mutual accusations, cities sacked, entire nations annihilated, their leaders sold at auction, houses burned with torchlight. - Seneca, Letters from a Stoic IX

What can we do about it

Second, Seneca tries to determine if we can do anything about it. He compares anger to an illness, with its symptoms and its remedies. The symptoms: an impulse that leads us to want to destroy everything around us and take revenge. Anger is provoked by a feeling of disrespect and experience demonstrates that this is often the case.

Someone does something that arouses our anger, but it is not what the person did or said in itself that is the problem, it is the feeling that is associated with it. What is interesting with Seneca’s analysis of anger, is that it starts with an impulse (which is not in our control).

But between the initial impulse and our reaction, there is a small amount of time during which we can use reason to decide what we are going to do about it. Anger becomes anger with a decision. This is important because if anger is a decision, then we can adjust our judgment to defer our reaction and to choose the appropriate action.

Seneca argues that « anger does not dare do anything on its own, it needs our reason’s approval. » The initial impulse is simple, the thought process that ensures is more complex. There is a cognitive dimension to the fact of wanting revenge when our anger is aroused. Forming an idea, feeling outrage, revenge, all these are possible only if reason associates certain ideas with an initial impulse.

The anger remedy

So what should we do? Here is the remedy:

First, we should remind ourselves that anger brings nothing positive, despite what some people might say – including Aristotle, with whom Seneca disagrees, who said anger does have some positive aspects in that it stirs the moral indignation that leads us to protect our friends, family, and fellow citizens.

Then we should attempt to defer any reaction (“the greatest remedy for anger is delay”), refrain from saying what comes to our mind and measure the extent of our (destructive) power and strength. The catchphrases we can say to ourselves, the inner dialogue, are really important here to help us stop at the right moment.

And, last but not least, Seneca invites us to nurture mutual indulgence and seek the help of friendship, surrounding ourselves with people who do not get angry and can show us another way.

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Flora Bernard cofounded the Paris-based philosophy agency, Thae, in 2013. Flora now works to help organisations give meaning to what they do.

 

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