Egocentrism

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Brookline, MA, United States
I'll post rants here, and musings; articles and thoughts about articles. I'll keep it quite complex and yet astoundingly simple: whatever it is I am interested in at any given moment.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Anger and Freedom: Some פסח Torah

What follows is based on Rabbi Shmuel Lewis's weekly שיחה at the Conservative Yeshiva on April 2.

The גמרא gives us two answers to the question of why פסח is זמן חרותינו - the time of our freedom, both of which make their way into the הגדה. The first is עבדים היינו לפרעה במצרים וה' הוציא אותנו - we were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and God took us out with a strong hand and an outstretched arm and yada yada yada. The second is עובדי עבודה זרה היו אבותינו - our ancestors were idol worshippers but we are henotheists. Freedom, then, is about a physical freedom from a political oppressor or a spiritual (yet confoundingly rational, no?) freedom from the anathema notion of polytheism. Note, please, that both languages speak of "freedom from," not "freedom to."

Anger is an emotion that defines "unfreedom."

The מהר"ל of Prague: One of God's name is הקדוש (as in הקדוש ברוך הוא). The root ק.ד.ש means "separate."

Separate from matter, separate, therefore, from materiality. (As to defining "materiality," Reb Shmuel suggests a גזרה שוה between "spirit" and "spirituality" to "matter" and "materiality.")

Imagine, then, anger as material in a Newtonian system. It is "unfree," unchangeable (see last post). If it does change, its change can be predicted by certain simple rules - akin to the movement of billiard balls on a pool table. Matter follows Newton's three laws of motion: inertia, F=ma, and for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Note:
  • "You made me angry" is a version of F=ma
  • Social workers and therapists utilize an "objectification" approach to serious anger management cases. In such scenarios, we acknowledge that anger is other, that the anger is not the child or part of the child, but that "The anger is acting on me."
  • In other cases, social workers and therapists encourage strong hugs and intense physical contact as a way of reassuring children with serious anger management problems. This paints the opposite picture of anger-as-matter - not objectified but materially present, as if a force must be applied to it so that it will stay within the body and not "explode" out.
  • "Pushing my buttons" is anger as matter
Human beings are composed of material things (and their limitations) but also possess a soul which is capable of overcoming material limitations. Our soul - our consciousness, our mind - allow us to overcome impulses, inertia, forces on us and our unvoluntary forces against things.

Belief is the source of emotion. It is a cognitive first step that leads to the having of a feeling.
Anger is the belief that I or another has been slighted - that the value of an individual has been attacked.

In the political realm, when someone's inherent value has been attacked, one gets angry as a sign of self-respect. Such is the righteous-indignation of an African victim of apartheid. Once we shift, however, into the interpersonal realm, what was in the political realm the defense of self-respect too often morphs into self-importance. When we are made fun of on the playground, our anger, which we couch in the language of self-respect, is actually an arrogant statement of self-importance - I am worth too much to be treated in this way.

Personal mistreatment does not fundamentally question my value as a human being. Not all things that challenge me are attacks on my basic self worth. We can be hurt without being insulted. Anger, then, is only justified when it is "necessary" - when it emerges as a defense of human worth. (Note, here: Obama - "I'm angry;" the populist backlash against the AIG bonuses last week.) In interpersonal settings, we experience belittlement; in political settings, we experience a categorical denial of rights.

Reactions:
So what, then, of what I'll call the "liberal freedom paradox." As a liberal, I want freedom and for others to be free, but that freedom opens us up for more hurt. Totalitarian cultures do not hurt - they act materialistically. Things happen on an even-keel; the world functions in particular ways based on predictable rules. Freedom is messier, more painful, freedom to assemble, petition, speech, the press. Freedom means winning one election and losing the next, but still serving the nation.

So, perhaps, a totalitarian culture might create a better self-image in those who oppose it than does a democracy instill in those who accept it. (This speaks to the complex educational issue of short-term and long-term goals. Dicey one.)

Then the question arises of us living in our highly politicized culture, where "personal is political." In such a world, a slight that is theoretically "just personal" might actually speak to a larger political landscape where one person is speaking on behalf of the entire political system. (E.g., what happens to women in math and science classes in high schools.)

But to what extent is it a good thing to always bring the political perspective into a situation?

Reb Shmuel: The question is not so much whether the slight was political or interpersonal, but how the slighted person should react. Even if the bully on the playground represents a political agenda deeply embedded in a given culture, should the reaction to that bully be full-blown anger at the slight?

I find that this begins to slide too close to absolving any given insulter of guilt - either they are representing a political opinion they themselves did not form, or they are somehow acting out from their own deficiencies. But in this microscopic approach to a given insult, where is evil? And whose fault is the pain?

Someone asked Reb Shmuel about שפך חמתך - his response:
The Jewish people have been oppressed, and we'd like our oppressors to stop. As Jews (and, ironically, one reason why we always get oppressed) we'd rather not make the oppressors stop ourselves - we'd rather have God do it for us. But we are not asking God for violent vengeance, we're asking God to find a way to let our oppressors know that they're being bad to us (and such a message is best conveyed through anger) so that they can stop doing it.

Something to think about at your סדר.

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