The Morality of Anger
Moral Maze
BBC
4.5 • 609 Ratings
🗓️ 3 October 2019
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The political pressure cooker is rattling, steaming and whistling. MPs on all sides are venting outrage over the language used by their opponents. It’s like a real-life Twitter. The PM’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings has said the atmosphere in the country will get ever more toxic unless the result of the referendum is delivered. Meanwhile, opposition MPs blame the current fury on what they see as the government’s pig-headed refusal to compromise. Aristotle said: “Those who do not show anger at things that ought to arouse anger are regarded as fools.” Is fierce public rhetoric at a time of political crisis justified or counter-productive? When does the healthy expression of political anger become incitement to riot or murder? Anger is often described as ‘the moral emotion' – the one most likely to affect our behaviour for better or worse. It can be constructive if it’s harnessed to redress an injustice, but what if the fight against the ‘injustice’ is driven by the destructive desire for revenge? Is there a moral distinction between anger expressed in solidarity with the oppressed and anger directed to punishing our enemies? Is it always virtuous to control our anger? George Orwell defined the English character as one of extreme gentleness, “where the bus conductors are good tempered and the policemen carry no revolvers.” Is that national character now changing? Is it too late to recover it? And should we even try? Guests: Brendan O'Neill, Mark Vernon, Rosie Carter and Thomas Dixon.
Producer: Dan Tierney
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a programme from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:04.4 | Good evening. If the papers are to be believed, Britain has suddenly become an angry place. |
| 0:08.9 | Parliament boiling over about Brexit. MPs in fear of their lives, the national discourse, a ranting competition, |
| 0:15.5 | and Twitter a torch lighting up the darkness in our souls. |
| 0:19.1 | This may or may not be true. There's a good case for saying we've lost our sense of history as well in our souls. This may or may not be true. |
| 0:21.1 | There's a good case for saying we've lost our sense of history as well as our manners. |
| 0:25.2 | But if it is, is it necessarily a bad thing? |
| 0:28.4 | Philosophers see anger as the moral emotion for good as well as ill. |
| 0:32.3 | Aristotle was particularly keen on it, |
| 0:34.6 | though acknowledged being angry with the right person to the right degree |
| 0:38.0 | at the right time and for the right purpose was a tricky business. The Republican presidential |
| 0:42.8 | candidate Barry Goldwater put it more pithily. Extremism in the defence of liberty, he said, |
| 0:48.5 | is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue, but somebody, perhaps Cicero, |
| 0:53.9 | wrote it for him, and his own philosophy that his opponents deserve, quote, a kick in the pursuit of justice is no virtue, but somebody, perhaps Cicero, wrote it for him, |
| 0:54.9 | and his own philosophy that his opponents deserve, quote, a kick in the nuts, quote, |
| 0:59.1 | was somewhat adrift of classical Nicarmuckian ethics. |
| 1:02.4 | Makes the point, though, is anger the driving force for reforming change, |
| 1:06.3 | or a prelude to destructive violence? |
| 1:09.4 | Is what's happening bad for us, as toxic as many claim, |
| 1:13.0 | and what could or should be done about it? That's our moral maze tonight. The panel, |
| 1:17.7 | Melanie Phillips, social commentator at the Times, Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic and |
| 1:21.9 | Interreligious Studies at Edinburgh University, the chief executive of the RSA, Matthew Taylor, |
... |
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