“A loving hand is seldom one that has never been clenched in response to injustice or folly. Anger and love are complementary.” – Rudolf Steiner
“If the sight of injustice or folly were not to kindle a noble anger in us, the events in the outer world would carry us along with them as an easy-going spectator…” – Rudolf Steiner
The recent death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police sparked a noble anger in people that spilled from all 50 of the United States to other countries of the world. Right now at least, it seems that fewer people are comfortable being easy-going spectators to the violence and injustice that has flourished right under our noses since the first colony, Jamestown, had 20 or so West African slaves brought to our shores in 1619. So much has been and is being written and said about this fact that we should all be moved to educate ourselves; we should not assume we know anything of significance without availing ourselves of these manifold and comprehensive resources.
We do not need to condense or transcribe any of such resources here. We will instead focus on the fact of anger itself. Briefly, let’s first look at Steiner’s concept of Ego. When Steiner refers to the human Ego, he is indicating the “I” each of us refers to only when we are talking about ourselves. The Ego is what continues on from one life to another to fulfil its evolution. Through our Ego, we go about “remedying defects of former lives” while at the same time we work in the world to remedy its defects. In other words, we can’t simply work to improve ourselves, but we must, with each enhancement of personal growth, utilize our capacities selflessly to improve the world as a whole… a long, hard road in both directions.
The tools our Egos use enable us to inch ever closer to humanity’s ideals, universal ideals such as honesty, kindness, courage, compassion, etc. One such tool we use to develop ourselves is anger. Surprised?
Let’s see what Dr. Steiner has to say:
No one does better at acquiring an inner capacity for sound judgment than a person who has started from a state of soul in which he could be moved to righteous anger by anything ignoble, immoral or crazy. This is how anger has the mission of raising the Ego to higher levels. On the other hand… anger can degenerate into rage and serve to gratify the worst kind of egoism. But we must not fail to realize that the very thing which can lapse into evil may, when it manifests in its true significance, have the mission of furthering the progress of man. If we were not enabled by anger to take an independent stand in cases where the outer world offends our inner feeling, we would not be selfless, but dependent and Ego-less in the worst sense…
Life shows us that a person who is unable to flare up with anger at injustice or folly will never develop true kindness and love. Equally, a person who educates himself through noble anger will have a heart abounding in love, and through love he will do good. Love and kindness are the obverse of noble anger. Anger that is overcome and purified will be transformed into the love that is its counterpart. A loving hand is seldom one that has never been clenched in response to injustice or folly. Anger and love are complementary…
Transmuted anger is love in action. That is what we learn from reality. Anger in moderation has the mission of leading human beings to love; we can call it the teacher of love.
Excerpt from Metamorphoses of The Soul / Paths of Experience, Volume I. Lecture 2: The Mission of Anger, Munich, 5 December 1909 by Rudolf Steiner.
The human ego has the responsibility of educating itself, becoming ever more enriched by the concepts and ideas we gain through experience. But at the same time, we must not become egotistical and selfish by simply acquiring knowledge and experience for our own benefit. We must relate everything we have gained internally to meet that which presents itself in the world. To that end, we can see that anger has a necessary role to play on the path toward becoming enlightened human beings.
Anger is a means to an end; staying in anger’s grasp is destructive. To make anger constructive, we must act with courage to eradicate injustice and folly. If we fail to use our anger as a means to right the injustices in the world, we fail not just the world but ourselves. Steiner says anger and love are complementary; we can see the fact of this every day. We have lots of work to do. Let’s get busy… in both directions.
Trevor Noah, The Daily Show
https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1266523374207057922?s=20
https://goodblacknews.org/2020/06/04/acknowledging-your-privilege-and-becoming-an-ally-a-guide-to-resources-for-white-folks/
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