Seneca on anger

Anger is like stepping into quicksand. The angrier you get, the more damage you inflict upon yourself; just as the more you move, the further you sink. But the difference with anger is that you don’t want to escape the quicksand. You want to destroy the object of your rage, scorched-earth style.

From equating anger with temporary insanity to jumping off of a cliff, Seneca describes anger as a totally irrational and all-consuming frenzy in his book Anger, Mercy, and Revenge. He details at length the theory of anger—describing what it is and how it forms—while providing useful suggestions on how to respond to and, more importantly, prevent feelings of anger.

Anger is distinct to humans

Hercules Strangling the Nemean Lion, c. 1620 by Peter Paul Rubens. Source: The Clark Art Institute

Animals act on their impulses for no other reason than survival. A lion doesn’t attack a zebra because it’s angry, it’s just hungry. However, humans act according to reason:

“Only the human being has been allotted practical wisdom, foresight, scrupulousness, deliberation: animals are barred not only from human virtues, but also from human vices.” – Seneca

Anger relies on our reasoning because we assess and judge our impulses to determine we’ve been wronged—he bumped into me, therefore he must want to hurt me and I should hurt him back.

In stark contrast to the lion example, a human doesn’t seek revenge to survive, but because they believe they deserve justice for being harmed.

What is anger?

*Michelangelo, 1504, sketch of the Battle of Cascina*

Seneca believes anger is the most harmful passion—a strong emotion that can impair your judgment, like fear, desire, or sorrow. He defines anger as “the desire to take vengeance for a wrong or, as Posidonius says, the desire to punish the person by whom you reckon you were unjustly harmed.”

The goal of anger is to inflict harm, an eye for an eye—or maybe a limb for an eye. Crucially, there are three parts to anger:

An impulse or involuntary response
A (false) belief that you’ve been wronged
A desire to punish the person who you believe wronged you

Anger starts with an instinctual response, a “mental jolt produced by the impression of an injury.” This impulse is totally outside of your control, it’s like sneezing or getting goosebumps when you’re cold.

Once you have this impulse, you judge it. This is the most important aspect of how anger forms because it’s the only one we can control. With anger, you falsely determine that you’ve been wronged—Seneca believes it’s impossible to be wronged, we only believe we’re wronged if we make faulty judgments via ignorance or arrogance.

By the time you’ve reached the third stage, you’re pretty much powerless to the frenzy because emotion has overtaken reason.

The consequences of anger

*The Defeat of Sennacherib, 1614 by Peter Paul Rubens*

For Seneca, nothing good comes of anger. It impairs your judgment, lacks any constructive purpose or benefit, makes you do stupid things, and leads to destruction. He says it results in “Cities destroyed, entire nations wiped out, leading citizens sold on the auction block, dwellings put to the torch, then the blaze.”

It also typically consumes the angry person alongside the victim:

“Human beings are prepared even to sacrifice themselves for the sake of others’ advantage; anger is prepared to plunge into danger, provided it drags the other down.”

The conclusion here is that anger doesn’t have a positive outcome, so you should avoid it at all costs.

How to prevent anger

Since it only becomes more difficult to stifle anger as it progresses, Seneca suggests addressing it early on to avoid making false judgments:

“The best course is to reject straightway the initial prickings of anger, to fight against its first sparks, and to struggle not to succumb to it. Once it has begun to carry us off course it’s difficult to sail back to safety.”

The key is to prolong the time between the initial impulse and our response so we avoid making hasty and irrational judgments that fuel anger. The delay gives us time to assess the situation with a clearer mind.

Seneca provides a useful framework for recognizing the warning signs of anger and warding it off in a comparison to epilepsy:

“People who chronically suffer from epilepsy recognize that the disease is already approaching if their extremities grow cold, their vision swims, their muscles tremble, their memory falters, and their head spins. Accordingly, they anticipate the onset with the usual remedies: they use an odor or a taste to drive off whatever it is that makes their minds strangers to themselves, or they use warm poultices to counteract the stiffening chill in their limbs.”

Rapid fire remedies

While understanding the theory behind anger and how to dispel it is useful, Seneca also mentions a whole host of suggestions to prevent anger. Here are a few more practical strategies:

Avoid people who provoke you, and physically remove yourself from a conflict ridden situation
Laugh about it; look at whatever’s angering you as a joke
Forgive the other person and try viewing the situation from their perspective
Avoid putting your body in states that make you more susceptible to anger (like exhaustion, fatigue, hunger, thirst, and sickness)
Think about something else, ideally a topic that brings you peace or joy
Cultivate ignorance; don’t bother yourself with information that will incite you (like gossip about yourself and sensationalist news)
Hold yourself accountable by reflecting on your actions every day. Ask yourself ,“‘Which of your ills did you heal today? Which vice did you resist? In what aspect are you better?’ Your anger will cease and become more controllable if it knows that every day it must come before a judge.”

Do you have any foolproof methods for dispelling anger? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!