De ira

How to Keep Your Cool by Seneca/ James Romm

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I came to this book after reading St. Thomas Aquinas's articles on anger in the Summa Theologica. I was surprised at how much the Christian saint relied on the Roman Stoic philosopher for his Christian analysis of anger as both a virtue and a vice.

This book is part of Princeton's “Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers” series. In this series, the texts of classical Roman philosophers are selected and arranged to address a single issue, in this case, anger. The text in question is Seneca's “De Ira” (“On Anger”). The format involves an introduction and fairly extensive extracts from the relevant text. I haven't read De Ira, but I found this format to be very accessible.

It is fair to say that Seneca's view of anger was extremely negative. Anger overrode reason by inflaming the passions. In an angry state people ere prone to act inordinately and imprudently. The ugliness of anger can be seen in the distortion of face and demeanor which were external signs of the ugliness that anger imposed on the spirt.

There were those who argued that anger was a virtue in that it impelled action against injustice. Seneca disagreed since duty impelled action and anger tended to make appropriate action excessive or misguided. (“The good man will carry out his duties without fear or tumoil; he'll act in a manner worthy of a good man such that he'll do nothing unworthy of a man. My father is being killed; I'll defend him. He has been killed; I'll avenge - but beause it's right, not because I'm grieved.”)

In addition, a person should seek tranquility and peace, not anger, which enmeshed the individual in a cycle of mindless revenge and counter-revenge. Life is short enough as it is for it to be spent in this way. In one passage, Seneca used the image of a bull and bear tied together and baited to fight, all the while there waited a man with a sword at the ready to end the life of the winner of this contest.

Seneca offers a variety of solutions for the problem of anger. “Delay is the greatest remedy for anger.” Waiting a bit to let the emotions cool off a bit will permit a calmer assessment of the facts. So will humility since it is often the case that pride causes anger over perceived or real slights. In any event, slights are often, in retrospect, hardly sufficient to get angry about. Don't take on too much since people who are stressed easily succumb to anger. “Let the reading of poetry calm them and the reading of history amuse them with its stories.” Practice a studied ignorance; “It is not to your benefit to see and hear everything.”

A final suggestion was to practice a “pact of mutual leniency.” Who is there who is perfect and has never done anything wrong or given offense? Certainly not one of us can say this about ourselves, so when someone does something to slight us, remind oneself that just as we need leniency, we should give leniency. My personal favorite aphorism that I often have resort to is from St. Ephraim the Syrian: “Be merciful for everyone is fighting a great battle.”

This is a quick read. I think it is better than most self-help books you can find.