Anger and the struggle for justice

Abstract

It has been argued that the emotion of anger plays a central role in politics. As Peter Lyman says, ‘one can define anger as the essential political emotion’ (1981, p. 61). The authors who contributed to the 2004 special edition of the European Journal of Social Theory on ‘Anger in political life’ suggest reasons why anger is of such importance. In Mary Holmes’ words, anger ‘is the essential political emotion because it is a response to perceived injustice’ (2004, p. 127). Or, as David Ost suggests, if we adopt a ‘conflict theory of politics’ - as he thinks we should - then ‘emotions and the mobilization of anger become central to politics’ (2004, p. 239). We can see two distinct, albeit closely related ideas at work in these remarks which suggest why anger is of such importance. One idea is mobilization; here the implication is that anger is the emotion which is capable of motivating people to engage in political action. The other idea is injustice; here it is implied that the reason why people mobilize is in order to overcome such perceived injustice. These two ideas in conjunction suggest that close attention to the emotion of anger can help us to understand the political world. From the perspective of political philosophy, politics is a matter of debate about the nature of the just society. From the perspective of political science, politics involves struggles for resources, status and, more generally, power.