Feminism Is for Everybody
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The Aptness of Anger by Amia Srinivasan
Rebecca
Oct 10, 2019 01:40AM
NB: to start a discussion board on here I had to select a book that we're responding to. Since we're not reading a book this month, I've just selected bell hooks - hopefully this won't be too confusing!
Today’s the day! The Feminist Philosophy Reading Group is discussing ‘The Aptness of Anger’ by Amia Srinivasan. Here are some of my thoughts on the paper to get the discussion going.
***
First of all, I loved this paper, so my own thoughts are not going to be able to disagreeing it but rather potentially extending it to some areas that I work on.
Srinivasan begins by noting what she called the counterproductivity critique of anger to injustice, whereby people argue that an angry response to a particular harm will only make matters worse. As she notes, this is usually a critique put to the anger of women and people of colour. She writes:
‘And so the bigot says: she is only angry because she’s a shrill bitch; he’s only angry because he’s a thug. Thus the bigot obscures the possibility that the woman or blackperson’s anger is apt. Intentionally or not, the counterproductivity critic achieves a similar effect. By focussing on the putatively negative effects of the agent’s anger, the critic again shifts us from the space of intrinsic reason to the space of instrumental reason, thereby obscuring the possibility that the agent’s anger is apt.’
Amia continues the paper by granting the premise that anger can be counterproductive but goes on to consider whether and under what conditions anger can nevertheless be apt. After setting out the conditions under which anger might be counter productive but nonetheless apt, Srinivasan continues to consider the conflict between ‘counterproductive anger’ and ‘apt anger’. That is, when anger is counterproductive to resolving one’s situation but still apt, how should we think about what an individual ought to do? She continues:
'I want to suggest that getting angry is a means of affectively registering or appreciating the injustice of the world, and that our capacity to get aptly angry is best compared with our capacity for aesthetic appreciation. Just as appreciating the beautiful or the sublime has a value distinct from the value of knowing that something is beautiful or sublime, there might well be a value to appreciating the injustice of the world through one’s apt anger—a value that is distinct from that of simply knowing that the world is unjust.'
Apt anger is therefore a way of seeing the world as it is, and these considerations can sometimes trump counterproductivity arguments. That is, even when anger will make an individual’s situation worse, her anger may nonetheless help us to view the world as it really is.
A question that I have been thinking about after reading this paper:
How does this relate the aptness of other emotions like grief? I have been recently working through some thoughts of grieving the loss of others and when and whether it is a useful moral and political tool. Often people’s grief is critiqued for not helping to change the situation, but I think a similar argument can be made about grief as a way of recognizing the world around us.
Today’s the day! The Feminist Philosophy Reading Group is discussing ‘The Aptness of Anger’ by Amia Srinivasan. Here are some of my thoughts on the paper to get the discussion going.
***
First of all, I loved this paper, so my own thoughts are not going to be able to disagreeing it but rather potentially extending it to some areas that I work on.
Srinivasan begins by noting what she called the counterproductivity critique of anger to injustice, whereby people argue that an angry response to a particular harm will only make matters worse. As she notes, this is usually a critique put to the anger of women and people of colour. She writes:
‘And so the bigot says: she is only angry because she’s a shrill bitch; he’s only angry because he’s a thug. Thus the bigot obscures the possibility that the woman or blackperson’s anger is apt. Intentionally or not, the counterproductivity critic achieves a similar effect. By focussing on the putatively negative effects of the agent’s anger, the critic again shifts us from the space of intrinsic reason to the space of instrumental reason, thereby obscuring the possibility that the agent’s anger is apt.’
Amia continues the paper by granting the premise that anger can be counterproductive but goes on to consider whether and under what conditions anger can nevertheless be apt. After setting out the conditions under which anger might be counter productive but nonetheless apt, Srinivasan continues to consider the conflict between ‘counterproductive anger’ and ‘apt anger’. That is, when anger is counterproductive to resolving one’s situation but still apt, how should we think about what an individual ought to do? She continues:
'I want to suggest that getting angry is a means of affectively registering or appreciating the injustice of the world, and that our capacity to get aptly angry is best compared with our capacity for aesthetic appreciation. Just as appreciating the beautiful or the sublime has a value distinct from the value of knowing that something is beautiful or sublime, there might well be a value to appreciating the injustice of the world through one’s apt anger—a value that is distinct from that of simply knowing that the world is unjust.'
Apt anger is therefore a way of seeing the world as it is, and these considerations can sometimes trump counterproductivity arguments. That is, even when anger will make an individual’s situation worse, her anger may nonetheless help us to view the world as it really is.
A question that I have been thinking about after reading this paper:
How does this relate the aptness of other emotions like grief? I have been recently working through some thoughts of grieving the loss of others and when and whether it is a useful moral and political tool. Often people’s grief is critiqued for not helping to change the situation, but I think a similar argument can be made about grief as a way of recognizing the world around us.
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