Nussbaum is a scholar I have admired for many years, from my first reading of Fragility of Goodness (1986), to Poetic Justice (1996) and Political Emotions (2013). In Anger and Forgiveness (2016), she adds to her ongoing scholarship on justice with the same clear, level-headed, literary approach that first captured my attention. Dedicating the current work to her teacher, Bernard Williams, suggests a certain humility and confidence that make reading her words feel like a gift lovingly given.
Anger, she argues, includes not just awareness of a serious wrong but also a desire that the wrongdoer suffer. This can happen two ways, either by payback or by lowering the wrongdoer's status. Both payback and down-ranking are problematic because they focus backward. Nussbaum argues for the forward-looking emotion she calls Transition, which is future-directed toward action that is less concerned with payback or down-ranking and instead inspires or motivates one to pursue a greater good.
Forgiveness is the subtheme, often distorted into a transaction that does not pursue a greater good but instead reinforces the imbalance that makes anger so problematic to begin with. the Christian tradition is rife with theological perspectives rooted in a transactional understanding of anger and forgiveness, justified by appeals to the anger of God or proverbial admonitions to be slow to anger, not rash. Penance and contrition have their place. But the forward-facing, unconditional forgiveness that waives anger is better. Better still is unconditional love and generosity. Nussbaum examines transactional forgiveness in personal, social, and political realms and concludes that the transactional path is not the one that leads in the end toward generosity, justice, and truth.
Nussbaum's caution about anger's efficacy to bring about justice stands in contrast against much that is written about anger in the therapeutic realm. Family systems analysts examine the triangular functioning of anger in maintaining unjust equilibrium in interpersonal relationships. Anger may serve a helpful function in differentiating the non-anxious presence who then can break generational patterns of neglect or abuse. Narrative therapies find anger helpful in rewriting a patient's story and grant control/authorship of his or her life. While anger may be misdirected, explosive, suppressed, or otherwise harmful, if can as well get our attention like a fever does, indicating that something is wrong that needs to be made right. Anger, as pastoral counselor Andrew Lester points out [Anger: Discovering your Spiritual Ally (2007)], can help us detect and uncover our idols, hidden guilt and shame, and thus clear the path so we can imagine our future stories with hope. Nussbaum would agree at least that anger "may serve as a signal that something is amiss." As a wake-up call, even as a deterrent, it serves a function. but fails to motivate unless it moves beyond the transactional and motivates us toward the common good.
Her claim is in fact as radical as she says: "that in a sane and not excessively anxious and status focused person, angers idea of retribution or payback is a brief dream or cloud, soon dispelled by saner thoughts of personal and social welfare." Well-grounded anger puts itself out of business in its healthier form, becoming "compassionate hope." This is the Transition that moves beyond payback to pursue justice.
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Barrie Thesen
Martha Nussbaum's writing is so clear. Initially I borrowed ...
Reviewed in Canada on August 31, 2017
MAB
A true contribution, a book to keep
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 20, 2016
