@philosophyminis: We're often told that anger is a bad thing — that we should smile, that we should shrug, that we should just let it go. Because holding on to anger will do more harm to you than the person you are angry at. But is this right? Is anger always bad, or is sometimes not being angry the lazy, the weak, or even the wrong thing? In her essay 'The Uses of Anger', Audre Lorde explores anger in the face of racism, and she argues that anger is not necessarily some irrational emotion that gets in the way of good thinking. Sometimes anger is justified in the face of injustice. Sometimes anger lets us know what is wrong, and that we need to fix it. Of course, sometimes anger is pointless. If I get furious at the rain for ruining a good walk, that has no point because that's just the weather weathering. But at other times, anger is entirely warranted, as when we see injustice, or when simply shrugging something off with permitted to happen again. In those situations, anger reveals to us that a boundary has been crossed, and that something needs to change. Of course, anger can become destructive. It can become cruelty. It can become revenge. It can become pointless rage, but it also motivates us to action. It allows us to confront somebody, to protect somebody, to protest something. Anger is neither good nor bad on its own, because sometimes letting it go is the wise and good thing to do. But sometimes ‘letting go,’ lets the cruel, the prejudiced, or the criminal get away with it to do again another day.

Jonny Thomson

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Region: GB

Friday 14 August 2026 14:37:33 GMT