Yanai Sened

Anger is often criticized for its lack of instrumental value. In Myisha Cherry’s The Case for Rage, she responds to such critiques by arguing for ‘Lordean rage’, anger that is uniquely productive for fighting against injustice. Unlike Cherry, I bite the bullet and argue that, even if anger tends to fail in achieving its goals, there are good instrumental reasons to remain angry. Anger should be seen as an emotion that encourages incurring costs and risks to achieve a goal that has been thwarted, and whether or not one should remain angry depends on details about the risks, costs, likelihood of success and desirability of the goal. My paradigm example is anger at systemic injustice. I argue that, while anger against systemic injustice is unlikely to achieve its goal, that says more about systemic injustice than it does about anger. I argue that abandoning anger could discourage fighting systemic injustice. I further argue that anger often arises when one has faith that a better world is possible and understands our world as unjust for not being that world. Abandoning anger could weaken one’s resolve in fighting that injustice.