Classical studies earns its salt
when it we learn something of value from it; not when philological prowess is
displayed in esoteric linguistic disputes. Restraining
Rage is an example of the best that classical studies has to offer. Harris traverses the fields of anthropology,
philology, literary theory, philosophy, and psychology with equal
facility. Early in the book Harris
claims, "Anger control is rather obviously a contemporary problem, though
it is seldom seen as such except by psychiatrists" (8). The book speaks to its relevance,
particularly to mental health professionals, when Harris quotes S.A. Diamond, a
contemporary psychiatrist, as saying, "the complicated clinical problems
presented by anger and rage remain far and away the most confounding Gordian
knot faced in the effective practice of psychotherapy" (8).

This substantial book (468 pages)
offers a complex, yet sustained and well-documented, argument that ancient
attempts at anger control were responses to social and political
conditions. Its contemporary relevance
appears in its claim that the current discussion of this topic in the field of
psychotherapy can benefit from a study of its Greco-Roman treatment. The book is divided into four parts of two
to six chapters each. Part I, entitled
"Approaches," sets the stage by tracing the problematization of anger
in the ancient world. There Harris asks
why it was that the Greeks and Romans advocated the reining in or the
elimination of angry emotions and concludes that the ancients, the Epicureans
and the Stoics in particular, developed genuine insights into the subtleties
and complexities of human emotion.

Part II, "Anger in Society and
in the State," begins with the earliest known Greek treatments of anger in
Homer. The Iliad, he says, offers the lesson that anger can be politically
dangerous and, therefore, ought to be controlled. Harris develops this argument historically and philosophically,
examining texts from Pindar to Plato to Aristotle to the Roman authors like
Cicero. He also makes an interesting
argument that because anger was generally identified as a feminine
characteristic, anger control in the ancient world came to be another
instrument of male domination.

Scholarship has often been accused
of being a reflection of, an apology for, or an appeal, to social elites. But Harris avoids such accusations as he
examines, in Part III, "Intimate Rage," anger in the family and anger
in the relationships towards one’s slaves. 
Here Harris concludes that the ancients show us that all members of a
community, even slaves, can benefit when anger is kept under control.

In Part IV, "Anger and the Invention of Psychic
Health," Harris explores what may be some of the most interesting material
in the book for contemporary mental health therapists and theorists, why anger
control became a concern for the ancients as a part of the individual’s psychic
health. Therapeutic anger control was
seen by the ancients as part of an overall program of moral improvement. This is not an unusual thesis. In a recently published text, Pierre Hadot
claims, "all the philosophies of antiquity…shared the aim of establishing
an intimate link between philosophical discourse and way of life" (What is Ancient Philosophy?, Harvard
University Press, 2002, p.55). This
message was spread to ever wider circles as ancient philosophy became subsumed
by Christianity.

Earlier I alluded to Harris’s claim
to the contemporary relevance of this book. 
He develops a demonstration of this claim in his final chapter. There he offers three basic lessons to be
learned from ancient authors. The first
is how various the anger emotions are. 
This is important because much contemporary psychological literature
over-generalizes from limited examples. 
Second, says Harris, is that scholars must understand that English is
not the universal language. We can
benefit from the recognition of the nuances in different anger emotions
embodied in the various Greek and Latin linguistic expressions. The third lesson is that anger is dangerous,
and we should perhaps be more cautious in accepting and justifying its
expression.

This last point is the important
one with which Harris wants to leave readers of Restraining Rage. Harris
suggests that we, psychotherapists in particular, distinguish between angry
emotions, such as annoyance, and more intense anger, such as rage. Restraining
Rage is an impressive piece of scholarship. Its impressiveness in part comes from the contemporary lessons we
can draw from it. The most important
lesson, says Harris, is that the intense anger emotions like rage is what we
should focus our energies on and that we do our best to eliminate, without
throwing out altogether the more subtle, and sometimes useful, anger
emotions.

©
2002 Ben Mulvey

Ben Mulvey,
Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of Liberal Arts at
Nova Southeastern University. He
received his doctorate in philosophy from Michigan State University with a
specialization in political theory and applied ethics. He teaches ethics at NSU and is a member of
the board of advisors of the Florida Bioethics Network.

Categories: Philosophical