Incidentally, Fr. Ong as a Roman Catholic priest emerged in prominence in the prestige culture in American culture roughly around the time of JFK's election in 1960. Through a mutual friend, Fr. Ong gave JFK a copy of his first book, Frontiers in American Catholicism (Macmillan, 1957), and JFK in turn sent Fr. Ong a thank-you note acknowledging receipt of his book -- which is now in the Ong archives at Saint Louis University.
Now, zealotry for a political issue or cause can activate and direct our passion to fight for the issue or cause. But in and of itself, zealotry for a political issue or cause does not usually lead to violence, the possibility of which most concerns Anhalt.
But zealotry for a political issue or cause can lead to over-reaching. Moreover, when zealotry for a political issue or cause leads to over-reaching, it tends to prompt a reaction -- and perhaps even a counter-zealotry. Efforts to advance a political issue or cause always involve negotiating for the issue or cause. But zealots for an issue or cause may lose sight of the spirit of negotiating in their zealotry for a political issue or cause.
Now, what Plato and Aristotle refer to as thumos (or thymos) corresponds to the part of the human psyche that the late Jungian psychotherapist and theorist Robert L. Moore of the Chicago Theological Seminary refers to as the Warrior archetype in the human psyche. See Moore and Douglas Gillette's book The Warrior Within: Accessing the Knight [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (William Morrow, 1992). But Moore also claims that there is not only a masculine Warrior archetype of maturity, but also a feminine Warrior archetype of maturity in the psyches of both men and women. The masculine and the feminine Warrior archetypes are most relevant to my discussion in the present essay of feeling enraged in pro-social ways, rather than in anti-social ways. But Moore further claims that we have certain other masculine and feminine archetypes of maturity in our psyches that we need to develop in conjunction with developing our Warrior archetypes. But this is not the place to discuss the other archetypes of maturity. Suffice it to say that more than just the Warrior archetype is at work in the warrior-king Achilles.
Next, I want to discuss psychotherapist Susan Anderson's self-help book The Journey from Abandonment to Healing, 2nd ed. (Berkley Books, 2014). The experience of abandonment accompanies significant losses in life, both non-death losses such as the loss of a lover or of a job, and the death of a loved one. The journey from abandonment feelings to healing involves the process of mourning the loss in question. Susan Anderson says that rage is part of the mourning process (pp. 174-228). Moreover, she repeatedly says that we need to feel the feeling of rage in order to experience the mourning process as healing. No pain, no gain. But she does not recommend acting out the rage in physical, verbal, or emotional violence directed toward a supposed culprit -- as Achilles, for example, acts out his rage at the death of his friend Patroclus in targeted physical violence against the Trojans who killed his friend in battle. But the mourning person may express his or her rage verbally to himself or herself, and/or to a psychotherapist in ways that are not anti-social.
In conclusion, feeling enraged can contribute to pro-social political engagement and activity. But feeling enraged can also contribute to anti-social behavior and violence.
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