What happens when we are angry? Why are we angry? What is justice? These are fundamental daily questions we always ask ourselves. Anger is when we get offended by others, we feel that there is injustice against us and we presume justice to be upheld for our own sake. From it then, justice is to demand who should be punished and who should deserve it. With justice, the standard is supposed to be set high. Thus, when someone did something bad to us, we get angry because we assume that person know what they did to us was bad. We assume he/she has the knowledge and do it purposely. Suddenly, we find ourselves having high demands for the person who did something bad to us. He is better because he knows what he did, and he is worse because he did it to you.
We are all hypocrites? Why? Nobody likes to be branded as a hypocrite. We will condemn that person who says we are one. We are hypocrites because we feel angry at what others did and we expect them to abide it when we ourselves don't. We are unaware that we ourselves fall short of it (the standard we set). We can die because of anger of someone else. We should then appreciate other's feelings, and be moderate. Am I really any better than the person we are angry at? Anger is emotional and thus is no more your conscience. You get out of control.
Anger is self-awareness and self-interest. It eats into us; our dignity has been offended. It will stick in our mind for many years or even forever. We get insulted because our dignity and self-worth is being affected. We have a problem with pride. What is the basis of it? What is this pride that we are so proud of until we will do the unthinkable?
Self-pride is to acknowledge what we have worked hard to obtain. A status that we see we are worth respected for. We went to university and obtained degrees, we think that we should earn some recognition. We never acknowledge our deficiencies and we think we know too well what knowledge is. In other words, we think we know everything. Socrates identified that we are not wise and thus should pursue the road to wisdom and good. He admitted we have deficiency and not known everything.
When we have such pride in us, we get pissed off if people offended us. The desire of punishment will be there. The desire will be better fulfilled if we can witness the punishment so we are satisfied and only then our anger will be cooled down. We will be even joyful if the person that offended us get punished and be aware that you are there to see him/her getting it and be embarrassed. Don't you admit you ever feel so before?
This grip of passion from competition leads to rivalry and then envy, which is part and parcel and subset of ANGER. Justice is always a cry because we think we do not deserve such treatment by others. It is a satisfaction for personal enjoyment. Justice is a cry as a high principle to uphold the law, but actually it is for human need of pleasure. We are all exposed to such a problem. Are we all very selfish? Don't you think so? Next time think first before you accuse or scold others. o