Virtuous men are rarely, if ever, prone to propaganda. That is because they can ascertain when to “fight the good fight”. Vicious men, on the other hand, are extremely prone to it. They have no idea which are the good fights and so they must be told. But simply telling them is not enough. Lacking any real control over their anger, they need someone else to stir it up for them by turning events that fit the narratives catastrophes. Having no way to turn it off, they are absolutely unforgiving and must find offense around every corner. Discerning ears will recognize this scenario for what it is—our modern society and its incessant need to cancel other people.
In truth then, at the heart of cancel culture, is the inability to discern the difference between wrath and anger. These terms, even if they are often used synonymously, are not truly referring to the same thing. Anger is, first and foremost, a passion or an emotion built into human nature to deal with the presence of evil. More specifically, it is the emotion that provides an interior motor to fight against a specific evil that acts as an obstacle to achieving some good thing. When a man discerns some good thing is being blocked, he wills to be angry in order energize him to fight the good fight.
Fighting the Good Fight
The virtuous man knows the good fight when he sees it because he has the virtue of justice. He is habitually desiring that each person receives what is due to him. When some obstacle is placed in the way of that being achieved, he grows angry in order to move him to fight to restore justice. This is why St. John Chrysostom thought that: “He who does not get angry, when there is just cause for being so, commits sin. In effect, irrational patience sows vices, maintains negligence, and encourages not only bad men to do wrong, but good men as well.”
Not only does the virtuous man grow angry when he should, he also directs his anger at the source of the injustice and does not just “vent”. Likewise, he also filters it through the virtues of clemency and meekness to avoid becoming excessively angry and aim it at the injustice first and then the cause of it. He truly knows how to “hate the sin, but not the sinner” because he is just.
Our Lord, Who referred to Himself as “meek and humble of heart” is the example par excellence. When He cleaned the Temple, it was because His Father was not being rendered what was due to Him. So, fueled by anger, the Just Man removed the obstacle. With meekness He whipped the tables but with clemency avoided whipping the money changers.
The reason why anger is such a strong emotion is because it must often supply enough fuel for us to fight for justice for other people. When that fuel turns inward and ignites a fire in us because of how we perceive we are being treated then it is truly wrath. This is why wrath has been considered one of the Seven Deadly Sins—it turns what should be an outward-facing passion into a selfish one. The wrathful man sees red, not because of an offense against justice, but because he has been slighted in some way. To use modern parlance, he has been offended by the words or actions of another person. Because anger must always be justified, he must also search for a reason why his own personal offense is really unjust. In essence wrath turns anger off of justice onto my feelings and directs it not towards rectifying an injustice, but mercilessly punishing the offender.
A simple example might help us discern the difference. A man is getting on to a crowded bus and he steps on your foot. You feel anger arise, but look at him and realize he had tripped over someone else’s foot a few feet ahead of you and it was merely an accident. In that case the just response is clemency because it was an accident. Now suppose that same man enters the bus looks you in the eye, smiles and stomps on your foot. Now the anger is justified, but the meek man would temper his response such that it did not include punching him in the face. But the anger would be directed towards the action and not just the fact that it was done to you. The way to know the difference is by imagining after stepping on your foot he goes and steps on an old lady’s foot. If you are just as angry (or more) about that as you are about your own foot being stepped on, then you know the anger is justified.
This scenario also highlights an important point that is often a source of confusion regarding anger. The Christian in imitation of Our Lord, when He is the sole victim of the injustice, will often suffer it in silence and not be angry. But when there are other victims, including those who might be scandalized by you not confronting the evil, then zealous anger will confront the wrong directly. The “others” include the offender because he needs to know that he has done evil in order to repent—and will need to be justly punished as part of that repentance.
Back to the Cancel Culture
Every passion, when not properly wedded to virtue, needs increased stimuli in order to get an equivalent response. Related to the question at hand, wrath needs to be constantly fed, especially when it is being used to keep the vicious fighting. It no longer becomes about justice, but about keeping them angry. There is no need to discern whether something is actually unjust or not, because the anger will make it “feel” that way. There is no need to make the distinction between victim and perpetrator because the object of that anger will tell which is which. There can be no forgiveness until the perpetrator is “cancelled” and is no longer exists, either literally or figuratively.
Thankfully, history has many examples of cancel cultures that always end with the cancellers eating their own. When there is no one left to be angry at, when there is no one left to cancel, wrath demands that you execute the executioner. For those who are trapped in this vicious circle the only option is for the virtuous to step up and restore justice. Fear, masquerading as prudence, is never the solution. Neither is the ersatz anger that we call “outrage.” Nor is any attempt at cancelling the cancellers. Only true zealous anger for justice can repair our decadent culture.