Seneca on Anger. is it correct to say: "“..Seneca said anger is really about defeated expectations.”

In My Humble Opinion
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My question is whether this person is correct in summarising Seneca’s treatment on anger this way:
(30 minute and 9 seconds into the video). I have not found that summarised version of Seneca’s argument anywhere.
“…Seneca said anger is really about defeated expectations.”

“…Seneca said anger is really about defeated expectations.”

I have not found that summarised version anywhere.

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The saying I’ve heard is that anger is about pain. But specifically, pain that usually has to do with some sort injustice.

So - maybe kind of what you mean in the OP.

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In Of Anger (De ira - link), Seneca says:

Men think some things unjust because they ought not to suffer them, and some because they did not expect to suffer them: we think what is unexpected is beneath our deserts. Consequently, we are especially excited at what befalls us contrary to our hope and expectation: and this is why we are irritated at the smallest trifles in our own domestic affairs, and why we call our friends’ carelessness deliberate injury.

In the Latin original:

Iniqua quaedam iudicant homines quia pati non debuerint, quaedam quia non speraverint. Indigna putamus quae inopinata sunt; itaque maxime commovent quae contra spem expectationemque evenerunt, nec aliud est quare in domesticis minima offendant, in amicis iniuriam vocemus neglegentiam.

It’s probably not the central theme of the book, but perhaps it was passages like this which led to this summary.

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Thanks Schnitte. Do you think it’s a fair summary?

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I haven’t read the complete book, I only searched it for words like “expect”. But from what I’ve seen browsing it, defeated expectations are not the central theme.

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Just reading that translation, it just sounds like he’s explaining why some people get upset over small things that aren’t really an injustice, not saying anger in general is “really about defeated expectations.”

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While the example given is a trifle, I suspect the general idea applies to all. It would, at least, be consistent with Stoic philosophy in general. Seneca does write that anger is undesirable even with grave injustices; but don’t confuse lack of anger with meek acceptance. And we get angry because others/ourselves/the world sometimes break our demands (the "ought to"s) and expectations, and we judge them/ourselves/the world for it. (This idea, incidentally, is one of the cornerstones of rational emotive behavioral therapy and is used in other cognitive therapies.)

I don’t know if I’d make the summary of “Seneca said anger is really about defeated expectations.” I guess it’s a loose enough statement that it’s not a terrible misunderstanding, but perhaps a seasoned philosopher would better be able to parse the nuance.

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I think it depends on what level the “expectation” is at.

Suppose you’re a Jew in World War II, and the Nazis send your loved ones to the gas chambers. In one sense, your “expectations” wouldn’t have been defied one bit - it’s exactly what you would expect Nazis to do. They’re Nazis, after all.

But in a deeper sense, your “expectations” might have been violated in that you expect humans to treat each other in a much morally better way than that, and it goes against your inner moral sense of what you deserve - nobody deserves to have their loved ones murdered. So you’d be angry.

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Yes, in your example, that is what I would identify the “expectation” as. Or, rather, I’d label it as a “demand” of others and the world that is broken, causing great strife.

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This is not a General Question, it is - more than anything else - a solicitation of opinions. I have moved it to IMHO for you.

RickJay
Moderator

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So in a sense Seneca is taking about anger resulting from a “violation of expectations” rather than “a defeat of expectations”

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I don’t know if that’s how I would summarize it. I’m not going to weigh the semantics of “violating” vs “defeating.” I probably wouldn’t use the word “defeating” or even “violating,” just going “contrary to expectations.”

Anyhow, the rest of the quoted passage on expectations goes like this, if it helps to clarify Seneca’s mindset a bit:

“Why, then,” you query, “do the wrongs done by our enemies stir us?” Because we did not expect them, or at any rate not wrongs so serious."

So however you want to parse that.

By the way, 30:09 into the video is the end of the video, so I have no idea where the Seneca stuff comes up in your link.

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Yeah, I think the word ‘expectations’ sets up nitpickery and pedantry. More like, there is a certain standard or ideal that we want in life, and things that don’t match up to that ideal, piss us off.

Someone drives nicely in their line like they are supposed to? Perfectly fine.

Someone cuts us off in traffic, then flips us the middle finger? Not fine, it violates “what should be.”

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sorry.It’s 27 minutes 48 seconds into the video.

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Thanks to @Schnitte for finding the text.

Iniqua quaedam iudicant homines quia pati non debuerint, quaedam quia non speraverint. Indigna putamus quae inopinata sunt; itaque maxime commovent quae contra spem expectationemque evenerunt, nec aliud est quare in domesticis minima offendant, in amicis iniuriam vocemus neglegentiam.

The English translation given above isn’t very clear. Here’s my less literal, but I hope clearer, translation:

    People consider some things to be unjust because they don't deserve to have to deal with them, others because they were not what they were hoping for. We think that what we are surprised by is not due to us. The things that most move us to anger are those that happen contrary to our hope and expectation. It's the same reason we are annoyed by small domestic matters, and we call the carelessness of our friends an injury.

Seneca didn’t say that ‘anger is really about defeated expectations’. He gives defeated hope at least an equal weight, and his view is more complex and nuanced.

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Thanks GreenWyvern.

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As a quick and dirty summary without going into the depths of Seneca’s philosophy, I don’t think it’s at all far off. When I type in “define: hope” in Google, I get this: “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.” Clearly, “hope and expectation” are closely linked concepts. Note that Seneca uses the conjunction “and” there, not “or.” The “and” to me links the words together as being rooted in the same concept, whereas if he had used “or” there would be more separation to me of the two concepts.

For me, if there’s a word I don’t like in the summary, it’s “defeated”, as I would use the phrase you have in your translation: “contrary to.” “Hope and expectations” vs “expectations” alone doesn’t bug me, as I consider “hope” to be a type of expectation. I personally don’t feel it’s a grievous error, but for a six-word summary of Seneca’s philosophy of anger, it’s, of course, going to leave out lots of details.

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OK, and hearing the example that follows of someone bumping into you in a grocery store line and being upset because you did not expect one to seems, to me, to be a reasonable quick example of Stoic philosophy in general: that our anger (or any “passion”/strong emotion) is a result not of what happens to us, but rather of what we think about what happens to us, that is, our expectations/demands/hopes of others,ourselves, the world and, furthermore, subsequent judging of others/ourselves/the world.

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Also, if anyone wants to read through the full text of On Anger and get all the details out of Seneca’s views on it, it’s actually a pretty easy read, at least with this translation available online. Suffice to say, Seneca is pretty much an absolutist regarding anger being something to avoid.