"Anger" to "Grief": Neither One-Way nor Exclusive

[edelsont]

Back on February 28, I posted, in "Talk Politics", with the subject line Global Mourning.  I have come to realize that some of what I said there was prone to misunderstanding … because I think that at least one person did misunderstand it.

I said that my mood, in regard to Donald Trump's War, had shifted from anger to grief.  I did already, right there in the text, warn against one possible misunderstanding: while my mood (when thinking about the war) had changed, my judgment on it had not.  Though I was feeling grief more than the earlier anger, I still disapproved of Trump's having started the war, as much as I ever did.  (And still do now, if not more so.)

In short, feelings and judgments are not the same thing.

Now I want to add: the shift in feelings is, itself, not necessarily permanent.  One can shift from grief back to anger, and then back to grief again, while one's judgment remains unchanged all the while.

In fact, I have made that shift in the interim, several times.  I have thought up, and written down, some allegedly clever things on the subject that were prompted largely by anger.  (But I have not, as yet, seen fit to post them publicly.)

While I'm on the subject, I might as well add: anger and grief are by no means a complete list of the emotions that one might feel, and I have felt, in response to this disastrous war.  There's also depression, for one.

And fear!  I was astounded when I realized that I'd left that one out!