The forgotten virtue of emotional self-control (Michael Simkovic)

Abraham Lincoln managed his feelings of anger by writing “hot letters”, which he would then set aside until his emotions cooled.  With a clear head, he usually decided that it was inadvisable to send or publish the letters.  They would remain safely locked in a desk drawer until they were discovered by historians.

It is important to recognize when one is angry, and to realize that being angry—especially when accompanied by feelings of self-righteousness or moral virtue--can be like being drunk or high.  It can be thrilling and energizing in the moment but also impairs one’s judgement.  It can lead to mistakes that cause long lasting harm to the angry person and those around him or her.  Avoiding making errors of judgment while emotional, especially while angry, is an extremely important skill for professionals such as lawyers.  It has also been praised as an important virtue by Buddhist monks, stoic philosophers, and psychologists. 

A particularly advanced technique is the ability to calm oneself extremely quickly so that amount of time spent angry—and therefore vulnerable to errors of judgement—is too short to cause harm, even in a live face-to-face interaction.  Those who perfect it appear to never get angry, because the time spent angry is so brief. 

This is a skill that we should be teaching in law school.

When I taught taxation, including the tax implications of divorce, I used to show my students a clip from the 1980s film The War of the Roses.  In the film, a Harvard Law graduate and corporate lawyer played by Michael Douglas becomes unhinged during a brutal divorce from his wife, played by Kathleen Turner.  After being injured by his wife in a physical altercation (she was a former gymnast with extremely powerful legs), Douglas believes himself to be dying of a heart attack.  Not wishing to die leaving behind ill will, Douglas writes an emotionally generous love letter to his wife, declaring how grateful he is to her for the happy years they once shared together and how much of his success he owes to her. 

When Douglas survives hospitalization for what turns out to be a mild ailment, and attempts to reconcile with his wife, she mocks him for being a hypochondriac.  Later, during divorce property settlement negotiations, Kathleen Turner’s character turns the letter over to her divorce lawyer, who reads passages back to Douglas’s character.  Douglas becomes enraged and launches into a vicious tirade against the lawyer—who he knows full well is doing his (admittedly distasteful) job. Douglas ends by calmly and somewhat more politely asking if he can have a moment alone with his wife.

The divorce lawyer, brimming with unflappable charm and grace, smiles at Michael Douglas, chirpily replies, “Certainly”, and leaves the room, happy as a clam. 

This clip makes an important point: a great lawyer has supreme emotional self-control and does not allow anger, fear or hurt—his or her own or others—to cloud his judgment or control his actions.  No matter the emotional turmoil, the mind must be as smooth as the unperturbed surface of a body of still water.  The good lawyer is non-reactive, studies the situation as it is and not as he wishes it would be, and thinks about how best to accomplish his most important objectives given real world constraints.

There are many topics about which many people, including law students, law professors, and law school administrators feel passionately and intensely disagree with each other.  Discussion of these topics can fill people with potentially destabilizing emotions.  These topics include race, sex, politics, religion, and sometimes money. 

A good lawyer understands, like a Buddhist monk, that there is no such thing as righteous anger.  There is only emotional self-control and self-destructive foolishness.

A recent incident illustrates this rather nicely.

Bloomberg reports that the president of New York University’s student bar association lost a job offer from Winston and Strawn after making an official written statement endorsing violent attacks by Hamas against Israeli Civilians.  The NYU student took the view that Israel’s actions justify whatever level violence anyone who opposes Israel might wish to inflict.

The U.N. Secretary-General stated, with reference to the Hamas attack that, “Nothing can justify these acts of terror and the killing, maiming and abduction of civilians.” This is a core principle of the laws of war.  The U.S. Government and its European allies have condemned Hamas for killing, kidnapping, and—according to CBS news and President Biden—mutilating civilians. Statements by political leaders have been carefully worded, and are generally hedged regarding the appropriate resolution of the broader Israeli Palestinian conflict over territory, water rights, and self-governance.  

Israel is one of those topics about which people feel passionately and often intensely disagree with each other.  Universities need to be able to employ faculty and administrators, and teach and place students with employers who have widely divergent views on controversial topics including Israel.  Some might wish that private sector workers in the United States enjoyed stronger employment protections for expressing controversial political views.  But that is not the country we live in.

One of the best things we—as educators—can do to help our students prepare for careers as professionals is to teach them the forgotten virtues of emotional self-control, charm, situational awareness, and self-restraint.  Recently, many university leaders and faculty members have emphasized what they see as the virtues of self-righteous anger and political activism—at least if it is in the same direction as their own personal political views.  In my view, they are doing their students a disservice by turning them into angrier and therefore less competent people.  We have an obligation to our students to prepare them for professional success.  That obligation trumps our own personal politics.

 

UPDATES as of 10/15/2023: NBC news reports that written plans carried by Hamas fighters show that they planned to specifically target schools to kill children or take them as hostages.  More than 200 Harvard professors have criticized a letter drafted by a Palestinian student organization (and signed by the leaders of 30 other organizations on behalf of their organizations) endorsing attacks by Hamas on civilians.  The Harvard Professors also criticized the University administration's response to the student letter.  At least 12 CEOs have asked for the identities of the responsible Harvard students so that they can ensure that they are not hired at their companies.  Former Harvard president Larry Summers requested leniency for the students on the grounds that they might have signed the statement without actually reading it.  Identifying information of many of the students has been posted to the internet according to the Harvard Crimson, presumably to facilitate employment background checks.  More than 9 student organizations have retracted their support for the letter.  Several students have resigned from the organizations that signed the letter. 

The NYU law and Harvard Student letters are similar to official statements by the governments of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which officially endorsed the attacks on Israeli civilians, and the leader of the Russian Federation, who blamed the Hamas attacks on U.S. Foreign policy.  Russia and Iran have both been on opposite sides from the United States and its allies in several extremely violent proxy conflicts around the world, including those in Ukraine and Syria.

UPDATES as of 10/16/2023:

In the WSJ, Berkeley Corporate Law Professor Steven Davidoff Solomon argues that student groups that have banned pro-Israel speakers are engaged in anti-Semitic and anti-Christian discrimination and that it is appropriate for employers to refuse to hire students who engage in such discrimination.  

A fascinating--and to the best of my knowledge, factually accurate and fairly contextualized--account of the history of violence and ethnic cleansing and human rights in the middle east appears here.