Righteous anger

I’ve been thinking about righteous anger lately, especially with all this talk about performative action. I mean, what’s actually performative and what isn’t? Are we implying that we’ve got a choice in what emotions and stories we cultivate, and what part of that we choose to present? Have we really examined what it means to “perform”?

Do you know the story of Parasurama as it appears in the Advaita text Tripura Rahasya?

Parasurama was the son of a gentle Brahmin sage and his Kshatriya wife Renuka. He embodied the spirit of a warrior prides himself upon his skills as a fighter. His saintly father chides him for his angry spirit and sends him away on a pilgrimage to calm his mind. When Parasurama returns, he discovers that his father his been killed by a group of warriors. He is devastated, and becomes possessed by “righteous” fury. These warriors slaughtered his father, after all. He picks up his weapons and, bloodthirsty, he sets out to destroy every kshatriya he can find. He is so relentless in his mission that he destroys even infants and fetuses of the Kshastriya caste.

At some point he meets Rama of Ayodhya — the same protagonist as Rama of the Ramayana. He challenges him in battle and is defeated. Humiliated and exhausted, he contemplates the journey of anger and righteous vengeance that his mind took him on. He realizes that it is endless, and that it is time to find a way out from his misery.

He happens upon the yogi Samvarta and notes how cool his demeanor is. He sees him and thinks, “Ah, sorrow…