Even a cursory review of history reveals an underlying anger in every age that manifests itself in cruelties, murders, and wars. Find me, I challenge you, an Age of Peace, a time when life was a placid lake of love and harmony. Let me save you some effort: No such quiet has ever existed. If a general peace occurs, it always overlies individual episodes of ire. Those who pursue peace must always undergo a trial by ire. Peace is a narrow path through the fire of ire. Today, that path is often a cyber path, a virtual road through the Internet.
An angry world might stop to consider the etymology of the English word ire. Word historians find an obvious connection between ire and its Latin cognate ira, which covers a range of meanings from “anger” through “wrath” to “rage.”* Etymologists also point out that ira can also mean “passion.” Certainly every age has its share of passionately angry people, so English ire appears to be appropriately derived from the Latin ira.
Latin ira has its own beginnings in a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) Language root eis-, possibly through the Greek hieros. That Greek word conveys the meaning “filled with the divine” and “holy.” Greek oistros, which reflects that PIE root eis-, means “a gadfly,” but originally was “a thing that causes madness.” The Online Etymology Dictionary** lists some related words, such as the Sanskrit esati (“drives on”) and yasati (“boils”), the Avestan aesma (“anger”), and the Lithuanian aistra (“violent passion”), all having a visual and phonetic relationship to the PIE root. Obviously, languages have had to incorporate what has been an integral part of human existence, a kind of continuing story of Cain.
There are other connections between modern ire and older words, such as those that derive from Old Saxon and Old High German, from Gothic airzeis, and even from the Latin verb errare. All these roots and words capture the reason that ire continues from age to age. Ire “drives on” people. Their emotions “boil.” Their “madness” breeds “madness,” the one a loss of sanity and cool logic and the other a straying from the narrow path of peace. And in that Latin errare lies the idea of “wandering,” which is also correlative of Old English irre.*** The irate wander as passion takes them, usually off the path to peace.
Is this an angrier age? Probably not. Are there more angry people? Well, there are more people, so, probably, yes. There are also more outlets for anger. Every age has had likeminded angry people whose ire goes unabated for a generation. Sometimes that ire reaches many other generations, as it seems to have done so in the Middle East. This age makes facilitates connections among likeminded angry people. Their likemindedness expands logarithmically through social media.
Life is not all wrath and rage though at times it seems that ire alone dominates the human condition. In seeking peace in an angry world, you are not alone as you undergo your trial by ire. As many have contended with the irate in times past, so many of your contemporaries contend with the irate today. As the irate have the ability to spread ire logarithmically, so you also have a similar ability to spread peace.
*As in the famous dirge “Dies Irae,” the Requiem Mass’s “That Day of Wrath,” that Mozart and Berlioz used so effectively in their musical compositions and that many a film director has incorporated into ominous scenes.
**https://www.etymonline.com/word/ire
***Think “knight errant,” the wandering knight, or consider “glacial erratic,” a boulder carried from its source rock to wherever the glacier melts and drops it.
An angry world might stop to consider the etymology of the English word ire. Word historians find an obvious connection between ire and its Latin cognate ira, which covers a range of meanings from “anger” through “wrath” to “rage.”* Etymologists also point out that ira can also mean “passion.” Certainly every age has its share of passionately angry people, so English ire appears to be appropriately derived from the Latin ira.
Latin ira has its own beginnings in a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) Language root eis-, possibly through the Greek hieros. That Greek word conveys the meaning “filled with the divine” and “holy.” Greek oistros, which reflects that PIE root eis-, means “a gadfly,” but originally was “a thing that causes madness.” The Online Etymology Dictionary** lists some related words, such as the Sanskrit esati (“drives on”) and yasati (“boils”), the Avestan aesma (“anger”), and the Lithuanian aistra (“violent passion”), all having a visual and phonetic relationship to the PIE root. Obviously, languages have had to incorporate what has been an integral part of human existence, a kind of continuing story of Cain.
There are other connections between modern ire and older words, such as those that derive from Old Saxon and Old High German, from Gothic airzeis, and even from the Latin verb errare. All these roots and words capture the reason that ire continues from age to age. Ire “drives on” people. Their emotions “boil.” Their “madness” breeds “madness,” the one a loss of sanity and cool logic and the other a straying from the narrow path of peace. And in that Latin errare lies the idea of “wandering,” which is also correlative of Old English irre.*** The irate wander as passion takes them, usually off the path to peace.
Is this an angrier age? Probably not. Are there more angry people? Well, there are more people, so, probably, yes. There are also more outlets for anger. Every age has had likeminded angry people whose ire goes unabated for a generation. Sometimes that ire reaches many other generations, as it seems to have done so in the Middle East. This age makes facilitates connections among likeminded angry people. Their likemindedness expands logarithmically through social media.
Life is not all wrath and rage though at times it seems that ire alone dominates the human condition. In seeking peace in an angry world, you are not alone as you undergo your trial by ire. As many have contended with the irate in times past, so many of your contemporaries contend with the irate today. As the irate have the ability to spread ire logarithmically, so you also have a similar ability to spread peace.
*As in the famous dirge “Dies Irae,” the Requiem Mass’s “That Day of Wrath,” that Mozart and Berlioz used so effectively in their musical compositions and that many a film director has incorporated into ominous scenes.
**https://www.etymonline.com/word/ire
***Think “knight errant,” the wandering knight, or consider “glacial erratic,” a boulder carried from its source rock to wherever the glacier melts and drops it.
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