Yet in the midst of a political campaign marked by a disturbing brutishness -- by the bitter angels of our nature, to tweak Lincoln's words -- children are seeing the ugliness of the mob, the ugliness of fear, the ugliness of arrogance, ignorance, self-righteousness, rage.
"That's what lends righteousness to the rage of activists campaigning against what they see as cynical distortions of those ideas".
Now we had a spectacle of nihilism without aspiration, rage without righteousness, and the official response was almost as dispiriting as the riots themselves.
(The only actress here to equal and, in some ways, surpass Davis is Jenny O'Hara, as the elderly Mrs. Donovan, a character puffed up with accumulated rage, self-righteousness, and, ultimately, bewilderment: where has her life gone?) Davis knows that Lucy's sympathies — when she can muster them — are an act.
LaMotta feels a little shame, a lot more indignation, much self-righteousness and a volcano of rage.
Reveille emulated both Rage's music and its righteousness; Primer 55 used rap-metal for anger and boasts.
"Anger plus self-righteousness is the classic recipe for road rage," James says.
Years later, commenting on his reading of Scripture as a young friar, Luther spoke of his rage at the description of God's righteousness, and of his grief that, as he was certain, he would not be judged worthy: "I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners".
