Abstract

It is not difficult to observe that social anger is pervasive in several contemporary political movements organized for the purpose of resisting systemic injustice and galvanizing institutional reform. However, the field of Catholic theological ethics currently lacks a normative framework adequate for the task of understanding and evaluating these public expressions of social anger. This essay draws upon the common good tradition and the preferential option for the poor in order to argue that social anger is best understood as a “cognitive interruption” of the ideological rationalizations for oppression and privilege. To the extent that this cognitive interruption is integrated with the civic virtues of restorative justice, conflictual solidarity, and prophetic prudence, it should be judged as rightly expressed through the public actions of social agents aiming to resist human rights violations and to demand equitable institutional participation.