One reason why it has become harder to promote the beneficial

Host: The night wind blew through the narrow alleyways of the old quarter, carrying with it the scent of smoke, espresso, and philosophy. In a small bookshop café, tucked behind crooked shelves and a haze of incense, the lamplight burned low, glowing amber over worn wooden tables and towers of half-read paperbacks.

Rain murmured outside, steady and rhythmic, as though the city itself was meditating.

At a corner table sat Jack, his grey eyes shadowed by thought, a cigarette smoldering between his fingers. Jeeny sat across from him, notebook open, the edges of its pages curled from past storms. Between them, two cups of coffee steamed like restless ghosts of conviction.

Jeeny: (reading softly from her notes) “Julian Baggini wrote, ‘One reason why it has become harder to promote the beneficial side of emotions such as anger is that the moral vocabulary of good and bad has been replaced by the self-help lexicon of positive and negative thinking.’”

Jack: (exhaling smoke) “In other words — we’ve moralized feelings out of existence and commodified emotions into mantras.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. We’ve turned anger into a pathology instead of a signal. ‘Negative thinking,’ they call it — as if moral judgment and emotional depth could be filtered like a podcast playlist.”

Jack: (smirking) “You’d rather we all start throwing plates to ‘honor our anger’?”

Jeeny: “No. I’d rather we stopped pretending serenity is sainthood.”

Host: The rain intensified, rattling softly against the windowpane. The lamplight flickered once, stretching their shadows like two ancient disputants carved in amber.

Jack: “You know what’s funny? Every self-help guru says the same thing — be positive, stay calm, forgive everything. As if moral clarity is just good lighting and a breathing exercise.”

Jeeny: “And yet people are angrier than ever. Suppressed emotion doesn’t disappear — it mutates.”

Jack: (leaning forward) “So you think anger’s good?”

Jeeny: “I think anger’s honest. When used with conscience, it’s moral fire. Without it, we’d still have slavery, silence, and submission. What do you think the civil rights movement ran on? ‘Positive thinking’?”

Jack: “Fair point. But moral fire burns too. Look around — outrage is the new religion. People worship anger now. They live off it like oxygen.”

Jeeny: “That’s not anger — that’s fury without ethics. Baggini’s right: once we abandoned the words ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ we lost direction. We traded virtue for validation.”

Host: A group of students laughed nearby, their voices bright against the storm outside. The laughter faded as the door opened, a gust of cold air stirring the candle flames. Jack stubbed out his cigarette, the smoke spiraling upward like a sermon lost to heaven.

Jack: “You know, I miss the days when anger had purpose. My father used to rage against injustice — not Twitter posts. His anger built bridges, didn’t burn them.”

Jeeny: “That’s because his anger had a compass. Modern outrage doesn’t — it just spins, looking for likes.”

Jack: “So what, we blame self-help culture for neutering the real thing?”

Jeeny: “Partly. It’s easier to sell serenity than self-examination. The market loves peace as long as it’s profitable.”

Jack: (with a dry laugh) “Meditation apps and rage podcasts — capitalism’s yin and yang.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Exactly. We’ve turned healing into merchandise. But healing without moral inquiry is just anesthesia.”

Host: Her words hung heavy, the kind that settle deeper than sound. The café had grown quieter — only the rain’s rhythm and the hiss of the espresso machine breaking the silence.

Jack: “Let’s be honest — people don’t want moral vocabulary anymore because it demands accountability. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ make you face yourself. ‘Positive’ and ‘negative’ just make you feel better about your avoidance.”

Jeeny: “That’s precisely what Baggini meant. We’ve replaced ethics with aesthetics.”

Jack: (sipping his coffee) “And we mistake tone for truth.”

Jeeny: “Yes. We silence anger because it sounds ugly — forgetting that beauty has no monopoly on truth.”

Host: Outside, a lightning flash illuminated the street for an instant — the wet cobblestones glowing like molten glass. Inside, the lamplight trembled but didn’t die.

Jack: “So what do you propose, Jeeny? A return to moral judgment? To old-fashioned right and wrong?”

Jeeny: “No. I propose discernment — calling anger righteous when it defends, and toxic when it destroys. But don’t kill it just because it’s loud.”

Jack: “You think people can tell the difference anymore?”

Jeeny: “Not easily. We’ve lost the language for it. You can’t navigate a storm if you’ve forgotten the names of the winds.”

Host: A pause — filled with the sound of rain easing into drizzle. The mood softened; the tension became introspection.

Jack: “You ever feel that kind of anger — the kind that purifies?”

Jeeny: “Every time I see injustice dressed as diplomacy. Every time empathy is dismissed as weakness. That anger doesn’t consume me — it clarifies me.”

Jack: “And what about personal anger — the small, ugly kind?”

Jeeny: (after a moment) “That kind you confess, not suppress. Even ugly emotions can be redeemed if you own them. But if you deny them — they own you.”

Host: The clock above the counter struck midnight. A few customers gathered their coats. The barista yawned. But the two of them stayed, still orbiting the conversation like planets tethered to truth.

Jack: “You know, Jeeny, I think the problem isn’t that we’ve lost morality. It’s that we’ve become afraid of judgment — even our own. We call it ‘positivity’ when really it’s cowardice.”

Jeeny: “And we call numbness ‘peace.’”

Jack: “Maybe what we need isn’t more mindfulness, but more meaning.”

Jeeny: “Meaning demands risk. Risk demands honesty. And honesty —”

Jack: “—is rarely positive.”

Host: The rain stopped completely. The silence that followed was pure, crystalline — the kind of silence that comes only after the world has told its truth.

Jeeny closed her notebook slowly, her voice gentler now.

Jeeny: “We don’t need to banish anger. We need to teach it ethics again. Let it burn without devouring.”

Jack: “You make it sound like art.”

Jeeny: “It is. The oldest kind — the art of being human without apology.”

Host: The café light dimmed further, as though the city were finally at rest. The reflection of the two of them in the rain-specked window looked almost ghostly — two figures suspended between reason and heart.

And in that reflection, Julian Baggini’s words came alive —

That emotions are moral instruments, not diseases;
that to call anger merely “negative”
is to amputate its power to protect;
that without the language of right and wrong,
we cannot teach the difference between rage and justice.

Host: Jack smiled faintly, the kind of smile that acknowledges defeat — but also understanding.

Jack: “You’re right. Maybe it’s not positivity we need — maybe it’s moral courage.”

Jeeny: “And maybe courage begins when we stop fearing the weight of our own anger.”

Host: She stood, pulling her coat around her shoulders. Outside, the moon had returned — pale, unashamed, and bright against the wet pavement.

Jack watched her go, the echo of her footsteps mingling with the soft drip of the awning.

And as he sat alone in the fading lamplight, the world outside shimmered clean again —
not because it had found calm,
but because it had earned its storm.