Mariana Alessandri, philosopher: ‘We aren’t monsters for being angry, just hurt human beings’

Mariana Alessandri defines herself as a philosopher, professor, accidental activist, mother, and “defender of dark moods.” She explains: since ancient times and the early Greek thinkers, darkness and negativity have been perceived as undesirable. A perception that self-help books, modern psychology, and advertising have intensified: being happy and optimistic is correct; being angry or sad is wrong.

In Night Vision: Seeing Ourselves Through Dark Moods, Alessandri makes a case for these emotions. Anger, anxiety, and grief are not something to be ashamed of. They are part of who we are, they help us grow, they offer valuable information, and they are an essential component of what makes us human.

Alessandri, the daughter of Chilean parents and a lover of Miguel de Unamuno and the existentialists, lives with her family in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, where she teaches philosophy at the university of the same name. She is a feminist, and also co-founded a nonprofit with her husband to support bilingual education.

We spoke with her in Washington, where she traveled to present her book. She arrives dressed in black — yet another embrace of darkness — armed with pages of notes to avoid forgetting a single detail, and openly admits that anxiety, one of the dark emotions she defends, woke her at 5 a.m. to prepare for this interview.

Question. Darkness is natural, how have we come to understand it as something bad?

Answer. It’s not that we arrived there, it’s that we started there. The dichotomy between white, which is good, and black, which is bad, has always existed. But today’s toxic positivity is more exaggerated. It doesn’t allow a human being to be whole. We all carry both light and dark within us. If only the light is valued, what do we do when we feel depressed or anxious? We’ll say to ourselves: “I am broken, I’m no good as a human being, I must be happy.” We have to learn to see in the darkness. We must not change ourselves, but the way we think about what a human being is.

Q. How does anger benefit us, then?

A. Anger helps us: it’s information. If we believe it’s poison — which is the usual view — we’ll fight with ourselves without resolving anything; we won’t listen to it or pay attention to it. And we can use it as a tool to discover what’s wrong with us. If we examine it, we can discover its cause.

Q. There has been a lot of anger around lately.

A. Yes, when I wrote the book [U.S. President Donald] Trump was still in his first term, we had the Covid pandemic…, since then the anger has skyrocketed.

Q. And now that Trump is back?

A. Well, there are people who are angry — even within his own party — but also those who are happier. I’ve seen a lot of fighting, a lot of anger, people on both sides not speaking to each other. You have to find what you have in common. I don’t know if it’s naive, but having relationships with people who have different ideas makes you see that they also have anxiety, fear, worries, and that they are no different. You recognize the humanity in each other. If we can relate, we don’t end up with hatred. Anger or rage can change, but hatred can’t. Hatred says, “You are not a human being, you are a monster, you are evil.” And when we get to that point, it’s very dangerous.

Q. How do we know when anger stops being healthy and becomes pathological?

A. Some people ask me, how much darkness should I have? It’s not a question of how much, but of managing it. Knowing that we aren’t monsters for being angry — we are human beings hurt for some reason that we need to explore. A lot of anger comes from denying anger. That’s the irony. If we examine our anger, we won’t let it grow so much.

Q. What about pain, anxiety, sadness?

A. These feelings tell us that something is happening. And they are human. Unamuno says: I suffer, therefore I am. Kierkegaard said that anxiety is a form of intelligence. But this society makes us feel ashamed for having these feelings. We think we’re worth less than others who are always happy and don’t suffer from anxiety. That constant happiness is just an appearance, a show for Instagram. We all feel pain and anger.

Q. It seems that we are living in especially dark times now.

A. Unamuno taught me that sharing pain is an act of generosity. It’s not a burden you pass on to someone, but a gift. We can be honest with each other. It’s like a partnership. When someone shares their pain with us, our instinct is to try to fix it, to make that person feel happy. Sometimes that’s not what we need: we just want to be seen and loved exactly as we are, exactly as we feel. If you say to me, “Tell me, why do you feel this way?” we’ll connect, and I won’t feel so alone. The beautiful thing about the pandemic is that in the midst of all the terrible things, we were able to take off our masks and say, “I’m not feeling well.” In divisive moments, instead of fueling anger and letting it become the dominant emotion, we should think about how to build bridges and overcome this tension.

Q. You founded an NGO to promote bilingualism. You build bridges that way.

A. With it, we want to promote dual-language programs, where children are taught in both English and Spanish, having a certain percentage of subjects in each language in my region, which is near the border and where both languages are spoken. We are trying to convince people that it’s better for children not to learn just English, for them not to reject Spanish. It’s especially difficult now that [the Trump administration] has declared English the official language. But maybe that will provoke people who are asleep and don’t recognize that Spanish is being lost, Spanish is bleeding out in the region because often parents don’t speak it with their children, they don’t understand that their children won’t magically speak it on their own.

Q. Is speaking Spanish a source of pride?

A. We feel a lot of linguistic shame in my region. Some people have convinced themselves that Spanish is worthless. These are people, for example, whose grandparents, as children, washed their mouths out with soap when they spoke Spanish. A language to be punished. But the tide is changing, and I hope we can get more children to be bilingual.

Q. The border regions are bearing the brunt of the president’s mass raids and deportations. What is the situation like in your area?

A. There is a lot of fear and dread. Those who talk about this issue and criticize it should be careful. In their imagination, immigrants are criminals, but if you go to the shelters, they’re mothers with babies... They should see it, and then judge. To see the immense act of love it is for a woman to bring her child through so many dangers in order to give them a better life. To see the pain. Fortunately, many people also try to help. We may all have problems, but we can use that pain — that darkness — to understand others. To feel like we’re family.

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