In the oral histories of local peace activists, there are similar instances of anger described as preceding the initial actions for peace. One activist, who was inspired first in reaction to the war in Vietnam recalls how he felt when Nixon bombed Hanoi:

'I remember the great rage that I felt that he was doing this and I remember yelling at my father (who had supported Nixon) even though my father was not responsible.'

Another activist answered an advertisement to be an office helper in Washington and it turned out to be that of a committee that took badly-burned Vietnamese children, gave them plastic surgery, and sent them back home. As she describes her emotional reaction, note the parallel to the 'despair and resentment' evoked in Jane Addams by the vision of the starving people in London's East End:

'My job was to keep their photos on file and if you've ever seen the effect of fire on flesh, especially a child's flesh, it's a very wrenching experience and you'll never forget it, and you're a changed person because of it.'

Sometimes, the oral histories do not mention the activist's own anger, but that of others who served as role models. One was impressed by the anger of the city's mayor when he received plans for a civil defense evacuation that was a sham. Another was influenced by a group during the civil rights struggles in New Haven in the 1960's who called themselves the Seven Angry Men.

In general, one can conclude that anger is an early and important step in the consciousness development of peace activists. The anger is a response to perceived social injustice. It is an expression of moral outrage and it depends upon prior acquisition of social values and knowledge. Anger leads to action, which is the following step in consciousness development. Later, as consciousness development proceeds to steps of affiliation and analysis, the anger does not disappear . Instead, the individual episodes of anger and action are replaced by collective anger and action against the perceived source of injustice.

It is important to recognize that anger and violence are not the same. In fact, the tactical use of non-violence may draw upon and harness the collective anger of participants. The quotes above from Gandhi illustrate this. In drawing upon Gandhi's philosophy, Martin Luther King Jr. (1958) put it this way:

'Non-violent resistance is not a method for cowards; it does resist. ..this is why Gandhi often said that if cowardice is the only alternative to violence, it is better to fight. ..while the non-violent resister is passive in the sense that he is not physically aggressive toward his opponent, his mind and emotions are always active.'

Turning now from my own findings to those of other investigators, we find further evidence that strengthens and elaborates the hypothesis that anger plays a critical role in consciousness development. Jerome Frank, the eminent psychiatrist and peace activist, carried out a questionnaire study in the 1960's on the origins of peace activism. Among his findings were the fact that 96% of the respondants said that the precipitating event that made them active included moderate or very strong emotional reactions, often anger. According to Frank (1965), they used words like 'outrage, furious, incensed, damned annoyed', to describe the feeling which was directed against the country's leadership or against groups whom they had mistakenly expected to be promoting peace.

Other studies emphasize the moral aspect of the anger of peace activists. In their study of participants in an anti-Vietnam war demonstration, Morse and Peele (1971) concluded that ' by far the largest amount of concern was shown for the moral implications of the war and for its dysfunctional effects on the world'. A more detailed analysis was undertaken by Gold, Christie, and Friedman (1976) of the attitudes of anti-war activists in the late 1960's at Columbia. Their conclusions were based on questionnaires designed to measure attitudes towards interpersonal manipulation. Since the questions were derived from the books of Machiavelli, they couch their conclusions in terms of what they call 'Machiavellianism'. Two scales were distinguished: Machiavellian tactics in which individuals may embrace such deceitful techniques as flattery and lying; and Machiavellian cynicism, which reflects a pessimistic view of the morality of other people and of the existing social order. In comparison to control groups of non-activist students, policemen, and construction workers, the activists scored much lower on Machiavellian tactics; in other words they rejected deceitful behavior. At the same time the activists scored higher than controls on Machiavellian cynicism, indicating their disillusionment and perhaps anger, at the existing social system. These findings suggest that activists were more moral and more outraged, and they fit well with our findings that moral outrage is an important early step in the development of consciousness.