Nikki Stern

I am drained these days by outrage, including my own.

The other day, I went on Amazon to find several reviews of my new book had been removed because Amazon’s policy is to eliminate any endorsement from anyone with a connection to the author. While I understand Amazon’s caution with regard to spouses and relatives, the policy appears to be applied to anyone in your office who may have liked and wants to review the book you’ve written.

It’s an irritating policy to be sure but initially I wasn’t irritated; I was OUTRAGED.

The Oxford Dictionary defines outrage as that which arouses extreme anger, shock or indignation. The very act of thinking along those lines convinced me the Amazon incident wasn’t worth the effort.

That’s the thing about outrage, though: it acts before thinking. As Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, notes “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”

Insert “read” for “listen” and you’ve got a description of today’s media/social media landscape.

Outrage is no longer the province of Internet trolls—those people who deliberately promote incivility. These days, nous sommes tous les trolls.* A single statement, a single word, can trigger a visceral reaction that begins with the conviction on the listener/reader’s part that the writer or speaker means them harm.

The other day I witnessed a commenter go off on a post from a kind and decent woman who wrote, “Oh, I wish we were going to have a blizzard!” The angry respondent chastised my friend for her insensitivity to those who suffer when blizzards hit. She continued to express her fury even after an apology was offered, thus souring what should have been a light-hearted exchange between friends.

That’s another thing about outrage: Once the match is lit, angry or frustrated people can find find all sorts of grievances to use as kindling—anything to keep fanning the flames.

Human beings are hard-wired to be reactive, especially in a group setting. Fans of sports or pop culture have always felt free to give full expression to their displeasure, whether in a fistfight at a bar over a controversial call or a shoving match at an opera house over a less than stellar performance. Mob mentality can easily envelop the most carefully orchestrated protest when participants get caught up in voicing their anger. Of such impulses are riots born.

The trouble is, the platform is much larger nowadays, thanks to social media. So is both our outrage and our conviction that we are entitled to be outraged. Offense is easily given and taken; one doesn’t even have to leave the comfort of one’s own home.

The problem is, outrage creates a toxic climate, a condition in which listening in order to understand is rendered impossible. Some crude self-promotion and canny marketing is always at work, since provocation attracts more attention than accord. The more public the expression of outrage, the more notice is gained.

Wholesale outrage has done the most damage in areas where a dialogue might well bring about a degree of understanding. In discussions about important issues that revolve around equality for non-white or non-Christian or non-straight communities, so many otherwise thoughtful people now stand (or sit at computers) prepared to be outraged. In certain online communities, one does not presume to address the sentiments, strategies, goals or growing pains of a group without the risk of being slammed as “patronizing” or worse. There is empathy for the persecuted, to be sure; but not for anyone offering critical commentary. Alliances are impossible; compromise unthinkable. The default position is not to foster discussion or stay open to constructive criticism but to be inflamed by it.

My problem with the ongoing epidemic of outrage is that first of all, it celebrates a negative emotional reaction at the expense of a rational discourse, precluding the latter at every turn. I can hardly find a thread or series of comments that doesn’t devolve into snippy name-calling or some truly nasty insulting. Every potential conversation is turned into a blood-sport.

Worse, if we get outraged over everything, we concede that everything is worthy of outrage. A flattened football, a shooting by cop, a perceived insult to a religious icon and the murder of people who happen to be living or working in the wrong place at the wrong time—who can believe these are all equally worthy of such heated, violent outbursts? The answer is: they aren’t.

Chronic outrage is exhausting. If we don’t save our righteous anger for things that absolutely must be changed, what changes? All we do is nurture our growing distrust and dislike of our fellow human beings—an idea I find outrageous.
*we are all trolls.