I wrote this OP not to play my own game of outrage (though I can't deny it), but rather because understanding the social and political value of outrage as currency helps to explain and predict the progression of the current political and social climate. It explains, for instance, why the credible Dr. Ford's testimony was so easily brushed aside by millions of conservatives (they're desensitized to sex related claims, third parties are ready to spin the accusations as false to create outrage of their own, and media corporations catering to politically segmented individual markets are either taking the lead or happily amplifying these forces). Another phenomenon that could use explaining is the rise of "identity politics": certain demographics which historically have been or are currently oppressed and exploited are seen as victims, so to belong to such a demographic is to be a victim, which generates instant sympathy (more so than ever before thanks to instant media); normally personal experience is the standard for victimhood, but it can be replaced with with the proxy of identity based credentials.

We've conditioned ourselves into a more fundamental kind of division, and now our mere differences more so define us. It has probably always been this way to some extent, but as people become more social media connected they intrinsically (algorhythmically) establish themselves as disconnected from opposing parts of the whole network. We're all being pushed in to boxes with people who share our exact delusions, where they're easily reinforced and nursed to strength.

Apart from coming to realize that social media which feeds us an endless series of links and connections based on what is most emotionally appealing. is not healthy for our individual and overall cognitive health, I don't see the world becoming less divided or less confused any time soon.

That the culture of outrage causes me outrage...

The body politic.

Is your outrage unavoidable or more justifiable than others' outrage? — Πετροκότσυφας

My outrage isn't on its own a standard of justice.

Perhaps you could clarify the relevance of the questions, because I don't quite understand them. The thread is not about my outrage, whether or not my outrage is avoidable, or justified relative to the many outrages of others.

The point of the thread is to explore how victimhood and outrage has become an object of obsession in contemporary culture, and in doing so altered it. It's curious though, that you begin questioning how my own outrage compares to the outrage of others, as if to instantly begin playing that aforementioned sport-like game...

Are you outraged? Is your outrage unavoidable or more justifiable than my outrage?

I understand from the OP that for you victimisition and outrage is something bad — Πετροκότσυφας

I've described them as natural and essential tools for certain kinds of ethical action. Some outrage is healthy and warranted, and some outrage is not. Would you like examples?

So, your outrage might be a case in point which helps us explore how victimhood and outrage has become an object of obsession in contemporary culture. — Πετροκότσυφας

I'm frustrated because I see social media exploiting our sensitivities, which divides and stupefies us. Is my frustration warranted? Sure, Is it avoidable? No. What does this tell us about why people have become inculcated with an obsession for their own outrage?

At the same kind you acknowledged that you're doing the same thing which you find problematic and I was wondering why you do that. For example, it might be unavoidable or inescapable for some reason. Or, you might be entitled to it more than others. — Πετροκότσυφας

Parenthetically mentioning my own feelings of frustration was a matter of full disclosure (having feelings is something humans do afterall, and I'm not an unfeeling robot). However, my feelings are not the result of a single instant communication which happens to incense me, nor have they been cajoled by a box of emotionally reinforcing rhetoric. I can appreciate that you would like to show the apparent hypocrisy of being outraged at outrageous outrage, but I don't think that's the key to the issue I've identified.

Im not exactly sure what exactly you are offering for discussion here, but your coments seem accurate to me. There is a problem, and its clearly firmly entrenched.
At its base, this seems to stem from scoring social points which is normal in human cultures but there is something darker and more negative about what you are describing isnt there? The social points are being scored in a game of us vs them, rank tribalism. The harder you attack the more virtuous you are and the more points you score. The more points you are trying to score the more you become enslaved to the group think, and dependant on scoring, its cyclical and escalating. These groups will quickly turn on dissenters, because of course they are awarded social points for doing so.

At its base, this seems to stem from scoring social points which is normal in human cultures but there is something darker and more negative about what you are describing isnt there? The social points are being scored in a game of us vs them, rank tribalism. The harder you attack the more virtuous you are and the more points you score. The more points you are trying to score the more you become enslaved to the group think, and dependant on scoring, its cyclical and escalating. These groups will quickly turn on dissenters, because of course they are awarded social points for doing so. — DingoJones

It's a game that we're hard-wired to play, which is one of the reasons we're so vulnerable to it.

Im not exactly sure what exactly you are offering for discussion here, but your coments seem accurate to me. There is a problem, and its clearly firmly entrenched. — DingoJones

If you agree then perhaps there's not much to discuss. What this means for the future is perhaps worth discussing.

Honestly I think people are already waking up to it. The groups themselves are in the minority and people are wising up to the dangers of this sort of toxic virtue signalling, im so tempted to call it a fad and a fading one at that....but....it has infected our academia, it permeates our media intake in subtle and not so subtle ways and although people may have noticed and developed disdain they still dont seem to see the danger.
Your outrage seems entirely justified to me, and theirs certainly does not.

Haven't worked out what I think about the issue of the OP yet, but I really enjoyed the homage in the last line to the most famous poem ever by a Canadian.

Since you're able to avoid unhealthy and unwarranted frustration, while the body politic as a whole isn't, it remains to be seen how you're different. — Πετροκότσυφας

My frustration pertaining to the thread's subject is not the persuasive basis for it, and it does not resemble what I have described as the uncritical amplification of whatever happens to be salacious. I'm not wholly immune to outrage, as I have explained, and while I do seem superficially capable of setting aside my emotions for the sake of discussion, I'm not harboring a panacea.

In this difference lies the reason why people have become inculcated with an obsession for their own outrage (and you haven't). There also lie the instructions of how to avoid unhealthy and unwarranted frustration. — Πετροκότσυφας

What if I'm just experiencing a momentary lapse of outrage?

Yeah, it's more of a master key than a key. If it doesn't fit your lock, remains to be seen. We will still have learnt a lot, as I explained above. — Πετροκότσυφας

I no longer understand the key metaphor. I am trying to say that asking about my personal mere differences will reveal very little about the ethical-social phenomenon I'm interested in. You're telling me that, not only is what makes me different the key to understanding the inflating value of outrage in western culture, it is in fact the key to understanding even more?

Sure, that would be nice — Πετροκότσυφας

Even mundane things like fashion, food, and humor can suddenly be polemicized: wearing a t-shirt depicting scantily clad women, as an academic, becomes both symbol and mechanism of the disdain for women in the sciences; a recipe learned in a South American country and used by a North American food vendor becomes cultural appropriation and theft; an awkward joke becomes overt sexism and grounds for professional exile; a wedding cake becomes a religious battle ground; a burka becomes support for terrorism or oppression of women; a cartoon of the Islamic prophet becomes intolerable; a joke about your favorite politician becomes part of a greater witch-hunt.

Would you like to know more?

Honestly I think people are already waking up to it. The groups themselves are in the minority and people are wising up to the dangers of this sort of toxic virtue signalling, im so tempted to call it a fad and a fading one at that....but....it has infected our academia, it permeates our media intake in subtle and not so subtle ways and although people may have noticed and developed disdain they still dont seem to see the danger. — DingoJones

I think it may come down to whether we have the self control to begin using social media responsibly (and for social media operators to begin using us responsibly). The most irrationally outraged are indeed the minority, but as long as our media and academic institutions pander to them they will have significant reach and force. When it comes to massive corporate entities, I hold out no hope, but I do expect academic institutions to figure it out.

Your outrage seems entirely justified to me, and theirs certainly does not. — DingoJones

It's definitely a let-down that information and communication technology now degrades and exploits public discourse in these ways, and the more I see, the more I can lament about. However, I do reckon that if we are to get through these most emotional of times, that our present discomforts are necessary growing pains.

Haven't worked out what I think about the issue of the OP yet, but I really enjoyed the homage in the last line to the most famous poem ever by a Canadian. — andrewk

It's really a very moving poem about solidarity with victims; a poignant example how sympathy can be an ethically meaningful cause to act. It doesn't get much more meaningful, relevant, or genuine than the casualties of war, and the sympathy and outrage this poem has generated is an invaluable source of ethical motivation to oppose armed conflict.

What I fear is the dilution of these kinds of sympathies as opportunistic pseudo-causes are foisted into our emotional vernacular. We're over-doing it on a bunch of petty issues which causes us to miss or drop the ball on the meaningful ones.

P.S

For anyone who has never read the poem, it was written by surgeon and soldier John McCrae during The Great War (WW1), and for nearly a century has held a special place in Canadian culture:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields. — John McCrae

The degree of outrage and victimhood appears to be inversely proportional to to the degree of personal responsibility for one's individual situation.

An example would be obesity. When obesity is understood as a symptom of insufficient will-power, the obese person is responsible for his or her situation. However, when obesity is seen as an addiction the responsibility is shifted towards the manufacturers of the products that supposedly cause obesity, the solution is passed onto health professionals and the obese individual becomes a victim rather than agent of his or her own destiny. Outrage follows when said victim is asked to take responsibility for the consequences of his or her actions.

There are many examples of this type. It is often referred to as medicalisation or pathologization, but it strikes me this is only part of the cause. Whilst it is certainly true that medicalisation has increased enormously in the past decades, it could not have increased without an underlying spread of deterministic beliefs on which to base this mode of thinking since it is so much easier to relinquish personal responsibility in a determined universe.

Given that determinism serves capitalistic growth so well, then it is not unreasonable to claim that deterministic beliefs have been spread by advertising. If this is true, then we may hold the advertising industry responsible for OP's original observation, and, more generally, frame the whole situation as a symptom of the quest for capital growth.

It is truly a moving poem. Perhaps in another thread, one day we could discuss the last verse, which apparently has troubled quite a few otherwise ardent fans over the years (myself included). But not here, 'cos it's off topic.

We sang a choral setting of the poem in a choir last year. It was really special.

Politics is about power. There is power in moving people -- be it fear, patriotism, or outrage the political agent will speak to whatever is moving people at the time.

Competition for attention isn't something new to social media. In some ways it actually opens up the playing field in competing for attention relative to television. And outrage is certainly not new. I mean, think of the children ;).

What's changed isn't the emotions in play, but what the emotions are directed towards -- I'd also say that we are more aware of a difference in values now than we were (or perhaps it's even more divided now, and it's not just our awareness)

We don't have a good basis for making judgments about the minds of ancient people -- whether they were as divided by emotion as we are, or whether we are more outraged than they, or for what reason. These are largely empirical claims which we lack the evidence to make a decent judgment on. Did information move more slowly? Sure. Does that mean that they were less susceptible to fits of outrage which were not guided by the cool hand of reason due to the slowness of information travel? I rather doubt it, though it's possible -- but in either direction it's largely speculative. It's worth noting, however, that Plato complained about the effects of the passions on the body politic.

There's a far better explanation for Ford's hearing than an inflation in outrage. Namely she is a woman, and he is a man, and men are given preferential treatment to women in the halls of power. For all the outrage against identity politics it's not like it came out of nothing -- there was already a preferred identity.

I don't think that people are unable to identify what is politically meaningful. It seems to me that people are largely set in their ways and they are not going to agree. There is a difference in values, and a stark one at that. I don't think this is the result of outrage-saturation, though. Why would I? Isn't outrage just another of the passions that motivate people to move? And aren't there other emotions which are appealed to in the competition for attention? Even now?

People are made apathetic by the competition for attention. But such has it always been -- there has always been a large percentage of people registered to vote who do not vote ,and an even larger percentage of people who are not registered to vote (just to name the easiest, lowest effort political act); in the US 2016 election there were roughly 125 million people not registered to vote, and of the 200 million registered about 127 million or so actually voted (and it's worth noting that these were highs -- indicators of a high degree of care and participation). They are apathetic to the process, for one reason or another, and some of them are apathetic because they have grown tired of having their attention competed for (though I think more often than not it's a little more mundane -- like having to fit in going to vote to a busy schedule, or feeling like the candidates are inadequate to vote for so there's no point to it, or thinking that someone else will go vote for them). But, then, there are others who fill their place, who become activated, who are passionate. And given that passions move people, and politics is about power, and power is derived from moving people -- why would you do anything but ride the passionate wave of movement? It's self-defeating to just not make appeals or compete for attention, even if it turns some people off. And if outrage is what works then why not?

Some day we may be so lucky as to have more fear and and disgust instead of outrage. ;) But one does not become politically motivated and go through the hassle without what are painful, and sometimes ugly, emotions. The sausage is good, but the process isn't the prettiest thing to look at.

Thanks for opening this thread.

Compare the treatment John F. Kennedy's, Bill Clinton's, and Donald Trump's sex lives received: Kennedy's promiscuous sex life was considered off limits by the 1960s press establishment. Bill Clinton's affairs received extensive, but reasonably restrained mainline media coverage. Trump's sex life news and views is a three-ring circus. Much of the change is owing to the Internet and the large social media corporations which, unlike the old mass media, are focused on the traffic volume on its sites. The old media like the Chicago Tribune and New York Times had a clear and definite stake in what they printed. (They still do, but it matters less.) Outrage, sturm and drang, and high velocity bullshit make for big social media traffic.

What happens now is rapid amplification of resonant outrages. (Resonant doesn't equal reasonable, of course.) And it isn't only the left that is outraged; the right too is outraged. Everybody is outraged because we too are interested in traffic volume, and mere irritation doesn't garner attention.

So I am saying that media is shaping the message. Outrage and non-negotiable demands fly, where modest proposals land with a thud.

It's just modern discourse in the age of tweets and simplified communication.

It's not that everybody has gotten to be more angry and less tolerant. With outrage you make the case that there's nothing to discuss here, your side is right and the other totally is not only wrong in every kind of way, but simply goes against simple reasoning or basic morals.

Hence you don't say that many people disagree. You make it into a bigger thing by calling that people are outraged.

These suffice for now. Instead, you can choose out of those the ones that you consider prime examples of what you find problematic, point to the actual incidents and explain how and why they are problematic. — Πετροκότσυφας

I'll pick an issue that's a prime example, but you might not like it:

The issue/concepts of racism and sexism (a.k.a, white supremacy in the west; the colonial patriarchy) have been slowly warped into misleading facades. Beginning in academia (specifically in certain humanities departments), the idea emerges that all white people are racist and all men are sexist (a redefinition in terms), and that every non-white/non-male person suffers from racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry and oppression at the hands of the white male owned system. The "intersectional" feminist approach then divides all people into their relative identity stacks and orders them from most oppressed to least oppressed (this is the "progressive stack"). At large, this encourages students of the field to be vocal about the race, gender, and sexual orientation of their interlocutors, and the final result is the promotion and repetition of divisive and classically racist ideas and speech. These students also tend to be trend setters and highly vocal and organized on social media, giving them a lot of reach. Worse still, corporate media are all too ready to kowtow to this vocal minority, if only to escape their ire.

Enter identity politics: Your race, gender, and sexual orientation are now a liability or asset, depending on who you're pandering to; to disagree springs the Kafka trap and adds fuel to the fire... (An elegant killing machine, I must say...)

If you want to understand why the view described above is wrong we can get in to that, but for now I'll briefly explain why it's a problem:

It's extraordinarily divisive. Yes it empowers heretofore oppressed, shunned, attacked, disenfranchised, and otherwise down-trodden demographics , but it is done by shunning, attacking, and disenfranchising others; it creates conflict, not unity, and we're merely creating our own enemies. Example: a Canadian professor takes issue with a requirement to use newly invented pronouns such as xim, xer and xey, and a protest against him erupts. Jordan Peterson is born. Evergreen state has the bright idea to promote awareness of racism by asking all white students and staff to leave campus for a day, one professor refuses to do so, a protest erupts against him. Brett Weinstein is born. Antifa decides to disrupt a conservative provocateur's speaking event at Berkeley, violence erupts. The alt-right is born. The alt-right then begins trolling and harassing the left, which confirms their worst fears: the nazis have returned.

Before long the passionate among us are so fundamentally entrenched in mutually exclusive worldviews that reconciliation seems a distant pipe dream. The nature of modern media allows either side to compose reels and reels of frightening rhetoric from the opposition, which practically guarantees escalation... But at some point, at least seemingly, for most of us, it all becomes too foolish. We become so desensitized and so inundated that we care less despite caring as much as possible. The currency of outrage inflates, and we're left with a perception and a world that is less useful.

Politics is about power. There is power in moving people -- be it fear, patriotism, or outrage the political agent will speak to whatever is moving people at the time.

Competition for attention isn't something new to social media. In some ways it actually opens up the playing field in competing for attention relative to television. And outrage is certainly not new. I mean, think of the children ;).

What's changed isn't the emotions in play, but what the emotions are directed towards -- I'd also say that we are more aware of a difference in values now than we were (or perhaps it's even more divided now, and it's not just our awareness) — Moliere

I do agree, but I believe there is something unique in the relationship between negativity/outrage and social media. I'll try not to bore you with causal explanations such as the psychological impact of negative and positive emotions from an evolutionary perspective (arguably, avoiding the "bad" is necessary while chasing the "good" is not) (Hey that wasn't so bad!), but it is fairly evident that the most popular bandwagons (or at least those which travel fastest, furthest, and crash hardest) tend to be fueled by anger and outrage.

I don't think that people are unable to identify what is politically meaningful. It seems to me that people are largely set in their ways and they are not going to agree. There is a difference in values, and a stark one at that. I don't think this is the result of outrage-saturation, though. Why would I? Isn't outrage just another of the passions that motivate people to move? And aren't there other emotions which are appealed to in the competition for attention? Even now? — Moliere

I would say that we're less able to identify what is politically meaningful where previously sympathy for victims and the ensuing outrage did help us to identify issues of merit. Now that all sides are victims, there's less sympathy to go around, and we're more liable to being hijacked by the polarized narratives which surround us.

...And if outrage is what works then why not? — Moliere

It's probably true that as individuals we're no more or less outraged than before, but group dynamics have changed thanks to hand-held social media; mobs form in a different manner. When a few million people are simultaneously incensed, even if each of them can only take a very small action, cumulatively it can amount to crucifixion. On the other hand, when were inundated with enraging click-bait, we have less time to take specific action. The result, I think, is that we're able to identify fewer issues of meaningful ethical concern, and of the issues which we do become concerned about (typically the most sensational) our responses come in inconsistent proportions.

Some day we may be so lucky as to have more fear and and disgust instead of outrage. ;) But one does not become politically motivated and go through the hassle without what are painful, and sometimes ugly, emotions. The sausage is good, but the process isn't the prettiest thing to look at. — Moliere

That's fair, but surely there are more and less ugly ways to make a sausage. Let's cook with love and not hate, for once :)

Compare the treatment John F. Kennedy's, Bill Clinton's, and Donald Trump's sex lives received: Kennedy's promiscuous sex life was considered off limits by the 1960s press establishment. Bill Clinton's affairs received extensive, but reasonably restrained mainline media coverage. Trump's sex life news and views is a three-ring circus. Much of the change is owing to the Internet and the large social media corporations which, unlike the old mass media, are focused on the traffic volume on its sites. The old media like the Chicago Tribune and New York Times had a clear and definite stake in what they printed. (They still do, but it matters less.) Outrage, sturm and drang, and high velocity bullshit make for big social media traffic. — Bitter Crank

A similar contrast can be seen with FDR and Hillary Clinton. FDR took careful steps to conceal his physical disability from the public, and as far as I know the papers wouldn't dare attack his private health. In 2016 at one point there was a video showing Hillary slipping or feinting while being helped in to a limo, and conservative networks went wild with theories (Trump even incorporated it into an attack ad).

Some of the allegations against Trump regarding sexual misconduct do seem like they warrant attention, but they're just not compelling next to affairs with porn stars, mail order Melanias, and his uncomfortable affection for his daughter, so nobody seems to care.

The contrast in decorum is indeed stunning...

What happens now is rapid amplification of resonant outrages. (Resonant doesn't equal reasonable, of course.) And it isn't only the left that is outraged; the right too is outraged. Everybody is outraged because we too are interested in traffic volume, and mere irritation doesn't garner attention.

So I am saying that media is shaping the message. Outrage and non-negotiable demands fly, where modest proposals land with a thud. — Bitter Crank

The right have learned to cry victim just as thoroughly as the left. Kavanaugh and the senate committee are recent examples...

Given how perverse the incentive structure seems to have become, can we ever grow out of our newfound/newly imposed obsession with outrage?

every non-white/non-male person suffers from racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry and oppression — VagabondSpectre

Somebody on one of the late night talk shows called these sorts of glittering generalities "deepities". They sound a lot profounder than they are. Another example of a deepity is "There is no such thing as an illegal human." Sounds good -- and is even true, but nobody has called "humans" illegal. Illegal aliens, illegal immigrants, illegal this, that, and the other thing, but no "illegal humans".

Given how perverse the incentive structure seems to have become, can we ever grow out of our newfound/newly imposed obsession with outrage? — VagabondSpectre

I think a lot of the outrage, sturm and drang, incessant meme'ery, and so on are a result of the media. It isn't a plot; it's McLuhan's principle that the medium is the message. The high traffic social media are really narcissistic MEdia--emphasis on ME--and not so much social.

Facebook, twitter, and the like are designed to amplify the personal, so that's what people do with it. Recorded sound, film, radio, and television have various effects on the way we experience life. Those media are mostly 1 way: we receive; we do not send.

The Internet/WWW/browsers/email changed that. Now we could receive and send. This forum is a receive and send site. Philosophy Talk (on the radio) is 99.999% receive and about .001% send (the one or two calls and two or three e-mail questions they feature on the show). Send and receive is much more interesting, generally.

So, until such time as social media stops being MEdia. stops doing what the Internet is good at promoting (connecting), or until we run out of electricity, it will probably continue to generate waves of bullshit outrage.

The point of the thread is to explore how victimhood and outrage has become an object of obsession in contemporary culture, and in doing so altered it. — VagabondSpectre

Nice job, the opening post is most excellent.

It seems to me that political correctness in general is, in part, a channeling of some ancient psychological forces that can no longer be expressed in the usual manner. In the past if we wanted to feel superior to someone Jews, blacks and gays and other traditional victim groups were readily available and easily abused.

These groups have largely been taken off the table as targets (at least as compared to the past) but the urges which caused us to abuse them in the first place have not magically gone away. So we're on the hunt for new targets.

One example might be the group some would call "white trash trailer park hillbillies", that is poor southern whites. Making a movie which poked fun at Jews, blacks and gays would get a movie producer in big trouble these days, but we have to make fun of somebody, so the trailer park folks receive our attention.

If we were Catholics we might say that the devil always finds a way to sneak in the back door of even the most well intended projects.

Making a movie which poked fun at Jews, blacks and gays would get a movie producer in big trouble these days, but we have to make fun of somebody, so the trailer park folks receive our attention. — Jake

And that condescending attitude also has given us Trump as a backlash.

Whopee.

It's very difficult to disagree with the OP due to how it's framed. Everyone will agree that inappropriate emphasis should not be given to inappropriate outrage, and everyone will agree that appropriate emphasis should be given to appropriate outrage. As eloquently as you've defended your position @VagabondSpectre, it boils down to the selective use of a tautology as a cudgel - or as an inert lamentation. Something like a political Barnum statement, people will fill up the OP with examples which are great for them; everyone can agree entirely within their own selection criterion; which ultimately reflects their personal preferences and ideological standpoint.

To be sure, attention is currency in the marketplace of ideas; which boils down to social media in terms of exposure nowadays; and things which garner attention garner more attention. I made a thread a couple of months ago on a similar topic, though I did not intend to be as even handed as you did throughout. Specifically I was looking at where some pretty crap terms in our political discourse came from and how easily memed ideas interact with the attention economy to produce an overall lack of nuance. But also how this lack of nuance has been coopted (sometimes explicitly as with a few of the terms I mentioned in that thread) by interest groups on the far right.

I imagine what we can all agree on is that legitimate causes for consciousness raising are served very well by the current attention economy, but purely incidentally. Even if that consciousness raising yields little social transformation, some of the time it is worth all the spittle and spilled ink. Hashtag metoo and yesallwomen come to mind for, at the very least, trying to make people think about whether consent has been established for sexual advances. Say what you will about people who over simplified consent establishment in those beautifully progressive little outrages, and I might even agree with you. Regardless, it got women speaking out about their all too frequent sexual harassment which we've known about for quite a while from the statistics.

So yeah, as much as social media can be little more than a vector for invective, they're a universal message amplifier by design. If we're apportioning blame to Twitter for normalising outrage about Donald Trump's sexual misconduct, I'd put a hefty chunk of the blame on the way the algorithms work. Hashtag Trump aggregates all the nuances into an already dismissible narrative (FAKE NEWS, like what our OPs brand inappropriate outrage), and longer messages (what, 250 characters is long?) are harder to hear at the same time as their echoes.

Somebody on one of the late night talk shows called these sorts of glittering generalities "deepities". They sound a lot profounder than they are. Another example of a deepity is "There is no such thing as an illegal human." Sounds good -- and is even true, but nobody has called "humans" illegal. Illegal aliens, illegal immigrants, illegal this, that, and the other thing, but no "illegal humans". — Bitter Crank

As you suggest, when a controversial deepity is shot at high velocity from a blunderbuss (along with lots of other nasty flak), the impact crater it leaves behind is altogether novel.

I think a lot of the outrage, sturm and drang, incessant meme'ery, and so on are a result of the media. It isn't a plot; it's McLuhan's principle that the medium is the message. The high traffic social media are really narcissistic MEdia--emphasis on ME--and not so much social.

Facebook, twitter, and the like are designed to amplify the personal, so that's what people do with it. Recorded sound, film, radio, and television have various effects on the way we experience life. Those media are mostly 1 way: we receive; we do not send.

The Internet/WWW/browsers/email changed that. Now we could receive and send. This forum is a receive and send site. Philosophy Talk (on the radio) is 99.999% receive and about .001% send (the one or two calls and two or three e-mail questions they feature on the show). Send and receive is much more interesting, generally.

So, until such time as social media stops being MEdia. stops doing what the Internet is good at promoting (connecting), or until we run out of electricity, it will probably continue to generate waves of bullshit outrage. — Bitter Crank

I've always wondered about that second part of McLuhan's most well known phrase "If the medium is the message, then the content must be the audience". I can't be sure exactly what he meant (cryptic as he was), but man does it ever ring true when applied to social media...

The content of social media is by definition an amplification of our subjective selves. Often we start out in circles of the already like minded, and we're corralled deeper into niche groups as we explore the online environment. The many to many format of social media does connect us, but it can also disconnect us from the differently minded. For example, someone who browses /r/The_Donald, Infowars, Facebook, and Youtube will seldom if ever interact with or be exposed to the same informations as someone who browses /r/worldnews, Vice, Facebook, and Youtube. Subscription to one inlet/outlet will crowd-out subscription to other sources, and even within specific platforms the nature of subscription and algorithmic content delivery (you see what an algorithm predicts that you want to see) ensures that our existing views tend to be reinforced and seldom challenged. It's a folie à deux (folie en famillie, really).

Apparently McLuhan didn't even like television because he felt it was too subjective (compared to the objectivity of reading). He thought that it left us too susceptible to manipulation, and thought we ought to be teaching, from a very young age, the critical thinking skills necessary to choose which media broadcasts we should be exposing ourselves to. I can only imagine that he would be screaming blue murder from the rafters were he around to see what has become of us.

I'd be interesting in concrete examples. I'd also be interested in concrete examples of non-misleading facades on the issue of racism/sexism. — Πετροκότσυφας

The "progressive stack" is an example of a misleading facade built to reflect and focus maximum sympathy and outrage with regards to sexism and racism (it is downstream from the original position you quoted).

Here's a video from an Occupy Wall-street rally (or something), which gets hijacked by a narrow worldview that appeals directly identity based victimhood, and defends itself via outrage:



The origins of the progressive stack and the worldview which produces it is a long story, but suffice it to say that it's founded on sympathy and divisive outrage, and promotes the very opposite of fairness and equality. For the most part it's a kept practice (it only tends to be employed among a certain kind of crowd), but it does reflect the genuine academic theory of "intersectional feminism" that is ubiquitous in academic humanities departments, and will inexorably be echoed in the sycophantic halls of mass media. It's just one brand of outrage though, and there are as many brands as there are worldviews.

"The caravan" is another concrete and more recent example of how a narrow world view can be hijacked via outrage inducing rhetoric, to the detriment of all. Mike Pence says that the caravan is a Venezuelan plot (I guess the plan was to have their own country fall into political and financial ruin, forcing thousands upon thousands to flee) because all the evil brown people want to ruin America. It's exactly the kind of simplistic and fact-ignorant rhetoric that works best on social media for its ability to induce sympathy and outrage, and when flung at high speeds through this series of tubes we call the internet, its impact is severe.

Regarding genuine issues of racism and sexism, most of my focus falls on non-western countries, but if I had to pick some issues, the list might look something like this:

• Racism in the judicial systems of America (against Blacks)
• Sexism in the judicial systems of America (against men)
• Sexism in the allowance of male circumcision
• Racism against Asians in university enrollment exams

I'm sure there are countless examples of racism and sexism in the west, but it is very difficult to find truly systemic issues (in part because we've spent a few decades trying to address unfair discrimination). I myself AM concerned about the genuine western discriminatory issues which remain, but very few of them win the competition for my attention. America's world record prisoner population might be the single greatest immediate human rights issue Americans of today actually face, and in so far as racism and sexism are contributors to that issue, I'll consider them systemic and worth fighting.

It's just modern discourse in the age of tweets and simplified communication.

It's not that everybody has gotten to be more angry and less tolerant. With outrage you make the case that there's nothing to discuss here, your side is right and the other totally is not only wrong in every kind of way, but simply goes against simple reasoning or basic morals.

Hence you don't say that many people disagree. You make it into a bigger thing by calling that people are outraged. — ssu

Disagreements can be reconciled, but outrage prefers revenge. By simplifying and polarizing, we seem to have lost the resolution required to navigate our differences, along with the emotional will to do so.

Nice job, the opening post is most excellent.

It seems to me that political correctness in general is, in part, a channeling of some ancient psychological forces that can no longer be expressed in the usual manner. In the past if we wanted to feel superior to someone Jews, blacks and gays and other traditional victim groups were readily available and easily abused.

These groups have largely been taken off the table as targets (at least as compared to the past) but the urges which caused us to abuse them in the first place have not magically gone away. So we're on the hunt for new targets.

One example might be the group some would call "white trash trailer park hillbillies", that is poor southern whites. Making a movie which poked fun at Jews, blacks and gays would get a movie producer in big trouble these days, but we have to make fun of somebody, so the trailer park folks receive our attention.

If we were Catholics we might say that the devil always finds a way to sneak in the back door of even the most well intended projects. — Jake

It's frightening to think that you might be right that we thrive in opposition, and history is definitely a positive indicator of such...

I would not at all be surprised that the moment we all finally become politically unified, regardless of the platfom used to do so, in the absence of the next meal, we begin consuming ourselves, tail first. I know it to be true of some political outlooks (communism and intersectional feminism, notably), but if it really is just satisfying a basic need to blame, then as Bitter Crank suggests, the new ubiquity of outrage as currency and the ensuing segmentation and division will continue as long as our computers have electricity.

That's probably not a good thing...

It's very difficult to disagree with the OP due to how it's framed. Everyone will agree that inappropriate emphasis should not be given to inappropriate outrage, and everyone will agree that appropriate emphasis should be given to appropriate outrage. As eloquently as you've defended your position VagabondSpectre, it boils down to the selective use of a tautology as a cudgel - or as an inert lamentation. Something like a political Barnum statement, people will fill up the OP with examples which are great for them; everyone can agree entirely within their own selection criterion; which ultimately reflects their personal preferences and ideological standpoint. — fdrake

It's true. I had to write the OP in a way that everyone could relate to, else it would just read like my own bias. It's not just that I think we're too outraged about things we ought not be, it's that we're too outraged in general, and that this is having complicated effects. In some cases we're too outraged, in others we're not outraged enough (due to exhaustion; outrage's inflation). The #MeToo movement has some good and some bad effects (some overreactions, some justice) and the awareness of sexual assault that it creates is a good thing, but being amplified so loudly and repeated so frequently has had adverse effects as well. Men's rights groups (which are also a mixed bag of good and bad) and conservative apologists perceive the new environment as the persecution of men and are hardening to the issue (Dr. Ford's testimony was brushed aside as single drop in an ocean of public accusations).

So yeah, as much as social media can be little more than a vector for invective, they're a universal message amplifier by design. If we're apportioning blame to Twitter for normalising outrage about Donald Trump's sexual misconduct, I'd put a hefty chunk of the blame on the way the algorithms work. Hashtag Trump aggregates all the nuances into an already dismissible narrative (FAKE NEWS, like what our OPs brand inappropriate outrage), and longer messages (what, 250 characters is long?) are harder to hear at the same time as their echoes. — fdrake

They're a universal simplifier, but as you say, what gets more clicks gets even more clicks. A small disparity of initial clicks leads to vastly increased exposure in the long run. If we're even slightly more interested in the negative, the salacious, and the outrageous, then they will be vastly over-represented in the mainstreams; social media is a biased amplifier. The disproportionate amplification is I think is a main cause of the overall problem, and looks to persist well into the foreseeable future.