Outrage in Politics

I saw a bumper sticker that said "If you aren't outraged, you aren't paying attention." For some reason, outrage is the most common tool for political change, at least on the margins. It isn't a particularly effective as a tool, though.

Normal moral outrage arises when people are faced with a patently obvious and egregious violation of their morality. Since personal morality is subjective, this can vary from person to person. Most people don't violate common morality that often, so true occasion for outrage doesn't arise that often. In fact, often the cases of outrage arise because people don't know or understand the actions and the morality that motivates it. In fact, to be accurate enough the bumper sticker might need to read, "If you are outraged, you probably don' t understand the system."

The other major problem, is that true outrage requires from most people more action than mere words. American revolutionaries were truly outraged at the treatment at the hands of the British, and they took up arms. Likewise, if something is truly outrageous, then most likely violence is justified. For example, most people are outraged at child abusers, and few have any qualms at violent means used to brings them to justice.

What with the uncommon nature of truly outrageous actions, and the extreme reprisal required by outrageous actions, outrage fails as a tool of politics. It seems that those who try to use it are more accurately using it to publicize their own moral standing. That may be why they always seem to adopt a sanctimonious and condescending attitude to those around us.

Nevertheless, I am not outraged in the least. It is merely off-putting.