Monday, October 12, 2015

Outrageous!



It is the consistency of the information that matters for a good story, not its completeness. Indeed, you will often find that knowing little makes it easier to fit everything you know into a coherent pattern.
-Daniel Kahneman-



When I stop writing about American culture,  and it will be soon, it will come from being tired of the hot and cold running outrage that passes for discussion and social criticism and news reportage.  No more do we hear rational and dispassionate discussions, everything is outrageous, everything is about how outrageous the actions and inactions of the "enemy" are and there's always an enemy:  the Liberals, the Tea Party, the NRA, the ACLU, the "politically Correct, the Secular Humanist -- there's always an enemy to inspire actions whether or not they're appropriate, effective, moral or legal. Some of the worst outrages never happened yet they inspire wars, riots, lynchings and civil disobedience.

Whether you're Republican or Democrat or Libertarian or Bullmoose or Whig, everything our opponents do is an outrage and it's easier to fabricate the appearance of outrage now than it ever has been.  Outrage -- it's what's on the news.  It's how we manipulate opinion and inspire action and suppress thought.

Modern life is the battle among activists and activist organizations, and it's all about winning, about success and not much about reason.  A girl hears a song in a club that makes her feel uncomfortable?  OUTRAGE!  Something must be done! Don't think, ACT NOW! Someone claims to be the victim of racism?  It's an outrage and will be portrayed as such if it requires fiction and libel and lying.  It's about furthering the cause and the cause is just winning.

Hear a story that supports "our side" and you'll believe it, you'll forward it, you'll write a passionate blog entry and you'll blame it on the bogeyman of reference long before you'll check the facts, analyze the plausibility of your response or of the accusation.  Is that radio station in Alaska a plot to change the weather or sniff out underground things on the other side of the planet? Will you bother to ask the experts on radio or the weather or those in the know about ELF communication with submerged submarines? Do you know the D layer from the Nightime F2?  Have you some data on connections btween them and weather?  Hell no, we just know there's a secret agenda despite what we know about the subject and you'll forward the story to everyone and they will pass it along like a virus.  Give me a bogus outrage upon which to stand and I will move the Earth.  


In his book Contagious, Jonah Berger explains how outrage sells, how it inspires people to share it, pass it along, promote it and use it to sell us beliefs.that have little or no factual support while valid information just sits there like leftovers in your refrigerator.

Want to create an outrage?  First pick a "Goliath" says the American Council on Science and Health.  

"If you examine the most popular activist groups, they all operate according to this formula: they pick an enemy they can depict as the arrogant “Goliath”,  a corporation that cares only about profits, then they find an issue or product simple enough to be understood by the people who read sites like Natural Resources Defense Council or Environmental Working Group (ideally something people eat or use daily, so there is first-hand experience with it) and then they ‘reveal’ an outrageous fact about it."

And "fact" of course hardly has to be one to let us play to the popular fancy - food faddists for instance.  You feed their fear that we're eating poison and you blame the bogeyman.  Alar on apples -- they're trying to kill you! -- "studies show!"  only they actually didn't.  Milk causes phlegm, vaccinations don't work, wheat gives you "grain Brain" and gluten is poison only none of it is true. Nearly anything you'll read in the popular press or see on Dr Oz or in those ads that pop up on line is false. Who bothers to question it when it's too damned much fun to be outraged?

As Daniel Kahneman said of  raising false fears: all you need is something plausible to the non-expert and an anecdote. Very few will ever bother to investigate, calculate odds or learn anything about chemistry, biology, statistics or any kind of science. What we believe is what we want to and that's that.  None of us are immune to the power of outrage and all of us, from brilliant to dull are lazy when it comes to what we believe.  Outrage is addictive.  Outrage is fun and if the outrage monger offers a way to "solve" what may not be a problem we will take it.  We'll make noise in the street, sign petitions, burn neighborhoods, write passionate letters of outrage long before we'll look at valid statistics with a keen eye for deception.


Rile them up, feed the righteous indignation and give them the way to the egress and they will do your bidding, whether it's to libel a candidate, see insignificant things or non existent things as outrageous and you will prevail.

And I'm tired of it. I'm tired of the emotional tail wagging the rational dog, tired of the outrage and the percieved need for action being confused with a solution. I weary of the same old truth by assertion and repetition, the outrage of the day and the hortatory calls to be afraid.  In fact I fear the fear mongers and outrage shouters far more than anything they warn us of and prophets always lie, even when the prediction comes true.

13 comments:

  1. Outrage has become the norm, in spite of the best efforts to create diversity and foster understanding and tolerance.

    America is exceptional. Nevertheless those high high minded principles take time to fully integrate with a society and culture that is slow to change.

    Millienials may be the generation that advances us along those paths. I have little belief it will happen before they take the reins of governing.

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  2. It appears the rage monkeys always come out in force to drown out any appeal for reason and tolerance. In the public discussion thread of our local newspaper, anti-Islamic rage monkeys are scaremongering again over how 'libtards' will bring Sharia law to America. First a brief digression:

    “Lev. 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. I have a friend who claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?”

    “Burning a bull on the altar as a sacrifice creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev 1:9). The problem is my homeowners association. They claim the odor is not pleasing. How shall I smite them?”

    If the idea of owning slaves from Canada or sacrificing bulls in your condo community sounds absurd, then the double standard of asserting Brand X tribalism over Brand Y tribalism is equally absurd. I’d like to think we are all rational and mature adults living in a post-modern world ... sharing in the blessings of democracy.

    There was a recent Op Ed in the New York Times that puts this matter into perspective:

    Democracy and the Demagogue:
    “Plato warns of the perils of democracy. He worries that a “towering despot” will inevitably rise in any democracy to exploit its freedoms and seize power by fomenting fear of some group and representing himself as the protector of the people against that fear. It is for this reason that Plato declares democracy the most likely system to end in tyranny. Plato’s prediction is most dramatically exhibited by Weimar Germany” (Jason Stanley, October 12, 2015).

    I share this view. The politics of outrage, appeals to prejudice, pandering in old shibboleths and negative stereotypes, nativism, and xenophobia … all are examples of exclusionary rhetoric that seek to marginalize and disenfranchise people. The words of Ben Carson may appeal to rage monkeys but do nothing to advance the cause of human rights and affirm the high ideals of democracy.

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  3. Millennials may be the next generation to demonstrate how easily people switch their "principles" when peer pressure makes it advantageous. My Liberal High School friends seem to have joined the John Burch Society or given in to religious mania.

    But I'm truly tired of reading the news in the morning, looking for outrage. Watching Bloomberg this AM waiting for the markets to open I had to see an extremely passionate commercial "asking" Hillary about why she did this and that outrage about the embassy in Benghazi. That's their response to being exposed as liars - frame it as outrage and frame her as the Bogeyman and take the argument to the asshole in the street. that's how they avoid the question of why they refused to beef up security as a cost cutting measure.

    Facts don't matter, getting caught doesn't matter even confessing doesn't matter because it's about HILLARY and it's OUTRAGEOUS! Witches! Bogeymen! Treasonous Libtards - outRAGEious!

    Plato was right. Orwell was right and we'd all see it if the rage died down for ten minutes -- but it doesn't. And by the way have you noticed that you can't read about Carson without hearing that he's a "Brilliant Neurosurgeon" I'm sorry, there are such enormous gaps in his knowledge and he says the most stupid things and his manner suggests there's something seriously wrong with him he's trying to suppress, but keep saying brilliant and it becomes true and needs no supporting evidence and distracts from negative evidence. That's how he can be set up as a bandwagon for us to jump on. We can solve all the problems we're outraged about, true or not by voting for Carson who has no qualification whatever but he's Brilliant! He wants to replace the tax code with the BIBLE! BRILLIANT!

    No, we can't trust Muslims because his stereotype insists they all want to replace our law with Sharia, just like the Jews want to replace it with Kashruth and the Chinese with Confucius. But Christian doctrine -- that's different. Hillary is OUTRAGEOUS! Vote Doctor Knowlittle!

    .

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  4. But I want to be clear that I'm not selling outrage to attack the so-called Conservatives. It's become the way business and politics and nearly everything is done today. Ever political, social and ethical question gets steamrollered by the outrage juggernaut. It's why I've lost my affiliation with the Democrats and virtually everyone else. The need to make everything outrageous has poisoned race relations, thwarted science, distorted history and debased the language we use because we've been reduced to battling bogeymen and the most egregious hyperbole has become universal. Everything is so outrageous that questioning any proposal we make or demonstrating evidence that the problem isn't well described makes you one with the bogeyman. I don'e want to be part of it any more.

    Hobbes' universal war is more like the battle of all pressure groups against all pressure groups and any individual, any responsible, any knowledgeable contribution will be shouted down. Irrational outrage has let them take over the game and the rules and the prize money.

    Yes, maybe a new generation, maybe there will be change, but I have no faith and the next song I may learn is O Canada!

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    Replies
    1. "O Canada!

      Careful! We don't want no slaves here ... especially them Newfie slaves!

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    2. Newfies? Are they good for anything else?

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    3. Newfies ... they're colder than Mexicans and too warm for Eskimos, so I guess we'll just have to piss off the condo association.

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    4. I'm good at that - e-pisst'em ology, it's called.

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  5. I jettisoned my affiliation with the GOP and NRA, and made the decision several years back to never join or affiliate with a political party or a national organization again Captain. It no longer makes any sense to me to do so.

    Outrage over the Outrages. And... the more things change the more they stay; the same?

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    Replies
    1. That's why I'm registered as an independent ... have been for many years.

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    2. I'm Bull Moose all the way!

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  6. Some perspective (facing death tends to make one put things in proper order.):

    Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota

    BY JAMES WRIGHT

    Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
    Asleep on the black trunk,
    Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
    Down the ravine behind the empty house,
    The cowbells follow one another
    Into the distances of the afternoon.
    To my right,
    In a field of sunlight between two pines,
    The droppings of last year’s horses
    Blaze up into golden stones.
    I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
    A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
    I have wasted my life.

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    Replies
    1. I recall lying on an operating table, some years ago waiting for the guy in the mask to push the plunger on the anesthetic apparatus and thinking the same thing. It makes us all nihilists and I think ultimately meaninglessness wins the argument. Even the earth will die, even the stars - and what is wasted if there never was a purpose?

      But the salvation in emptiness and meaninglessness is that it's not a waste if nothing could have been accomplished no matter what you did or didn't do. If in some small way, for some short time, someone appreciated you it wasn't a waste.

      Thanks for the poem. I've never seen it before.

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