David berry

‘We’ve started to see what happens when outrage goes unchecked’

Worrying about the rising dominance of outrage culture has now become nearly as prevalent as people actually getting outraged about things, which is why my prediction for the next year is that we hit peak outrage, and eventually can start having conversations online without the fear of stirring up a mob carrying digital pitchforks and flaming @ s.

For starters, much of what we talk about when it comes to outrage — or political correctness or whatever you want to call it — isn’t so much a new generation or sudden awakening of relentlessly oversensitive people as it is our ability to actually, you know, hear some different perspectives on things. When i t comes to marginalized groups, the type of things that provoke fear, hurt and anger have always been around, we’ve just rarely had either the ability or inclination to actually listen to those emotions. Add to that the fact it’s also never been easier to get a potentially hurtful or anger-provoking idea out into the world, and it’s kind of a potent combination.

It’s natural that this relatively new world is going to experience some growing pains, which is more than anything what perpetual outrage seems to be: reaction and counter- reaction to an endless array of new stimuli, or at least new reaction to old stimuli. As we’ve started to figure out what’s worthwhile about these new reactions, we’ve gravitated toward it. Diversity, for instance, has relatively recently become a top- level concern for many cultural institutions, as even people in positions of power have started to acknowledge the issues that surround it; it’s certainly going to take some time to fully turn the ol’ battleship, but it wouldn’t have started without a chorus screaming t hemselves hoarse.

We’ve also started to see what happens when outrage goes unchecked, or at least becomes a perpetual state of being. Cynical types — cough, Trump, cough — learn to exploit as a means of garnering attention and rallying their troops; more well- meaning types get burned out on its ever- presence and start to focus on practical ways of addressing things, or not worrying about dousing fires in the first place.

We’re certainly not out of the woods yet, and there’s bound to be angry people always. But we’re starting to find out that perpetual grievance is a bad way to get anyone who doesn’t already agree with you to listen to you, and we’re starting to actually care about listening to people who have figured that out. We’ve been angry; we’ll start to breathe. Then we’ll figure out how we can keep from getting angry again.

It’s never been easier to get an anger-provoking idea out into the world