What’s Wrong with the World

The men signed of the cross of Christ go gaily in the dark.

About

What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

When is expressing mere outrage constructive?

Front Porch Republic author Pete Davis has an interesting post on making Facebook outrage more constructive. I admit to a certain amount of suspicion about Front Porch Republic and to a resulting thought that this post is directed partly at those of us on the right of the political spectrum who are filled with righteous anger. There is a little bit too much of the cool, above-it-all moderate saying, "A pox on both your houses" to right and left.

In any event, I do think he has a point when he deprecates some mere venting, whether on Facebook or on blogs. A paradigm (made-up) case would be a news story about a viciously abused child followed by Facebook shares with variants on, "I just feel so terrible about this" or "This is outrageous" as a status update.

It's true: Our social media culture is indeed replacing meaningful action with words on a flickering screen; Facebook shares and expressions of outrage can be an example of the growing impotence of real humans to do real things as they become wedded to their devices.

But Davis is too hard on expressions of outrage as acts in themselves. He even gets into a bit of cultural psychologizing, borrowed from Jody Bottum (that paragon of clear, logical, conservative thought):

Post-Protestant redemption, Bottum argues, comes not from atonement with God or even from actually fighting these societal demons, but rather from “personal, interior rejection” of these evils. What matters for salvation is not what one does, but rather whether one feels that they “oppose the social evils of bigotry and power and the groupthink of the mob.” For example, “the goodness of caring for the poor,” Bottum explains, becomes “much less about actually caring for the poor… and much more about feeling that the poor should be cared for.” If you simply acknowledge social evils and declare your opposition to them, you can rest assured that you are among the redeemed.

Perhaps Bottum’s interpretation of our spiritually “anxious age” explains that deep tension that builds up when the news upsets us. Perhaps we see in those upsetting anecdotes a post-Protestant demon — social sin peeking out from behind the social order. Perhaps the tension that must be vented is our uncertainty in the presence of such sin: Am I going to be tricked by this evil or am I going to be aware enough to see it at work? Am I going to become part of it or am I going to reject it? Am I on its side of the great divide or am I on the side of the redeemed?

Facebook venting resolves this uncertainty. By pasting a link to a news story and properly identifying the social evil at work – “This is racism!” “This is bigotry!” “This is evil!” – you stand at the digital altar and testify to your awareness of social sin. By ranting against the news story, you validate that you have rejected this sin, broadcasting that you belong among the redeemed. When you click submit, your uncertainty about your moral goodness is temporarily washed away: you can proceed with confidence that you are one of the elect.

Please. This is altogether too much conjectural psychoanalysis for my baloney sausage detector. It even has a whiff of Freudianism: If I wish to distance myself from a particular act or event, this must mean that I have a secret angst that perhaps I am not "clean" of this act, that perhaps I sympathize with it at some level of my being, and my distancing is an attempt to wash myself clean of this taint of possible sin. Why should anybody believe this?

One distinction Davis fails to make is between cases (like the abused child example I gave) in which everybody agrees about the entire issue and cases where one is making a controverted point (perhaps tacitly) by expressing outrage. Sometimes there is nothing, either in the story or in its cultural background, that is controversial. Everybody thinks that it's terrible when people die in an earthquake or when somebody beats up a puppy. In those cases, unless you are urging people to donate to help the victims or to support some piece of legislation (which is what Davis suggests), simply sharing a terrible story because it is terrible is not constructive. It harrows your own emotions and the emotions of your friends to no purpose, and that can lead to emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and the inability to do more constructive things.

But in a great many cases there is some controversy in the vicinity of the story, and one expresses outrage about the story as part of one's own work on a particular side of that controversy. Countless examples come to mind: If one shares a story about some Common Core lunacy in the public schools, one is opposing the adoption of the Common Core. One may even tacitly be opposing public schools. If one shares, with outrage, a story about children frivolously taken away from their parents by CPS, one is opposing the overweening power of CPS, which is going to concern public policy and which can be quite controversial. If one shares a story, with outrage, concerning the mistreatment of some Christian florist, baker, or photographer by the shrieking furies of tolerance, one is staking out a position and attempting to influence others in the culture wars.

Sometimes, too, one shares these stories to warn others. I have known of a young couple so naive that they trotted off to a mandatory reporter (a doctor) when their child came home from daycare with a bruise. They deliberately induced the reluctant doctor (who liked them) to report this, thinking that this was "reporting the daycare" and was their duty as good citizens. Naturally, this opened them up to a nightmare of investigation as possible child abusers. It was all eventually resolved, but it should never have happened. Because they did not know that CPS is biased against parents, and especially against fathers, and because they did not know that mandatory reporter laws concern (usually by definition) suspicion of parents, they didn't realize how imprudent it was for them to go to a doctor and insist on reporting a simple bruise that could have occurred in the course of play. Widely sharing outrageous stories about the mistreatment of innocent parents can help such babes in the woods to get wise. The same is true mutatis mutandis for stories about people whom the medical establishment attempts to kill by removing food and fluids. Individuals and families need to be vigilant about these matters. Outrageous stories about filth being taught to school children under the aegis of mandatory "anti-bullying campaigns" can help parents to think again about their assumption that Nice Miss Smith at their local public school would never allow anything inappropriate to be poured into their young innocents' ears.

Let's go back to Davis's talk about "cleansing oneself" by taking a stand against evil. Davis's implication that taking a stand against evil isn't worth doing in itself, and his attempt to psychoanalyze it away, is problematic because there is a lot of evil out there against which one needs to take a stand. Suppose that you have a modest number of Facebook friends--say, three hundred or so. (Which is modest, believe me.) Among these are, let us say, people younger than yourself, or even your own peers, who are finding their way in the culture. What you say and what you share are part of what makes up their cultural atmosphere. It may be that your strongly negative take on homosexual "marriage" is one of the only clear, dissenting voices they hear (even in the evangelical world) among their own acquaintances. It may help to strengthen their spines. It may be that your information about the increasing evils of the medical profession is an important warning to an idealistic young lady who thinks God is calling her to be a nurse. The point is not that one has some sort of anxiety about oneself that one needs to purge (that's just silly) but rather that one has justified anxiety about the culture and that one is attempting to influence it. Speaking does influence. And like it or not, social media is a very influential form of speech.

Even when one might think there is no controversy, sometimes there is. For example, everybody agrees that it's horrible that ISIS is slaughtering Christians, right? Well, sort of and sort of not. American administrations are notably nervous about admitting that what is going on is Muslim persecution of Christians qua Christians. This goes back even before the Obama administration, though it is the Obama administration that has pointedly and disgracefully attempted to bar a Christian nun from testifying to Congress while allowing representatives of other religions facing ISIS persecution to testify. It was the Obama administration that tried to cover up what it was doing, too. In the end, the Obama administration bowed to pressure and allowed Sister Diana Momeka to come, but this probably wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for all the outrage generated by Nina Shea's reporting.

Sharing stories about ISIS persecution of Christians has many functions. It shows the brutality of Islam. It inspires American Christians to be willing to suffer for their own faith. It leads us to pray for our persecuted brethren. It enlarges our sympathies to the Church worldwide. And it serves as a background to foster justified anger at shenanigans like the attempted blocking of Sister Diana's visa. It also might just make a later Republican administration bolder than the Bush administration was in naming persecution of Christians for what it really is. And the position of an American presidency on persecution of Christians has a surprising amount of practical impact in the world at large.

There are plenty of other situations where one might think that "everyone agrees" but where it isn't so simple. Everyone agrees that thuggish looting and burning are terrible, right? Hmmm, but expressing outrage simpliciter over thuggish looting and burning in Baltimore without concomitant expressions of white guilt and calls for "understanding black despair" sends a specific, controversial message. Everyone agrees that driving up with guns and trying to gun people down at an art exhibit is evil, right? Welllll. Expressing outrage over the attempted murders at the Draw Mohammad contest, without simultaneous finger-wagging at the organizers of the exhibit, supports a specific, controversial position.

Davis is right to suggest that we try to find practical outworkings for our outrage. Donating to Samaritan's Purse, for example, either to support relief efforts for Middle Eastern Christians or to support persecuted American bakers, could be one such practical outworking. Another example would be donating to the Alliance Defending Freedom. But expressing outrage can also be, by itself, something other than a pointless enterprise, and it doesn't deserve to be treated as an automatic symptom of psychological problems or social malaise.

By all means, let's make our outrage constructive. But that may mean targeting our outrage to the places where it is most needed.

Comments (8)

This topic reminds me of Stuff White People Like's take on raising awareness.

I don't think Davis's point (or, in this narrow instance, Bottum's) is actually this problematic. They don't strike me as psychoanalyzing individual persons who make posts on Facebook: "you clicked a 'like' on Facebook, therefore you must be X." What they're attempting to capture is a particular characteristic of the zeitgeist, the larger cultural phenomenon at issue. And I don't think Bottum is entirely incorrect in assessing the importance of "right thinking" in that zeitgeist: that's really what he's describing, a system of acceptable and unacceptable thoughts and opinions, which is (as we all know) a core element of post-modern liberalism. It's not enough to tolerate, one must conform one's will. And if you have, that's how you know you're a good person.

Now, regardless of whether or not people engage in a rational process of connecting their Facebook activity to the zeitgeist's code of acceptable thoughts (an unlikely scenario), it is (or at least can be) the sort of vapid but self-satisfying box-checking that helps identify one as not a thought criminal.

Does internet discourse, even "venting," at times serve the salutary ends you identify? Of course. But that's not incompatible with the underlying social characteristics that the piece identifies.

Titus, I don't know to whom Bottum meant his comments to apply, but it's quite clear to me at any rate that Davis means his application to Facebook (and presumably blogging) outrage to apply to those who are not postmodern and to those who are on the right side of the political spectrum. Now, let's look at this:

And I don't think Bottum is entirely incorrect in assessing the importance of "right thinking" in that zeitgeist: that's really what he's describing, a system of acceptable and unacceptable thoughts and opinions, which is (as we all know) a core element of post-modern liberalism. It's not enough to tolerate, one must conform one's will. And if you have, that's how you know you're a good person.

In reality, is it not the case that right thinking is indeed important? I mean, it really is. That's not just something postmoderns think. I hate postmodernism with the passion of a thousand burning suns, but I also think that right thinking is extremely important. I also think one must conform one's will to the truth. And I also think that conforming one's will to the truth and thinking rightly are _part_ of what it takes to be a good person. I would assume that everybody who has strong moral opinions or strong theological opinions thinks this, right?

So why make a sweeping denunciation of Facebook outrage? Let me put it this way: I think it _highly likely_ that Davis would apply his negative analysis to a lot of my newsfeed, both from my friends and occasionally from me as well, even in cases where _I_ would say that what is going on has a constructive purpose, for the reasons that I have given in my post. It's just not clear to me that Davis is making all the distinctions he needs to make. He certainly is not _just_ talking about postmodernism or political correctness.

Now, regardless of whether or not people engage in a rational process of connecting their Facebook activity to the zeitgeist's code of acceptable thoughts (an unlikely scenario), it is (or at least can be) the sort of vapid but self-satisfying box-checking that helps identify one as not a thought criminal.

Again, since Davis clearly (at least clearly to me) wants to accuse both right and left of the problem he's identifying, he can't just be concerned with "proving you're not a thought criminal" in the sense in which we on the right would normally use that phrase--proving you're not a racist or a "homophobe," for example.

They don't strike me as psychoanalyzing individual persons who make posts on Facebook: "you clicked a 'like' on Facebook, therefore you must be X." What they're attempting to capture is a particular characteristic of the zeitgeist, the larger cultural phenomenon at issue.

I'm also suspicious of the attempt to make such a distinction. How can you make that analysis of the "cultural phenomenon" without applying it to any individual people? Cultural phenomena are made up of people. That's like saying we live in a selfish culture but saying that one is not ascribing selfishness to any actual people! It looks like a reifying of "society" as an entity with a psyche in a way that sets off my "unfalsifiability" alarms.

Here is what Davis _says_:

Perhaps the tension that must be vented is our uncertainty in the presence of such sin: Am I going to be tricked by this evil or am I going to be aware enough to see it at work? Am I going to become part of it or am I going to reject it? Am I on its side of the great divide or am I on the side of the redeemed?

Facebook venting resolves this uncertainty. By pasting a link to a news story and properly identifying the social evil at work – “This is racism!” “This is bigotry!” “This is evil!” – you stand at the digital altar and testify to your awareness of social sin. By ranting against the news story, you validate that you have rejected this sin, broadcasting that you belong among the redeemed. When you click submit, your uncertainty about your moral goodness is temporarily washed away: you can proceed with confidence that you are one of the elect.

Of course he's talking about actual people! Of course he is implying that this dynamic is working in the psyches of actual people (the "I" and the "you" of his examples) who post and click like and so forth. Otherwise, he's not talking about anything.

I disagree with him, but to me it is more charitable to assume that he intends to be saying _something_ than to assume that he is saying something so mystical (that this is about society at large but not about any real individuals) as to be vacuous.

Suppose that you have a modest number of Facebook friends--say, three hundred or so. (Which is modest, believe me.)

I have 66. What's wrong with me?

Bill, nothing wrong with you. You're just smarter than the rest of us.

Well, one positive for those who express moral approval is that, unless guilty of the worst sort of hypocrisy, such advocates are not contributing to the problems they decry. For example, while crying out against abortion and child neglect or abuse, their own families are responsibly maintained. And this is a truly good thing, and we could use more like them.

This all stands in the "do as I say but not as I do" advocates of a counter-morality who are genuine hypocrites. For example, the progressives who decry capitalism but are grabbing loot hand over fist. Or the advocates of feminism who treat the women in their own lives with no value at all. Or the self-righteous drivers of Prius (who are they really helping?).

Between the two camps of cross-aligned approaches to morality are an awful lot of broken and hurting people and families. And while there is plainly not enough help to go around, we know which side of the culture war is more apt to supply it.

Post a comment


Bold Italic Underline Quote

Note: In order to limit duplicate comments, please submit a comment only once. A comment may take a few minutes to appear beneath the article.

Although this site does not actively hold comments for moderation, some comments are automatically held by the blog system. For best results, limit the number of links (including links in your signature line to your own website) to under 3 per comment as all comments with a large number of links will be automatically held. If your comment is held for any reason, please be patient and an author or administrator will approve it. Do not resubmit the same comment as subsequent submissions of the same comment will be held as well.