"The Bad Man:" Outrage, Sensationalism, Distraction, and Exploited Good Intentions

Have you noticed that a lot of people want us to be mad about something? The more I look around, I see this organization or that commentator, most with the support of mainstream platforms, pointing to a person, thing, or group and telling us that we should enraged by it. These kinds of calls to anger seem to be coming from everywhere now. We can't turn around without being pressured to sign a petition to fire some television host or being asked to join a boycott against some restaurant and many of us happily follow along, often dedicating huge amounts of time or energy to our new, seemingly righteous, cause because we think that we are doing the correct thing. However, we must ask ourselves, what purpose does manufacturing outrage serve and who does it benefit? It certainly does not do any good for the target of the outrage. The outraged get very little reward for their work. However, when we take a step back, we can see the outrage machine really does seems to do a great job at detracting attention away of more pressing issues, or the shady things the governments of the world and the powerful are doing. It also generates a lot of buzz which is great for the main stream media because they get an increase in viewership and that positively affects their advertising revenue. Worst of all, the promotion of outrage can be exploited to direct the wrath of the populous against people who do not stand in support of the established authorities or their narratives and that makes it a dangerous weapon that can be used against us. The situation being what it is, I think it is in our best interest remain suspicious of anyone who tries to stir up outrage until we have a reason to trust them because their motives may not be what they seem to be.

When we see people peddling anger, they will often frame their case as though they are doing it to support some "just" cause. This is how well meaning people are drawn into the trap. We, for the most part, like to feel like we are "good" people. We want to feel like we are helping the downtrodden or opposing the injustice of the world and that is fine. I applaud the intention. However, we can not trust everyone. We know the media lies to support its interests and to support the interests of its political allies. When CNN or Fox News parade some talking head in front of us and they start telling us to be angry at "the bad man" their true motive is often hidden below the seemingly righteous surface. "Be angry at Trump supporters because they only support Trump because they hate gay people and they're racist, by the way, ignore Hillary Clinton's support of a segregationist and opposition to gay marriage" says the left leaning news personality. "Liberals are violent because they have extremest groups on their side, oh, and please ignore the violent extremists on our own side" the right leaning newspaper reports. You see, they pick a target that no one wants to agree with (racists and extremists) because they know that we will be disgusted by those types of people and our automatic, often unthinking, reaction will be the one that they desire. That is, we support their cause or oppose the cause of the target because we think that is what a "good" person is supposed to do. This would not be a problem if the claims and accusations were always true but the media has consistently demonstrated that it is both untrustworthy and self-serving which means we can not accept anything that is presented to us without further examination. Sadly, our desire to be "good" people often leads us to act before thinking, to become true believers before we have a reason to believe, and, ultimately, to be made unwitting cogs in the outrage machine.

Outrage is great for the media. Few things grab people's attention more than anger. This is no great revelation, mind you. We know that sensationalism sells and that the "news" is a business. The important thing to keep in mind on this point is that the media has both the motive and the means to manufacture outrage because it is incentivized for them to do so and they control the tap from which most of information flows. Now, think about some of the individuals who have been accused of being some awful thing in the media with the hope of making us angry at them. Aside from rapists, like Bill Cosby (who deserve their hate), they seem to largely be either people who do not support the establishment, people who threaten the media's monopoly on the flow of information, or both (Alex Jones or other internet personalities who have become targets, for example). By keeping us angry and directing that anger where they want it, the old media can both earn greater profits and harm its "enemies" at the same time.

Rage is very distracting and getting us all fired up about things can benefit corrupt authorities and the powerful elites because it keeps us from paying attention to issues that really matter. I hate to discuss the Hillary Clinton campaign but it is a great example of the use of outrage as a distraction. They had played dirty during the primary and half of the Democratic base was awfully salty about what had happened to Bernie Sanders (regardless of what you may think about his politics, the fact that he got shafted is pretty undeniable). The Clinton campaign also knew that she was not well liked outside of establishment Democratic circles and they attempted to distract the public from their questionable actions and stir up support for her by exploiting outrage. Any opponent was labeled as a sexist or a racist. Anyone who did not endorse her establishment agenda was either called a "Bernie bro" or "alt right" and sometimes (paradoxically) both. The hope was that the public would see her a victim of all these "deplorable" people and vote for her out of their indignation and that her opponents would remain silent for fear of becoming a target of public outrage. This approach backfired, though. It was a gamble and instead of creating support, it depressed her base (the "Bernie bros" that they hoped to shame into submission with the ridiculous name) and offended the working class who did not like being called racist and sexist for having misgivings about supporting her. That being said, it is still an effective tactic of the powerful, in many cases, and it is something that we should watch out for when we are told to be angry.

The most destructive use of outrage is as a means of attacking or silencing people who do not support the old media or the systems of authority. It does not take much to set people off anymore. All the media needs to do is find one bad joke, poorly worded tweet, or out of context video clip and the outrage machine can destroy the credibility or career of any dissenter. As bad as that is, this effect can happen on a larger scale and, sometimes, it is more than a persons prosperity that is at stake. At this very moment, the outrage machine is sowing the seeds of increased racial, cultural, and class divisions in an effort to keep us from organizing and acting against the establishment. This is beginning to turn violent too. People are mad, they are given a target for their rage, and we are commonly seeing politically motivated assaults in the streets now. It won't be long before that progresses to murder either, if things keep going this way. I Know this because the outrage machine is also major component of pro-war propaganda. It has driven and continues to drive us to support the death and destruction that we bring into existence when we willingly march off to fight our now hated enemies, whether they are abroad or at home and this should frighten us, if we value our stability.

We know that the establishment, the corrupt authorities, and the dishonest media benefit from our division. They benefit from our blind acceptance of their calls to action. We know that they can and do use our anger as a weapon to be wielded for their own purposes. All of those things are often born out of the outrage machine and it is employed to those ends. If we hope to protect ourselves from being swayed by it and acting for the benefit of the establishment instead of the self or the common people, we must only think and examine before we act. When a person wants us to be angry, we must ask ourselves if there is anything behind that person's desire. We may find that there is or that there is not but we will have avoided the rapid unquestioning response that drives people into participating in false, destructive and oppressive outrage. If there is a good reason to be angry then it is fine to be angry and if there is no reason, we can reject the appeal to our emotion.

Peace.

All the images in this post are sourced from the free image website, unsplash.com.