Well, Here's Something to Be Offended About!!

[NicholeW.]

It's funny how much we enjoy being offended! We are offended at homophobes at an HBCU, transphobes writing, we say, at an LA blog, autogynephiles, homosexual transsexuals, true transsexuals, fake transsexuals, crossdressers, Al-Qaidists, Repugnicans, Democrats, Obama, McCain -- darn, we really like to be offended, helps add to our moral stature?

Well, David Sirota doesn't agree. He thinks that our outrages are generally what they are: ways to distract us from anything that might be important in our lives and the milieus we live in. 

We Are a Nation of Junkies Hooked on Media-Fabricated Outrage
By David Sirota, Creators Syndicate. Posted February 16, 2009.


http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/126709/

I'm not sure if it's because we're strung out on "Lost" episodes, or if it's because we're still suffering from a post-9/11 stress disorder that makes us crave "breaking news" alerts, or if it's because the economy has turned us into distraction junkies. But one thing is painfully obvious after Michael Phelps' marijuana "scandal" erupted last week: Our society is addicted to fake outrage -- and to break our dependence, we're going to need far more potent medicine than the herb Phelps was smoking.

[Brielle]

This is an outrage!   

[NicholeW.]

This is an outrage!   

But, of course, mon cheri!! It would be outrageous were it anything but! 

[Sephirah]

I'm confused. What is that article about? Is it about the stigma attached to cannabis use or the creation of overblown scandal?

Or both?



With regard to the media fuelled storms in teacups, I tend to agree. A far bigger deal is made about a lot of things than strictly needs to be, in my view, and usually simply to sell issues or advertising space. And to the people that lap them up, they can be a distraction from their own lives, a way to gain temporary moral superiority and indulge in riding that high horse for a while.

Often I find myself hearing things on the news about such-and-such celebrity doing whatever and how horribly wrong it is, and my reaction is a very bored "So what?" There aren't enough pedestals in the world for the people we like to put on them. It's hardly surprising that these supposedly infallible 'heroes' or 'icons' turn out to be just as human as the rest of us. My query is... why do we believe they are anything else?

[lisagurl]

why do we believe they are anything else?

Hero worship. Many people have low self esteem and need heroes. They need to believe other people are better than them. That way they are not responsible for their own downfalls. Being offended and outraged means you do not have to spend your time worrying about your own life.

[NicholeW.]

Hero worship. Many people have low self esteem and need heroes. They need to believe other people are better than them. That way they are not responsible for their own downfalls. Being offended and outraged means you do not have to spend your time worrying about your own life.

Outrage or an answer for everything? I suppose those are the choices of what people do when they aren't looking just at themselves?

Nichole

[Brielle]

Isn't it sort of tongue-in-cheek irony that Sihota is raging about other people raging?  I'm getting enraged!  It's pretty silly stuff actually, because mob pseudo consensus through rage expression is as old as the hills. I mean isn't that basically how Socrates and Pythagoras met their end?  Frankenstein and Quasimoto?  Bonnie & Clyde? (might as well be ridiculous too)

I feel Sihota purposely skipped this point to not be sardonic, whereas I am free to make it, since I don't need to collect a readership for survival - people express faux outrage online at popular scandalous stories, just to see their name in print along side something so popular.  It's a subtle form of desire for the 'fifteen minutes'.  In fact, I'd say that that accounts for an overwhelming majority of one-liners in the comment sections all over the web. 

And I'm not going to say, "But there's no harm in that!"

Anyway, before everyone thinks I'm a b--ch, blame Robertson Davies' 'Fifth Business' and his bit about the polis in ancient Greece.

I better go rage somewhere else!!