There's outrage, and there's outrage, and perhaps we should disaggregate

Jan 19, 2012 19:28


Normally I find Suzanne Moore reasonably okay (though has perhaps gone off a bit from her earlier self, haven't we all), but I do not agree with this: This growing culture of outrage doesn't extend free speech - it limits it.

Because, honestly, isn't it All More Complicated?

I do see that outrage probably conjugates as one of those triplets:
I - am righteously indignant.
You - are rather too easily offended.
They - go around looking for things to be outraged about.

Nonetheless it does seem to me that by bewailing 'outrage' tout court, you may well be conflating instances of righteous indignation - and, indeed, demands for higher standards of civility - with blatant instances of trollery and concern-trolling or just getting a high from a sense of moral superiority.

And outrage isn't censorship. As has been so often remarked when people wail about being censored and The First Amendment (as if the latter were Universal Law rather than a rather local practice), saying you're wrong isn't censorship. Criticism isn't censorship. Saying something is offensive isn't censorship: it's a call to think about what you're saying and its impact.

You can defend to the death people's right to say things you disagree with, but that doesn't mean shutting up about the fact that you disagree or not thinking that people who say things like that are seriously NQOSD.

Plus, I think that arguing the extreme case - 'I was offended... but no one died, as we say. The point is that people do die for the sake of free expression' - is a bit like the 'sticks and stones' argument that was always being cited at one about being teased in the school playground.

Words can hurt, words can give pain, words can damage, and someone who works with words ought to know that.

This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/1576381.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
comments.

trolling, internet, words, offensiveness, censorship

Previous post Next post
Up