I read your post title the wrong way, because I've been feeling slightly outraged that the UK is suffering economic contagion from the Eurozone which (more by luck than judgement) we never actually joined. I think you're talking not about Contagion Outrage, but that very different beast, Outrage Contagion. :)
It's an interesting post, though I think shweta_narayan's objections are valid. I was pondering this subject yesterday, in connection with the story of the feminist sceptic Rebecca Watson, who (as you probably know) made a passing reference in a video blog to a guy who hit on her in an elevator at 4am, after she'd just been talking at a con about how she found that kind of thing bothersome, and found herself at the centre of a mega-shitstorm that included physical threats and all kinds of abuse, and eventually sucked in Richard Dawkins (comment #75), who argued that Western women had no right to complain about anything when women elsewhere were being genitally mutilated. To my own mind there's no doubt where the rights and wrongs of this particular argument lie, but it's frightening how quickly the hotheaded interventions of supporters on both sides served to bury the original issue from sight, and ensure that any nuances in the situation or the main actors' response to it were flattened out into monochrome slogans.
That said, I've lost what little respect I had for Dawkins.
Well....there really isn't a 'both sides' there. She said something simple and tons of assholes basically freaked out at the mere idea that women had a right to demand consideration for their lives, feelings, and so forth. They made up shit she didn't say, stalked her, threatened her with rape, and tried to get her into real life trouble. None of her supporters came even close to that. You can see similar outrage in the "Shrodinger's Rapist" piece, which is full of enraged comments from men, feeling horribly abused that women have to protect themselves at the cost of a minor ding to some guys' feeling of entitlement and studliness.
Fair point - there is a huge asymmetry there, and though I made it clear where I stood my phrase about "hotheaded interventions of supporters on both sides" kind of undermined that. What I was trying to get at was that even some of her supporters, understandably outraged by the outrage of her opponents, allowed the debate to go way off the point - e.g. on to Watson's looks.
If you have to announce that something should not be taken the wrong way -- you know it's not the way it will be taken, it's what you are going to say.
It's an interesting post, though I think shweta_narayan's objections are valid. I was pondering this subject yesterday, in connection with the story of the feminist sceptic Rebecca Watson, who (as you probably know) made a passing reference in a video blog to a guy who hit on her in an elevator at 4am, after she'd just been talking at a con about how she found that kind of thing bothersome, and found herself at the centre of a mega-shitstorm that included physical threats and all kinds of abuse, and eventually sucked in Richard Dawkins (comment #75), who argued that Western women had no right to complain about anything when women elsewhere were being genitally mutilated. To my own mind there's no doubt where the rights and wrongs of this particular argument lie, but it's frightening how quickly the hotheaded interventions of supporters on both sides served to bury the original issue from sight, and ensure that any nuances in the situation or the main actors' response to it were flattened out into monochrome slogans.
That said, I've lost what little respect I had for Dawkins.
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If you have to announce that something should not be taken the wrong way -- you know it's not the way it will be taken, it's what you are going to say.
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