The Absence of Outrage

Sunday, April 2, 2017 – The Absence of Outrage

What you need is sustained outrage. There’s far too much unthinking respect given to authority. ~ Molly Ivins

Well, when I was a kid, if my father was witnessing something that he thought was particularly outrageous or he was looking at some sort of a question that he thought lacked proper definition, he would say, Well, at least Jesse James had the honor to wear a mask. ~ Richard Neal

Some things you must always be unable to bear. Some things you must never stop refusing to bear. Injustice and outrage and dishonor and shame. No matter how young you are or how old you have got. Not for kudos and not for cash. Your picture in the paper nor money in the bank, neither. Just refuse to bear them. ~ William Faulkner

On many issues, empathy can pull us in the wrong direction. The outrage that comes from adopting the perspective of a victim can drive an appetite for retribution. ~ Paul Bloom

One reason we rush so quickly to the vulgar satisfactions of judgement, and love to revel in our righteous outrage, is that it spares us from the impotent pain of empathy, and the harder, messier work of understanding. ~ Tim Kreider

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. ~ H. L. Mencken

There is nothing more foolish, nothing more given to outrage than a useless mob. ~ Herodotus

The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Timidity is the silent acceptance of bondage. ~ Constance Friday

The bridge out of shame is outrage. Suddenly the obvious becomes stunningly clear – we have been carrying shame for the crime of the offender. In a clear flash we may see ourselves standing in a fierce stance, grounded by our knowledge, ready to throw off any wrongdoer. Our outrage can be a fueling energy, capable of making us as steely as we need to be. ~ Maureen Brady

One of the sad things about contemporary journalism is that it actually matters very little. The world now is almost inured to the power of journalism. The best journalism would manage to outrage people. And people are less and less inclined to outrage. ~ David Simon

Good satire comes from anger. It comes from a sense of injustice, that there are wrongs in the world that need to be fixed. And what better place to get that well of venom and outrage boiling than a newsroom, because you’re on the front lines. ~ Carl Hiaasen

One of the extraordinary things about human events is that the unthinkable becomes thinkable. ~ Salman Rushdie

We are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable, and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet. ~ E. M. Forster

We must dare to think about unthinkable things because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless. ~ J. William Fulbright

Let’s think the unthinkable, let’s do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself and see if we may not eff it after all. ~ Douglas Adams

Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel

Whoever tramples on the plea for justice temperately made in the name of peace only outrages peace and kills something fine in the heart of man which God put there when we got our manhood. ~ William Allen White

Hell is an outrage on humanity. When you tell me that your deity made you in his image, I reply that he must have been very ugly. ~ Victor Hugo

Famously, there’s not really anywhere to go after nihilism. It’s not progressing toward anything; it’s a statement of outrage, however brilliant. ~ Alan Moore

The way towards simplicity is through outrage. ~ William Golding, Darkness Visible

The key is to put your outrage in a place where you can get it when you need to, but not have it bubble up so much, especially when you’re asked to explain new ideas or explain what you observed two people who share none of your experiences. ~ Ron Suskind

The only hope is that our civilization will collapse at a certain point, as always happens in history. Then, out of barbarity, a renaissance. ~ Pierre Schaeffer

If everyone howled at every injustice, every act of barbarism, every act of unkindness, then we would be taking the first step towards a real humanity. ~ Nelson DeMille

I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more or less pronounced according to the play of circumstances. ~ Simone Weil

Civilization is the lamb’s skin in which barbarism masquerades. ~ Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Barbarism is needed every four or five hundred years to bring the world back to life. Otherwise it would die of civilization. ~ Edmond de Goncourt

We attacked a foreign people and treated them like rebels. As you know, it’s all right to treat barbarians barbarically. It’s the desire to be barbaric that makes governments call their enemies barbarians. ~ Bertolt Brecht

Human history, like all great movements, was cyclical, and returned to the point of beginning. The idea of indefinite progress in a right line was a chimera of the imagination, with no analogue in nature. The parabola of a comet was perhaps a yet better illustration of the career of humanity. Tending upward and sunward from the aphelion of barbarism, the race attained the perihelion of civilization only to plunge downward once more to its nether goal in the regions of chaos. ~ Edward Bellamy

You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn. ~ John Buchan

First you destroy those who create values. Then you destroy those who know what the values are, and who also know that those destroyed before were in fact the creators of values. But real barbarism begins when no one can any longer judge or know that what he does is barbaric. ~ Ryszard Kapuscinski

Sooner barbarity than boredom. ~ Theophile Gautier

Progress celebrates victories over nature. Progress makes purses out of human skin. When people were traveling in mail coaches, the world got ahead better than it does now that salesmen fly through the air. What good is speed if the brain has oozed out on the way? How will the heirs of this age be taught the most basic motions that are necessary to activate the most complicated machines? Nature can rely on progress; it will avenge it for the outrage it has perpetrated on it. ~ Karl Kraus

Stupidity, outrage, vanity, cruelty, iniquity, bad faith, falsehood – we fail to see the whole array when it is facing in the same direction as we. ~ Jean Rostand

The whole order of things is as outrageous as any miracle which could presume to violate it. ~ G. K. Chesterton

Alienation as our present destiny is achieved only by outrageous violence perpetrated by human beings on human beings. ~ R. D. Laing

There is nothing so unthinkable as thought, unless it be the entire absence of thought. ~ Samuel Butler

We have no choice but to be guilty. God is unthinkable if we are innocent. ~ Archibald MacLeish

I believe in using words, not fists. I believe in my outrage knowing people are living in boxes on the street. I believe in honesty. I believe in a good time. I believe in good food. I believe in sex. ~ Bertrand Russell