Is society outrageous or is society just outraged?

I had someone mention something in similar wording and didn't really have an answer on it. So if you got a few minutes let's take a look?

Is society really as outrageous as we are seeing or are we just outraged constantly now?

I honestly do not have an answer on this yet so when I do, I will throw a response below.

Much Love, Respect and Peace,
Kobos

The question might seem a bit vague. Can we have some context?

To me its part of an expanding of penetrative awareness, such that transparency develops where none was previously, and so the 'picture' gets much worse.... but it just happens to be more a case of it becoming more accurate.
This is a roadblock developing nations need to push through, because change is slow and not in isolation from chains pulling them backwards, as older dynamics distort blame through identity politics to wrestle for power.
But another way is the spread of information from big increases in accessibility via the capturing, delivering and accessing of information. Of course what is happening changes because circumstances are always changing, but it boils down to people doing things which have impacts. With the greater reach (breadth and/or depth) we are less able to involve ourselves in things we think need involvement, so we're unable to develop a strong association between our morals and our actions in the field of our awareness. We are probably built to have a strong association between those things, and so I think our minds work on issues even if we know we cannot do anything about it. When cognitive resources are drained, then emotions take over as the power shunts down the line to the subconscious processes, and eventually the deeper less controllable passions start to become the only option to engage ourselves in action, for want of better solutions as a result of overload and/or depletion of mental resources. Outrage is probably a step in that process, but I think society has always been outrageous, so can I answer both!?

Proteus wrote: The question might seem a bit vague. Can we have some context?

So the question posed to me was from a colleague, another history teacher. He is a little older but was talking in the context to how would a historian explain the world at this moment and how to teach that, would it be like Edward Gibbon, would it be strictly objective or does that not even come close to existing? But, he left it pretty vague too, I'm sure on purpose, forcing me to think about the whole.


Adder, yes you absolutely can! I honestly, think that may be the point he was trying to get at.

I look forward to responses because this genuinely interest me, call it remnants of the retired punk in me.

Much Love Peace and Respect,
Kobos

People are strange - some people are even stranger. ( que Lost Boys sound track!) people come in various shapes and sizes and even levels and ways. We know this ... man! Hahaha I met an old man who had a beautiful Monte Carlo - old - all steel - and in it newspapers to the point you could only sit in the drivers side - barely. He stunk and he always had that whisky sour look on his face. Nothing you said could change his mind that the world was shit. His words. He sat at a cafe with other folk just like him. In the small town of Clifton Texas, there’s a few places to sit down and have a cup of coffe - the town gas station was it. You could feel the - junk they gathered not to mention the smell. 6 - 630 am we all payed n left then after that the attendant would mom for the sake of the smell - every morning. People are people. Depending on what your frequency is ( what you frequent) some times sets your focus or mood and some times ... even your smell. Lol where and who isn’t the focus most of the time but ... as a wise franchise once said thru a very good character “your focus determines your reality.”

So yea, some people are just grouchy all the time. Some are happy , some are bored - some are malice and some are giving. 7 billion and counting brotha- who you gunna sit next to?

Social media seems to be able to magnify where our focus s are and if we look at our browser history - there can be a tell-tale of our online focus. Same can be said for our places and people we interact with. I leave you in peace and joy knowing that it’s people like us - me and you Tim that can make these little mentions and “notice-ments” and re focus ourselfs on a daily basis and I leave you with this quote from the muppets -

"Hey. I tell you what is. Big city, hmm? Live. Work, huh? But. Is not city open. Only peoples. Peoples is peoples. No is buildings. Is tomatoes, huh? Is peoples, is dancing, is music, is potatoes. So, peoples is peoples. Okay?" - Pete (Louis Zorich), a Manhattan restaurateur, to Kermit the Frog, offering perhaps the best statement of life wisdom depicted in cinema, in The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984).

Is society really as outrageous as we are seeing or are we just outraged constantly now?

I dont think society as a whole has suddenly become more outrageous. Its more our personal connection has widened, so we see/hear/interact more.
We are more aware now of what is happening and understand more the implications of whats happening in our wider society and how it impacts on us.

As well we now can collectively be outraged about something and spread that message instantly where in the past if it didnt happen close, odds were you would never hear about it.


Its also easier nowadays to feel entitled to be outraged about things and a lot harder to find people willing to be open minded enougth to actually embrace the idea that there are two sides to most things.

Thank you guys very much for the replies. I am still thinking on this. But your replies have helped me kind of grasp a more clear idea of what this question means.

I will have a reply for this eventually. I would love others to contribute!

The more pixels a clearer picture!

Much Love, Respect and Peace,
Kobos

I think it's both.

And actually I think there is a kind of social evolution going on. What does one need for evolution to happen? Environment... climate? Well there is a social environment and a social climate as well. You can take the "temperature" of a room.

When people are outraged it's like a thunderstorm of activity. But what are they reacting to? In physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Part of what plays in my mind, on my Jedi journey, is this constant balance of opposites, attracting and balancing. Outrage is a reaction to witnessing things that are outrageous. Children not only separated from parents at the border but held in worse conditions than what hostages reported from being held by pirates. Pirates... A 4 yr old takes a doll from a store and the police threaten to shoot the mother if she doesn't follow their every command while she pleads with them that she's pregnant and holding a young child.

There are outrageous things going on and people are reacting to them with justifiable outrage.

I am with those who answer "both".

There are several measures of the outrageousness of our time. Historian Chalmers Johnson, in the latter years of his life in the early 2000's, tried in several ways to convey to the public how the current state of America resembled that of every major empire that preceded it - Greece, Rome, Spain, Holland, Britain, and perhaps one or two more I've forgotten. He described the mechanics of what leads an empire to ultimately experience economic collapse. If we are truly approaching such a dramatic event, that feels outrageous.

We are in the midst of a climate crisis that could have unprecedented impacts to life on Earth, at least within the history of human beings. That too feels outrageous.

We are watching as what we thought were the discarded and discredited political philosophies of the pre-World War Two era gain acceptance in several developed countries. That feels outrageous.

Yet ... for all that, it seems we are also becoming angrier. I do not recall random mass shootings occurring in offices, malls, schools, and nightclubs before the late 1990's. In 2015, at least in America, we began to hear of family members ceasing communication because of heightened political passions. Right now, state politicians in Oregon have fled the state, allegedly aligning themselves at least loosely with militia groups, to avoid voting on a bill they do not favor. So even as our environment changes, many of us are changing too.

So ... both.

when the victims of a mass shooting have to move several times because of death threats, that is also outrageous.

anger, hate, and fear tend to naturally feed off each other and have their own gravitational pull.

You see 2 sides getting more and more upset by the other until someone snaps.

We live in an age where foreign terrorists are being replaced by domestic terrorists and we're killing each other over disagreements.

I wonder... if people's "fear of God" hasn't been replaced by nurturing a love for humanity and that's why people do so many outrageous things. I never liked the idea of being afraid what God would do to you if you did wrong. But in the absence of that fear what is it replaced with? What we're showing each other, what we're putting into the environment, eventually changes the environment that we'll all have to adapt to. And then what? Not only do we all lock our doors but do we all need guns? Where does it end?

ZealotX wrote: when the victims of a mass shooting have to move several times because of death threats, that is also outrageous.

I agree. I believe this is a product of technology and the current way it is used in our current social climate.

anger, hate, and fear tend to naturally feed off each other and have their own gravitational pull.
Yep

You see 2 sides getting more and more upset by the other until someone snaps.

Here, I disagree to a point. In the current form of discourse on any sensitive subject or issue, in general the interpretation of events is almost always skewed to make victims of almost everyone for every reason. Keep in mind, that this victimization can be legitimate, which there are numerous cases of. However, the distortion of words to fit the illegitimate cases is cause for concern. Are the "2 sides" of a discourse then actually a product of victimization? If one assumes a slight they will tend to respond in kind. Therefore, when each is slighted they respond in kind and the victim cycle repeats. This sadly then draws away from the issue at hand. Meaning, do we literally focus so much on the slights which are either accidental, minor, or just rude (not malicious)? There are legal ramifications for the legitamate cases and they should always be prosecuted according to due process. Now, people have always been going around snapping, there were not as many people to be reported on in the past and you were only likely to hear of local or regional individuals even as recently as the early 2000's. This up tick seems to coincide with people connecting more to each other. So, then is it that as discourse has degraded to the point that this is it's end product? Or is it that we simply know more now? Could it also be said that people react emotionally to the discovery of new facts? Then causing more people to be affected by their actions via the technological connection we now share?

We live in an age where foreign terrorists are being replaced by domestic terrorists and we're killing each other over disagreements.

Yes, we are, I think this ties in well with what Omhu said earlier. How is this happening? How do we stop it?

I wonder... if people's "fear of God" hasn't been replaced by nurturing a love for humanity and that's why people do so many outrageous things. I never liked the idea of being afraid what God would do to you if you did wrong. But in the absence of that fear what is it replaced with? What we're showing each other, what we're putting into the environment, eventually changes the environment that we'll all have to adapt to. And then what? Not only do we all lock our doors but do we all need guns? Where does it end?

People have always carried weapons to protect themselves from other people. Sadly there are just bad people out there. Do we have too many guns or do we have to many A-holes with guns? I would ask you this has the "fear of God" been replaced with fear of "peers"? Does judgement from others whom hold the same opinions as you (for the most part) and the personal/emotional need for affirmation cause the cycle I highlighted above? Does constant bombardment of information and ideas play into this? When then does censorship?

Just some thoughts.

Much Love, Respect and Peace,
Kobos

I'm reading a book right now from a Swedish PhD called Factfulness that in some ways goes to the heart of this question.

(Highly recommend it to the community here)

Anyway, I'm of the belief that people are still pretty much the same as they were 50 years ago when it comes to being outraged about "stuff" - what's new is the platform they are able to voice their outrage on.