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

[oursin]

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.

Comments

[trinker]

Armflail over the conjugation. Linking in my journal immediately.

[sara]

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.

Well, and the backwards case there -- unless I'm prepared to kill someone, I should shut it? -- is fairly ludicrous.

[auroramama]

Thank you. This has been getting to me, reinforced by my fellow Americans claiming to be oppressed by people telling them something they said or did was racist, sexist, or rude. I say stupid things fairly frequently and criticism, however deserved, is not fun. But I don't demand that everyone else school themselves not to be offended when I say something offensive.

[surexit]

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

Yeah. This is a good post.

[sheenaghpugh]

Surely she's talking not about people who say "I disagree with what X just said" but those who get up twitterstorms demanding that X be sacked and instantly apologise. Trying to command apologies does amount to a kind of censorship, a nastily totalitarian demand for humiliation and retraction; it is effectively saying "you have no right to say or think this and you must recant".

[oursin]

I felt that she was moving on from that to wider generalisations I found problematic.

Plus, a lot of what looks like a coordinated firestorm of outrage is lots of individuals thinking something is Just Not On and articulating that.

[mme_hardy]

I have seen twitterstorms and LJ storms I disapproved of.

On the other hand, where is the best place to counter Ricky Gervais -- on Twitter -- deliberately repeating the insult "mong"?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2011/oct/19/ricky-gervais-mong-twitter

Serious question. If it is inappropriate for multiple people to say, on Twitter where the offense occurred, "That was rude and you should apologize", what is the right modality?

[sheenaghpugh]

"That was rude" - fine. "You should apologise" - no. In the first place a forced apology, not meant but made only in response to coercion, is as worthless as a forced consent. He who converts against his will is of the same opinion still - so why bother wringing a fake apology out of him? In the second place there is something so bloody smug, holier-than-thou and Stalinist about demanding apologies that it risks generating sympathy for the victim - if anything could have made me sympathise with the unspeakable Jeremy Clarkson it would have been that.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Who has the power to actually force an apology, though? Calling for an apology seems to me to be just an extension of saying "That was rude," not a dramatically different thing to say.

[sheenaghpugh]

We'll have to agree to differ, then. To me it sounds like the inquisition or the Cheka asking someone to recant a heresy. If it's accompanied by calls for someone to be sacked unless they apologise, there may be a degree of coercion. And when it's a whole flock of people ganging up, it looks unpleasantly like bullying, even if they are in the right. One reason I won't move over to DW is that some time back, it seemed like every other week someone would post a fanfic that "offended" in some way, and assorted Sisters of Sanctimony would descend in droves to demand contrition from the author (and rejoice pharisaically that they were not as them).