"You should be ANGRY about this injustice!"

In My Humble Opinion
1

In recent years, on social media, I’ve noticed a theme by activists from a variety of political stripes: Claiming that society is hard-hearted and callous because society doesn’t get as enraged about their particular cause as they would like.

Something to the effect of,* “If you are not livid, grieved and indignant about this slavery/human trafficking/exploitation/crime/injustice/disaster/death/epidemic/genocide, etc., you don’t have a heart.”*

Which is, in a certain sense, true - people **should **get indignant about such things. We should not be impassive or uncaring about such things. **But **there’s one problem here…

…We live in a huge world of 7 billion people where countless such things are happening on a daily basis.

At ***any given moment, ***there are countless people being abused, victimized, enslaved, murdered, trafficked, taken advantage of, wrongfully convicted or acquitted, etc. At any given moment there are tornadoes, hurricanes, diseases, terrorist attacks, etc. This stuff goes on 24/7, 365.

It is impossible to muster up the emotional energy to get upset about everything that one ought to be upset about.

What these activists are demanding, essentially, is that society be consumed in a never-ending, boiling rage and fury 24/7. 365 days a year. That may not be their conscious intent, but that’s really it. If we were to really take their demands to heart, we would all be white-hot erupting volcanoes of emotional lava at any given moment. We would have heart attacks and strokes and sky-high blood pressure.
I’m not writing this to be sarcastic, but rather that, IMHO, these activists are demanding something that is really impossible. People cannot be angry over every single injustice in the world - we have 1,000,000 different things to be enraged about at any given moment.

Problem is, if you only show anger or grief over 2 or 3 tragedies, then the activists who clamor on behalf of many other causes then say, “Why isn’t society upset and moved about OUR cause and OUR plight?”

2

I am mildly peeved at the tone of your post.

3

Yeah, I know, sorry - it came out snippy and negative, more than I meant it to, but I was a bit peeved about the issue.

4

Well I was reading this in high dudgeon.

Sent from my LG-V410 using Tapatalk

5

Meh. I myself was pre-occupied with my own concerns.

6

Telling people how they should feel is never advised.

And yet, I get why activists get so frustrated. People are easily worked up over the most mundane stuff, but when something truly outrageous happens, all you get from them is shoulder-shrugging and “meh”.

I don’t actually think sane activists really care how people feel. They care about what people do. Whether it’s make a donation, wave a sign, or sign a petition. People’s actions are motivated by emotions, so it makes sense to play on them. A little guilt trip can go along way to make people do the right thing.

7

As my father said to me when I was a young boy becoming aware of things like this, “You can drive yourself crazy dwelling on things like that.”

So now I don’t, to the greatest extent possible.

The result of course is that I’m regarded here as an evil cold-hearted conservative, but in reality I just realize that shit goes on and there’s largely nothing to be done about it, so why drive yourself nuts getting upset about it?

I’m convinced this is the greatest area of divide between conservatives and liberals. Liberals seem to think that if you’re not outraged over every conceivable wrong and 100% behind whatever workable or unworkable solution they come up with to address it, well then, you must be some kind of asshole, whereas conservatives, given their more practical nature, simply recognize that shit happens, it always has and always will, and that life can never be perfect or exactly the way we want, and so we’re less inclined to go tilting at windmills over every real or perceived injustice or misfortune.

Naturally there are pros and cons to each viewpoint. If everyone shared my viewpoint little would ever get done in the way of making things better. On the other hand if everyone shared the liberal viewpoint humanity would get so gridlocked trying to make everything under the sun perfect that life would literally come to a standstill.

So I guess in the end it’s better to have both sides thinking like they do and at odds with each other.

8

I am unfamiliar with that font.

9

I’ve only got so many fucks to give. I choose to invest them wisely.

10

I hate the admonishment that you MUST share this Facebook posting if you agree. If you don’t share, obviously you don’t think that we should support the troops/love the police/want to save the whales etc.

11

There’s what the OP depictds, and there is also its cousin, “How come the [ group ] *are not denouncing *[ action by someone associated with the group ]”.

That one makes me :rolleyes: when it comes about. Then again it’s such a lame approach.

I don’t have to be making a point of publishing to the world my support for Good Cause X in order to support Good Cause X. Of course I support righting the injustices of the world (mind you: injustices; not inconveniences or incidental misfortunes) and mitigating what suffering can be mitigated. But at any given point in time there’s a limited amount of what I can help with.

That taking the “oh well, shit happens” position is “realistic” is just a statement of the obvious, the question is whether we may evaluate what shit happened and to whom or are we compelled to care about all the shit happenning to everybody.

12

*We care a lot about disasters, fires, floods, and killer bees.
About the NASA shuttle falling in the sea.
We care a lot about starvation and the food that Live Aid bought.
We care a lot about disease baby rock, Hudson, rock.

Woah! Oh it’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it.
Oh it’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it.

We care a lot.
We care a lot.
We care a lot about the gamblers and the pushers and the geeks.
We care a lot about the smack and crack and wack that hits the streets.
We care a lot about the welfare of all you boys and girls.
We care a lot about you people 'cause we’re out to save the world.
Yeah!*

13

I don’t care enough to read through this thread.

14

I blame the unregulated media/industrial complex for the misdirection of indignation.

15

Well, certain brands of conservatives also make it their life’s work to be “consumed in a never-ending, boiling rage and fury 24/7. 365 days a year.” And this hardly suffices to deal with all of life’s injustices. Only a select few right-wing Tea Party injustices.

And Obama.

16

I had a friend (emphasis on had) who became furious with me when I wasn’t as irate as she was about a particular social problem. (She was so incensed that she actually left the room at one point.) I attempted to explain to her that I did care, but I was hip-deep in my own issues, and since I was so bogged-down, I didn’t have the energy to get invested in too many more causes that weren’t personally relevant to me or someone I cared about. I wasn’t being heartless; I was being practical (as well as mindful of my blood pressure and tendency to get anxious/depressed over things I couldn’t change).

I prefer your much-shorter explanation that I only have so many fucks to give, to be honest. :smiley:

17

This quote seems appropriate :

“I hate people who are so eager to embrace the harshness of reality they don’t take five seconds to check whether it can be changed”

18

Pick and choose your battles. Pick and choose your good causes to contribute to. Pick and choose your friends and avoid your enemies. And finally, look after number one, because you can’t assume anyone else will.

19

Glad somebody mentioned this. Yeah, there are a lot things that suck - but some of them can be improved upon (and indeed have been in the past) by people that care enough to make an effort to make them better.

20

it’s a form of self-centered-ness. “I think this is important, why I can’t I make all of these stupid people see how important it is?!?!”

We all magnify the importance of things within our realm of familiarity. There’s even a term for it, our “monkeysphere.”