The Outrage Game
It’s clear things have been playing on my mind of late. I just can’t shake a general sense of unease, the feeling that something really bad is about to happen. My nerves are a hair trigger, ready to pounce on the tiniest perception of being taken advantage of.
And it seems that people around me are feeling it too, it’s like we’re feeding off each other’s heightened awareness.
It can hardly be surprising that we are all so tense. We’re living in a world right now where the people once trusted and relied upon to behave with fortitude, grace and diplomacy are instead digging at the edges of the mire into which we are all descending. In our modern age, never have the powerful so patently flouted the privilege of their position. Never have they so blatantly pursued their own agendas under the thinnest veil of political altruism.
We are forced to observe in horror the fallout of such egoism, to stare dumbfounded as they doggedly plough ahead with universally nefarious and dangerous objectives, as they disingenuously deny any wrongdoing and arrogantly proceed with their self-serving ways.
And if this were not enough to pique our indignation, it seems that everyone else is vying for our outrage or touting their own to boot.
On any given day we are confronted with demands on our sense of justice (or injustice as the case may be) for this group or that, while simultaneously being pulled in the opposing direction by their counterparts. Everyone wants a piece of our rage and the easiest way to get it is to whip up a frenzy of resentment. Hear them shouting into megaphones and microphones, watch them waving banners and fists, blocking streets and impeding lives.
Who are you going to gift your outrage to today? The Palestinians, the Jews, our First Nations people, LGBTQI+, victims of abuse, victims of the church, victims of the state, human rights, women’s rights, BLM, political prisoners, the climate, the workers, the farmers, the disabled, the flood-ravaged, the boat people, the immigrants, the poor, the koalas, the whales, the forest, the coral reefs, the Earth, the sky?
Meanwhile the media is relishing in the quagmire. Under the guise of reporting the facts they do nothing more than stir up the pot. In the same breath they will communicate the Government’s call for calm then follow with the reason not to remain so. It seems journalists’ only aim these days is to set politicians up for gotcha moments and then rip them apart ad nausea, stoking the public’s distrust.
Terrible things are happening at every scale – globally, regionally, nationally, locally and, often, personally. How are we meant to function in a world where injustice and abuses of all kinds are taking place on a daily basis? How do we protect our own integrity and dignity when we are bombarded with degenerate content delivered by degenerate people who should never have been given a platform in the first place? And how do we live in a world where we are surrounded by people who lap that content up?
How do we avoid falling into the trap of sharing disinformation because our outrage leaves us vulnerable to it, or of believing that our own rights are being abused, or buying into someone else’s agenda in order to feel like we are doing something good? Brainwashed into believing we have no choices, we are ripe to making some very bad ones just so we can feel in control…and that cannot end well for anyone.
© Maria Orlandi 2026