Quick Note on Outrage

I just saw this quick point here at the NYTimes on outrage. I actually agree with them. Outrage or anger at some thing is certainly useful. But if it remains just that. If your only method is to fire off something into the internets and use that as your release valve, and you don’t use the extra energy to do anything with that, then the outrage is certainly not being used in the best manner.

This is not to say that one should always be organizing something after one is outraged, but it helping the cause that you want should be in the cards. I understand the need to shout off something in the internets. I do it myself. And I’ve talked about the ways in which people seem to use internet outrage as a point of powerlessness (they can’t do much else). But that too doesn’t take into account how a hashtag like BLM can start like that then organize itself into something much bigger and better.

So in the coming years go ahead and be outraged, but please don’t let it remain there. Help out (monetarily or otherwise) the cause that will help your position the most. Suppose this is little more than a platitude, but I know I too will have to take this pledge as I feel outraged at many points in time.

Thoughts?