Social Outrage

I’ve told my students (specifically when studying Animal Farm) whenever you see a sensationalized, heart-wrenching headline designed to stir your emotions that is being presented by political parties on either side, go to the next page of the news and see what you are being distracted from actually reading...because the really important thing is always hidden behind false social outrage. 

Why? Because social outrage is a fantastic manipulation tool used by principalities that has proven to be incredibly effective at drawing people into manufactured conflict leaving them no time to investigate what is really important. 

Simple example: How dare they serve chocolate in the lunch room! We must rally and save the children!!! Let’s ban chocolate on campus for the safety and well being of our kids! Oh and take home this box of chocolates to sell for a fundraising campaign just don’t eat them at school because chocolate is BAD! (PS the school who actually did this was fundraising for playground equipment for a playground in a school system without recess.  Insert crickets here.) You have been effectively distracted by chocolate and into thinking that you are saving children from making unhealthy choices, when the lack of recess and free play is the actual problem. (Because if you let them eat some chocolate and then run around for thirty minutes there is no obesity problem. Ahem.)

Example:  Don’t tell me how worried you are about the disposable kids in our culture unless you are on the list to become foster parents or adoptive parents or have taken in kids from bad circumstances. You don’t actually care. You are in a vacuum of social outrage over an emotional topic that has you stirred up. You have no intention of actually doing anything. You just like feeling indignation over the plight of suffering kids as a principle on paper. 

Unless we are willing to actually sacrifice something for a cause—and I don’t mean give from excess or out of a feeling of assuaged guilt—but actually SACRIFICE something of great value to us—we are all talking heads. Scripture used to justify your point is often the same way—quoting about what we should do vs. actually doing something are worlds apart. 

Mostly, we all like to feel as though our righteous indignation is accomplishing something when it’s just the teacher in Charlie Brown—you know, blah-blah-blah. 

So, the current struggle about children being ripped away from parents at the border? The only kids being separated are those who cannot be legal verified as belonging to the adult accompanying them. This is to protect children from sex trafficking and indentured slavery. 

We KNOW, factually that kids are being smuggled into the US, because in the past we have been more lenient on families traveling together as opposed to single men traveling alone. It's a huge incentive to steal or "rent" or "borrow" a kid for the journey, knowing it increases the illegal's odds of getting into the country. 

Hey, how about this, don't take your kids into a situation where they might be taken from you in the first place. Be careful that you aren't confusing how you "feel" about something with what is "right" about something. 

And now, Covid-19. Always flip to page two. It's just good form.