The Outrage Factories

Get their raw materials from you and me.

We all have psychological pain within us. It is part of the human condition - what the Buddha called dukkha. Dukkha is often translated “suffering,” but I think a better definition is the condition of permanent dissatisfaction with the world, arising from the fact that it is transient. It is our abiding sense that happiness is fleeting while disease, decrepitude, and death are inevitable. It is suffering in the sense that suffering is the anticipation that pain will not end.

Now one would think that dukkha is something we all want to escape, and that anyone with a conscience would want to help us escape it. But we don’t and they won’t help. Because this permanent state of dissatisfaction is an itch we love to scratch, and a terrific resource for those seeking power and wealth. We’ll buy almost any thing or any idea, we’ll follow almost any course of action that promises us some relief from dukkha. 

One way to monetize dukkha is to tap into lust, which is the desire for distraction that takes our minds off dissatisfaction. Lust is the inevitable psychological accompaniment to dukkha, its flip side really. To be human is to be either desiring or to be dissatisfied, and you know which feels better. 

Advertisers have understood the power of lust for a very long time. If you can attach lust to a specific object or action people will buy and buy again. Because even as they experience the exhilaration of being distracted from their dissatisfaction they are dragging it along behind them like a ball and chain. 

Distraction is the meal that makes you hungry instead of full. 

But there is much more insidious use of the dukkha. If you can tap into the primal dissatisfaction in all humans, and attach that dissatisfaction, that suffering to an object or idea or event, then you can create outrage. You create a burning psychological pain that focuses a lifetime of suffering in one place and time on one thing. And once the rage is out, you can put it to use. 

To do that all you have to do is offer release, a way out of the dissatisfaction, and end to the suffering. Not realrelease of course, then you don’t have anything to manipulate. But you can promise release, you can promise that the pain will go away. And people will buy. 

The promise of release from the pain of outrage can take many forms, since we humans have a whole range of built in mechanisms for escaping psychological pain. Distraction is illusory but common. Drugs and alcohol have been around a long time. 

Then there is violence directed at whatever we’ve been taught it outrageous. Making other people suffer, or even causing yourself pain, is a great way of taking your mind off of dukkha. And of course that can run the range from harassment, to verbal abuse, to  physical violence. Turning dissatisfaction to outrage, and outrage to violence is one of the oldest political tools for those seeking power. We see it deployed daily worldwide and in the US.

Another possibility is to incite actions that will supposedly create an imagined future. The energy of present outrage can be directed into activities, like talking to this therapist, taking this medicine, voting for this party, marching for this cause, or donating to this charity or advocacy group will drain off the outrage and quiet the persistent pain of dissatisfaction.

It won’t, although it may change things for the better for others. The danger here is that the persistent pain will require stronger and stronger medicine. The danger is that frustration with the failure to reach impossible goals can eventually fuel the flame of violence. We’ve seen it again and again.   

The manufacturers of outrage and the promised relief are no different from the manufacturers of any good or service that objectifies our suffering then promises to relief from the pain. They want something in return for the relief they offer. It may be political power. It may be money, or less directly book sales. It may be eyeballs on ads. It may be celebrity as they pursue their own futile efforts at escape from dukkha.

Ultimately what they want is for you to lose freedom, becoming chained to whatever object they’ve convinced you causes your suffering, and whatever drug is on offer to cure the pain. Because they want to control your life, not you. 

Whether its HuffPo or Fox, the DCCCP or the GOP, (or many a religious group) the goal is to keep you and your outrage chained to their cause and their promise of relief, in exchange for dollars and power. 

This does’t mean they are necessarily bad people, although some are. The deeper problem is that this exchange, this psychological and economic transaction, is the root transaction of all human relationships not built on love. 

There is a better path to an end of dukkha, permanent dissatisfaction, and indeed the end of the suffering of our fellow humans and all creatures. It is the path that begins with self-realization, through acknowledging the dissatisfaction at our core. It leads to giving up all naiveté about ways to relieve it, understanding that only the silenced mind, the detached self, is unburdened by suffering. And it ends in cultivating compassion, a love for others that leads directly to acting in their interests without a detour through outrage. To put it in Christian terms, it is to abandon either law or punishment as a resolution of sin, and embrace God’s grace given freely in Jesus Christ. And then to act out of that grace.

Because only when we are set free can we do what is right for others, and not merely what gives temporary relief to our own suffering.