Outrage, Judgement & Self-Righteousness

ESSAY: I wrote this essay six years ago. It's all become much worse. We live in the toxic age of rampant false accusation.

Our politics are rampant with outrage, accusation, hypocrisy, self-righteousness, demonization, judgement, pillory, disinformation, insult, false-equivalence, what-about-ism, rationalization, innuendo, manipulation, falsehood and slander. It has become exhausting and destructive.

Our public discourse is toxic. We need to stop pillorying each other with facile and false judgement on social media and on the 'news' panels of manufactured, opinionated outrage.

Of course, wrong-doing should be appropriately adjudicated. But, we are losing perspective and context. We are erasing nuance and circumstance. We are becoming quick to judge, without the benefit of careful consideration, and even quicker to condemn.

Let's get back to the basics of human decency. Facts should be gathered and confirmed. Rumors should be quashed. Credible assertions of morally or criminally offensive behavior should be investigated. Corruption should be uncovered. Social ills should be identified. Crimes should be prosecuted. Those found guilty, after a presumption of innocence, should be held accountable.

All of those are certainly legitimate topics for discussion. But, before one passes judgement and casts a stone, one should learn the truth. Accusations should not be weaponized. Let due process take its course. Let verifiable evidence, not personal or political bias or bad motive, determine one's judgement.

We need the lawyers now, I believe, more than ever. We need legitimate investigations of actual malfeasance. Those investigations should take place in the newsrooms of an unhampered press, the oversight committees of a non-partisan Congress, the offices of independent criminal investigative units and in the courtrooms of a deliberate judiciary.

We need to stop rushing to judgement on each and every assertion, regardless of its merit or magnitude. Before we start publicly demeaning every person we deem vile, fueled by our own partisanship, outrage and self-righteousness, we need to spend some time listening and learning about the alleged infractions.

What actually happened? What were the circumstances? Who is a credible witness? What are the motivations for the accusation? What is the history between the condemned and the accuser? What is the evidence? What is the crime? What is the appropriate punishment? Who stands to gain from the accusation? Whose reputation will forever be tarnished? What are the facts? Why is this personal to you? What is your bias? Where did you get the information on which you base your outrage? What's really going on here?

We all need to take a fucking breath.