Outing Outrage

I am a glorious cliche having reached that stage when I realise the futility of outrage and wondering why the fuck I ever shaved my pit hair.

It must be at the top of my Substack algorithm: outrage. My feed is inundated with it. People are outraged by audacity, celebrity, and the state of things. Then others are outraged by the outrage. Those well-meaning humans who jump to the defence of those who are taking a hit from critical mass umbrage. It all seems so circular from the outside looking in, a circle that spirals inwards. Nothing about outrage seems expansive to me, but oh my, have I expressed some during my life.

I think my outrage hit its zenith during my forties. I found myself with enough experience and a sufficient platform to presume I had enough clout to effect progressive and positive change through angry diatribes. The contradictory nature of this stance is now embarrassing in retrospect, but I’m kinder to myself these days and smile. The obvious conclusion is that outrage begets outrage, but still, we soldier on, believing some miraculous one-eighty is about to occur in our reluctant audience. I remember thinking if I just spice up my point of view and push a little bit harder, they’ll all fall like dominoes and realise how right I am. I’m dying here, but also past the vulnerability hangover stage, knowing that honesty is funny and sets you free.

We wage wars within wars, and nothing really gets solved. We can be so full of our own self-importance in this place that it becomes a grubby substitute for loving thy neighbour. I sense a hint of outrage in my last sentence, and check myself. I hear a question from inside, “But what about protest movements?” And I sit with this a moment—those demonstrations of outrage en masse which shed light on the countless obscene violations of human rights happening across the planet. But are there other ways to raise our awareness that don’t fuel a bloodlust? Is it possible we are matching hate with hate?

I don’t want to detract from the bravery of those who have fought for human rights and risked their lives to do so. When inclusivity reached its high-water mark, we thanked those stoic warriors for the luxury of peace we enjoyed. But the tide is going out, so did it work? It’s a bit like the conclusion we reach when we reconcile the way we were parented: ‘They did the best with what they knew. ’ People who fought for the freedom of others (yes, that was on purpose) were doing the best with what they knew. I think, however, that the enemy’s outrage went underground, hibernated near hell, and recruited under the cover of night. Then boom, a bunch of dangerous, hateful people suddenly (or not) rise to power and strip away those hard-won rights.

I went to a talk with trans author Torrey Peters at The Auckland Writers Festival recently, and she told us that underground trans networks went straight back online to look after each other when the infant legislation that sought to humanise their existence began to be retracted by the Trump administration. She was still hopeful in the face of hate and her allies’ outrage, but not because of it. Ultimately, she trusts the love, generosity, and compersion that fuels her community. She accepts that there is outrage and infighting within it, but they are not the majority stakeholder. Peters spoke about the flourishing of creativity in the face of adversity and presented outrage-less, when most would encourage and support her right to it. It was a reassuring balm that soothed the anxiety I felt when she was asked the questions that could have evoked an emotional call to arms. I loved that she wasn’t all sweetness and light, though, preferring to disturb people in other ways, namely through her writing. It seemed she would rather cause an internal disruption, forcing people to get to know themselves better, rather than thinking they know better.

Then there is the Canadian comedian, Lizzie Allan (@lizzieallanvision), who is leading a movement of “Women’s circles creating women’s circles helping others create women’s circles…pockets of joy, support, and love helping to bring love and light down into the world as we navigate late-stage capitalism and the rise of fascism.” And I love somehow ending up at the grassroots of this and observing the networking of love and not outrage, that is just for the sake of it (and probably for the survival of our species). I haven’t joined in any other way than by being on the mailing list until now, by speaking about it on this forum. Check it out.

Unpicking our conditioning is a lifelong exercise. We need to realise we have been conditioned for war, and it started with the war against ourselves. Outrage keeps that conditioning alive and distracts us from the work of self-compassion. And now the cliches ramp up - if we don’t have compassion for ourselves, it is impossible to have it for others. Compassion is the opposite of outrage, not the source. So what do we do? How do we shine the light on our own hypocrisy? We seek fucking good therapy for a start. If we don’t acknowledge our individual and collective trauma, we don’t stand a chance.

“Compassion has enemies, and those enemies are things like pity, moral outrage, fear.”

— Joan Halifax

However, I am also open to the idea that out-rage could be a necessary step on the journey to cou-rage, but I wonder if there is a way to fast-track it so we don’t get stuck in an angry loop.

The etymology of the word “courage” traces back to the Latin root word “cor”, meaning heart; therefore, courage originates from the heart and has come to represent inner strength in the face of fear. I don’t think outrage comes from the heart, though, but maybe it is meant to inform the heart of danger and prompt us to action.

A writer, editor, and publisher whom I admire, Shelley Francis, wrote and published a Substack post in the past few days that has given me pause. It has brought new awareness and clarity to the fact that so many people in the USA are suffering right now. Shelley discusses how she felt frozen before regaining her voice and agency by “..finding my people down the street and around the Grand Valley, “well-met” kindred spirits equally passionate (curious?) about “doing something” to reclaim our Democracy and fight back. It was my neighbour’s invitation to me and about 30 other women that led to a Sunday-afternoon get-together in her living room in February. She was tired of crying alone on her couch since November.”

Glennon Doyle has been talking similarly on her current book tour. For her and her team, unfreezing has led to partnering with The Florence Project, which provides free legal services, social services, and advocacy to immigrants facing detention and potential deportation.

So, perhaps outrage has its utility, but I don’t think it was ever meant to be the outcome and doesn’t seem to be the final agent of change. We may have become stuck in an outrage quagmire that prevents us from seeing the bigger picture because we can’t see how we stand in the way of ourselves.

As we start to peel back the layers of the dysfunctional schemas that have thickened our skin in defence of what we perceived as external threats, we realise that our biggest threat is ourselves if we don’t do the work.

I’m in Erik Erikson’s second-to-last psychosocial developmental stage, generativity vs self-absorption, and it is clichéd of me to wax lyrical about the things I have worked out because I am developmentally primed to do so. But the generative piece is to share that even as I acknowledge that people being born now already have this knowledge on board. And here is the hope part: that our collective consciousness will, as a result of this rising awareness, win with love, not outrage.

Meanwhile, I work on my conditioning, one lipstick and razor, one trauma bond and revelation, one self-kindness and therapy session at a time. And I smile to myself that it took me fifty-five years to grow out my pit hair.

Love, love, and love,

Melissa x