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Religious Freedom Toolkit

Part III | Expanded Analysis

Category E | Perspectives

Topic 30 | Civil discourse versus the outrage industrial complex

The term “outrage industrial complex” was coined to describe patterns of contemporary political discourse (especially online discourse) that “strokes our own biases while affirming our worst assumptions about those who disagree with us.” Religious freedom is best promoted through facilitating and engaging in civil discourse, focused on the human dignity of all, rather than making excessive emotional appeals.

Outrage industrial complex: A destructive cycle of cultural climate change  

Outrage industrial complex was a term coined in the early 2000s to explain causes of a cultural “climate change” in recent decades marked by increased intolerance, incivility, and polarization.777 This climate change coincided with—and to a large extent was fueled by—the rapid proliferation of media outlets, including social media and politically partisan media outlets.

The outrage industrial complex creates and perpetuates the destructive cycle of cultural climate change. First, it encourages people to be outraged, falsely persuading some that outrage “is a reliable force for social change.”778 Once people are outraged, they are incentivized to support, with their time and money, the content and outlets that validate and encourage that outrage. Outlets are thus incentivized, financially or otherwise, to produce more content aimed at encouraging and fomenting outrage.779 This cycle is carried out by various outlets or actors in various social spheres, including media and online communications, political discourse, educational discourse, and more. The effect is, if not the silencing of one’s “opponents” and critics, then at least the positioning of one in a silo where one no longer hears them.

The outrage cycle begs the question, why are people susceptible to outrage to begin with? One writer has noted that “outrage . . . [has] become the default emotion.”780 But, again, this assertion begs the question, what is the component in the societal soil that has allowed outrage to take root and run rampant, like an invasive species?

Arthur C. Brooks argues that the root cause of outrage is not incivility, intolerance, or polarization.781 Rather, the root is “motive attribution asymmetry,” the assumption that one’s own ideology is based on all that is right and good while “the other’s” ideology is based on all that is wrong and evil.782 This places us in an intransigent state of inability to negotiate, compromise, or even sit next to each other around a table. Worse yet, claims Brooks, it creates a culture of contempt—“a noxious brew of anger and disgust. And not just contempt for other people’s ideas but also for other people.”783 Brooks explains,

"The sources of motive attribution asymmetry are easy to identify: divisive politicians, screaming heads on television, hateful columnists, angry campus activists and seemingly everything on the contempt machines of social media. This “outrage industrial complex” works by catering to just one ideological side, creating a species of addiction by feeding our desire to believe that we are completely right and that the other side is made up of knaves and fools. It strokes our own biases while affirming our worst assumptions about those who disagree with us."784

The outrage industrial complex and the environment of contempt in which it flourishes are pervasive, invasive, and difficult to eradicate from society. Rhetors will continue to leverage outrage to gain dividends in the form of profits, responses, “likes,” or other forms of recognition and attention, power, and control.785 And in some ways, we may be “much more wired for polarization and outrage than deliberati[on] and collaboration.”786

Helping eradicate the outrage industrial complex  

A first step toward eradicating the outrage industrial complex is to “starve the profiteers of outrage by ignoring them.”787 Law professor Richard Thompson Ford explains that, without our attention and rage, these profiteers “are nothing.”788 Brooks encourages us to begin by cutting off our own personal “rhetorical dope peddlers—the powerful people on []our own side who” supply us with outrage and profit from our habit of contempt. In addition to ignoring, we can go a step further by actually “expos[ing] malice and misleading information lurking within the media we consume, stoking outrage, and being funded by . . . marketers.”789

Second, Brooks advises, we can “make a commitment never to treat others with contempt, even if we believe they deserve it.”790

Third, Brooks encourages us to view the contempt we see around us as an opportunity rather than a threat. He explains that one should view being treated with contempt as “a chance to change at least one heart—yours. Respond with warmheartedness and good humor. You are guaranteed to be happier. If that also affects the contemptuous person (or bystanders), it will be to the good.”791

Brooks notes that, in attempts to eradicate irascible outrage and contempt, we may be tempted to try to disagree less. He argues, however, that disagreement and a robust, competitive marketplace of ideas are requisites for finding truth, for improving ourselves and our communities, for innovation, and for the flourishing of democracy. Brooks asserts that “[w]hat we need is not to disagree less, but to disagree better.”792 Learning and practicing the steps and skills involved in civil discourse helps us do just that—and is a practicable and effective antidote to the outrage industrial complex.

Civil discourse  

Civil discourse is discourse distinguished by civility in the sense of “refraining from insults or ad- hominem kinds of argument.”793 However, it is also distinguished by a deeper sense of civility, from the Latin civilitas, meaning “good citizenship.”794 Civilitas-oriented discourse is “the practice of deliberating about matters of public concern in a way that seeks to expand knowledge and promote understanding.”795 Contrary to the outrage industrial complex—which treats public concerns as opportunities for bare-knuckle, zero-sum throwdowns—civil discourse “aims to develop mutual respect, build civic trust, and identify common ground on matters of concern.”796

Civil discourse generally involves the following:

  • (1) listening to and trying to understand the perspectives of those with whom we disagree (rather than ignoring them, dismissing them, or holding them in contempt);

  • (2) explaining and even “vigorously advocating” our own views; and then

  • (3) “look[ing] for ways to work across differences that do not require us to abandon our [core] principles but do allow us to move forward.”797

A close cousin to, and facilitator of, civil discourse is deliberative journalism, which “supports high quality deliberation and collective problem solving” in a given community.798 Deliberative journalists support civil discourse “in a facilitative role, working to intervene in community conversations with the goal of elevating those conversations and helping community members engage each other more productively.”799

Civil discourse, civic engagement, and civic charity in religious freedom advocacy  

Because the right to freedom of religion or belief involves our most deeply felt, deeply personal convictions, advocating for that right can evoke strong emotions. However, any advocacy of religious freedom is most effectively done through civil discourse, rather than through engagement with the outrage industrial complex.

Judge Thomas B. Griffith, formerly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has suggested that advocates for religious freedom and other constitutional rights look to the framers of the U.S. Constitution as models of “civic charity,” civic engagement, and civil discourse800:

"George Washington attributed the Framers’ success to a “spirit of amity” and “mutual deference.” This “spirit of amity” was a commitment to civic friendship, even among political rivals from widely different geographical backgrounds. . . . And the “mutual deference” to one another required them, sometimes to make difficult compromises on contentious issues . . . . In short, to inculcate civil friendship—a desire for the best for one’s fellow countrymen—the Framers started with the basic building blocks of any relationship. They spent time together, they listened to one another, and they sometimes set aside their political differences for the sake of national unity."

Judge Griffith then suggests how we might perpetuate the Founders’ ideals by emulating their actions.

"The Constitution that they created presupposes that its citizenry will keep the same commitment to civil charity. The document’s Preamble promises “to form a more perfect Union,” to unite “We the People” around a shared commitment to secure the “Blessings of Liberty” . . . . But that ideal requires us to recommit ourselves to the same practice of civil friendship that crafted the document in the first place.

"At the very least, we need to approach our deliberations with civility. We must be willing to compromise, sometimes over critical matters, if we are to continue this experiment in representative government. We must recognize that we might be wrong; our fellow citizens might be right about what the common good requires, and they might even change our minds. . . . [M]ost of all, we need to see one another as friends—partners in a shared pursuit of the common good— rather than enemies."801

Dallin H. Oaks, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has similarly called for amity and mutual deference in public matters of concern. President Oaks has encouraged citizens to advocate for the right to religious exercise and other constitutional principles by exercising “influence civilly and peacefully within the framework of our constitutions and applicable laws. On contested issues, we should seek to moderate and unify.”802

Russell M. Nelson, former president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, proposed a similar antidote to the contention and division fomented by the outrage industrial complex. In contrast to addressing differences through outraged groupthink, President Nelson encouraged addressing differences through thoughtful, respectful one-on-one dialogue and interactions:

"[H]ow we treat each other really matters! How we speak to and about others at home, at church, at work, and online really matters. . . . I am asking us to interact with others in a higher, holier way. . . . “If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy” that we can say about another person—whether to his face or behind her back—that should be our standard of communication. If a friend on social media has strong political or social views that violate everything you believe in, an angry, cutting retort by you will not help. Building bridges of understanding will require much more of you, but that is exactly what your friend needs.

. . . Contention reinforces the false notion that confrontation is the way to resolve differences; but it never is. Contention is a choice. Peacemaking is a choice. You have your agency to choose contention or reconciliation. I urge you to choose to be a peacemaker, now and always.

. . . [W]e can literally change the world—one person and one interaction at a time. How? By modeling how to manage honest differences of opinion with mutual respect and dignified dialogue."803

President Nelson cautioned that civil dialogue does not require us to broker “peace at any price.”804 But in “situations that are highly charged and filled with contention,” it is our duty to engage with each other in a “higher, holier way” that honors the human dignity of all.805

Conclusion  

The right to freedom of religion or belief is a fundamental right that must be guarded, protected, and promoted. However, the outrage industrial complex is antithetical to this right, in its demand for uniformity of thought, its pursuit of zero-sum outcomes, and its disdain for pluralism and for the dignity of those who are “other.” Any advocacy for the right to freedom of religion or belief must be done through civil discourse marked by civic charity, amity, mutual deference, mutual respect for human dignity, and efforts to moderate and unify.

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References

777. See Marc Ambinder, The Outrage Industrial Complex, THE ATLANTIC (Feb. 20, 2019), https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/02/the-outrage-industrial-complex/845; Arthur C. Brooks, Opinion, Our Culture of Contempt, THE NEW YORK TIMES (Mar. 2, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/opinion/sunday/political-polarization.html.

778. Richard Thomas Ford, The Outrage-Industrial Complex, STANFORD LAW SCHOOL BLOGS (Dec. 20, 2019), https://law.stanford.edu/2019/12/20/the-outrage-industrial-complex.

779. “In the Internet economy . . . loud voices are more than just currency, they’re coal.” Michael Tyler Welsh, Disruptive Rhetoric in an Age of Outrage 1 (May 2020) (Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin), https://byu.idm.oclc.org/login/?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/disruptive-rhetoric-age-outrage/docview/2572570622/se-2 (quoting Andy Greenwald, The Internet Has a ‘Louie’ Problem, GRANTLAND (June 18, 2014)).

780. Ambinder, supra.

781. Brooks, supra.

782. See id.

783. Id.

784. Id.

785. See Walsh, supra, at vi; Dan Granger, How the Outrage Industrial Complex Profits from Stoking Americans’ Anger at Each Other, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR CIVIL DISCOURSE (June 14, 2021), https://nicd.arizona.edu/blog/2021/06/14/how-the-outrage-industrial-complex-profits-from-stoking-americans-anger-at-each-other.

786. Martín Carcasson, Taking on Two Crises: Democracy and Journalism, 111(3) NATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW 16, 16 (2022). But see Peter Laughter, Radical Empathy, TEDxFultonStreet, YOUTUBE (Nov. 11, 2015), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkEG4sw5qn0 (concluding that people’s default state is connection, and anything that disrupts that connection creates conflict).

787. Ford, supra.

788. Ford, supra.

789. Granger, supra.

790. Brooks, supra.

791. Id.

792. Id.

793. Nora Delaney, For the Sake of Argument, HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL (Spring 2019), https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policy-topics/public-leadership-management/sake-argument.

794. Id.

795. Rationale: Civil Discourse for Citizenship, THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY: CENTER FOR ETHICS AND HUMAN VALUES, https://cehv.osu.edu/civil-discourse-citizenship/rationale (last visited Dec. 2024).

796. Id.

797. Delaney, supra; see also Dallin H. Oakes, Going Forward with Religious Freedom and Nondiscrimination, ICLRS RELIGIOUS FREEDOM LIBRARY (Nov. 12, 2021), https://www.religiousfreedomlibrary.org/documents/going-forward-with-religious-freedom-nondiscrimination (Joseph Smith Lecture delivered at the University of Virginia).

798. Carcasson, supra, at 17.

799. Id. at 17–18.

800. See “Defending Our Divinely Inspired Constitution”: Discussion of President Oaks’ Talk, YOUTUBE (June 2021), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn2-9OsUZoU (panel discussion at the 2021 Religious Freedom Annual Review, sponsored by the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah).

801. Thomas B. Griffith, The Degradation of Civic Charity: Responding to Michael J. Klarman, The Degradation of American Democracy—And the Court, 134(1) HARVARD LAW REVIEW FORUM 119, 122–24 (2020).

802. Dallin H. Oaks, Defending Our Divinely Inspired Constitution, THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS (Apr. 2021), https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2021/04/51oaks?lang=eng (emphasis added) (address given at the Church’s April 2021 General Conference).

803. Russell M. Nelson, Peacemakers Needed, THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS (Apr. 2023), https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2023/04/47nelson?lang=eng (emphasis added) (address given at the Church’s April 2023 General Conference).

804. Id.

805. See id.