Comment by krapp
2 years ago
>Being angry from news like this isn't a bad thing. You SHOULD be angry.
Why?
What are you going to do?
Just get high off the dopamine drip fed by social media rage cycles? Angry rants on Twitter? Maybe start a Youtube channel and make a buck or two with banal political essays?
Recognize that the news is designed to make you angry because that anger prevents you from taking any form of effective action, it misdirects your energy and consumes your focus. It is a means of control, leading you to confuse catharsis with praxis.
By all means, be concerned about the world, injustice, social inequality, etc. There is a lot to be concerned about. But anger - much less the indignant virtue signaling anger you're displaying here, is a waste of time.
This, unless you are physically protesting (in a way that’s legitimately disruptive and not symbolic), campaigning, or otherwise actually doing something beyond voting, how angry you are (or more generally how passionately you feel about an issue) doesn’t affect the outcome much if at all.
This was a key step towards improving my own mental health by unplugging from news. I do care about things like abortion and crime, and I vote accordingly, but the amount I am outraged does not affect the outcome. So consuming media that merely outrages me and tries to grab my attention, but not in a way that galvanizes me to actually do something about it beyond voting and word of mouth, just worsens my mental state to no benefit.
> This, unless you are physically protesting (in a way that’s legitimately disruptive and not symbolic)
To be fair, protesting (even the legitimately disruptive kind) doesn't really do anything either. We had people from all sides of the political spectrum protesting everything during the last three years, and the world is pretty much exactly like it was in 2019.
Protesting is just "being angry, but outside".
I think it's important to do something practical. Even if you're a full time warrior for justice, screaming all the time will burn you out. You have to do practical stuff. Volunteer to clean up, volunteer to be a mentor to at-risk youth, volunteer to help people look for jobs, volunteer to help build houses, volunteer to teach people English, volunteer to help people sign up for social services, volunteer to make food and distribute food, etc, etc, etc. Pick something practical and do it.
...and it'll also help you advocate for systemic change in multiple ways. It gives you far better insight into the true nature of social problems, so you can advocate more effectively about them. It also signals to people that you actually care about the issue and aren't just yelling about it because someone on the Internet stirred you up. It gives you legitimacy and authority on the topic.
Doing ONLY practical stuff can also leave you drained as you feel overwhelmed by the scale of systemic issues. So having a balance of both sides, both practical change and pushing for systemic change can be very powerful.
And keep in mind that social media is largely an echo chamber. You're not really raising awareness by retweeting stuff on twitter to your like-minded followers. You need to get out there and talk to friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, and local leaders like at city hall, etc. If you've done a lot of practical stuff, you may be able to talk to local journalists and write op-eds with some level of authority on the topic.
That is particularly the kind I meant to exclude, I agree with your sentiment
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There are counter protestors in Russia, but they are quashed pretty quickly by Putin's government.
The media, which we're discussing right now, was leveraged to turn the Russian people in favor of the invasion of Ukraine, and against any "traitor" that protested against it.
Emotions aren't inherently bad, but I don't trust any emotional reaction the news media is trying to invoke. The news media is a firm institution of the status quo. I don't think anger from news stories will do much more than create controlled opposition. Notice how as soon as your anger puts you on the street in protests, they immediately turn on you and call you a rioter? Or if you egg a virulent transphobe, suddenly you're some kind of almost assassin?
> Fuck off with your assumptions, you don't know me. You don't know the actions I have taken.
And I couldn't care less. Here, you're just posturing for karma like everyone else.
>Anger doesn't prevent people from taking action or coordinating, that's the purpose of pushing people into basically wage slavery. Bad political actors WANT you to stop having a reaction to the things they do. They WANT you to feel hopeless and helpless. A politically apathetic population is the goal.
The opposite of anger isn't apathy, or feeling hopeless or helpless. Those are more often than not the results of anger. The opposite of anger is reason. Coordination and action only happen once you move past the narratives of anger. You can't do anything about most of what you see on the news, so there's no point in getting angry about it.
Yes, anger doesn't prevent people from taking action, but being angry from the news isn't necessary for that, only caring enough about the issue enough to take action. More often than not anger leads to apathy, hopelessness and helplessness.
>Look at Russia right now. Nobody to rise up and stop literal genocide.
People are losing their lives fighting Russia every day. What the fuck are you talking about?
>A problem is people thinking that lots of anger inducing headlines is not an accurate reflection of reality, but some sort of "bias" or "misleading".
It isn't an accurate reflection of reality. It's not entirely inaccurate but it is always biased and misleading. And the narratives on social media even more so.
But hey, you go ahead and get as angry as you like. I'm sure you'll let us all know when it leads you anywhere.