There is nothing
like public outrage to bring a neurotic population together. It
provides, for a short moment during its outburst, not only an easy
access-point to the moral high ground, as the casual observer might
be lead to believe. It also creates a sense of community, of
belonging, however ephemeral. Moreover, the warm feeling we get when
we are offended together has attracted an offense industry staffed by
smug journalists who specialise in providing the population with
stories of people using the wrong word or otherwise stepping over a
moral boundary, easily shareable through social media. In size and
intensity, the resulting hurricanes of self-satisfied rage at the
person “called out” usually dwarfs the initial offense as
everyone's bad conscience is projected upon the culprit.
