Collective Outrage

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

Many thanks for the messages I received during the course of the week on today’s topic. Only by announcing it last week, I already triggered a fair amount of intriguing feedbacks.

The majority of messages I received was covering what I would call “personal outrage” or maybe “private outrage” and I do share a lot of sympathy for the stories I received but they were slightly off what I had in mind. I am interested in a phenomenon I call “collective outrage”, something I did not notice as much when I was young, but which is bothering me now that I am getting older.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am referring to something I notice in debates among family members, fiends and in public debates, etc.

Let me kick-off with a brief idea of mine. I am very much convinced that pretty much every human being is different from another one, i.e. human beings are mostly and truly individual. Due to the socio-cultural environment we were brought up in, live in and want to belong to, but also due to our education, experiences, hopes and dreams, we think and feel maybe more or probably less like other people in the various cohorts we belong to or see ourselves belonging to. Considering this, I think it would be an unbelievable coincidence to exactly think, feel and believe like someone else, another person. Maybe there are cross sections, larger or smaller but identical thinking, feeling, believing seems improbable to me.

Now, if we presume my thought to be vaguely legitimate, wouldn’t it be totally normal, natural to have many diverse opinions on about nearly everything? And wouldn’t it be totally normal, natural to be allowed to share such opinion without having to think about consequences?

I think it would and I think it should and yet it is not, unfortunately not.

Certain interest groups are occupying specific topics and manage them in a way that is worrisome to me because they are trying to imply theis own moral standards by not accepting the fact that other people may have different opinions, feelings, thoughts on one and the same topic and even worse (and this is closing the circle to today’s topic) create a culture of what I call “collective outrage” by blaming people of being of different opinion. I think this is unacceptable, especially in a democratic environment, because such behaviour kills free and individual thinking and collective debates and eventually democracy. One does not necessarily always have to like what ones hears or sees at all times and unless it is against the law and/or good taste (and this is very subjective) different opinion can be refreshing, interesting, eye-opening or at least lead to some additional thinking.

Ladies and Gentlemen, what do you think?

Please let me know your views and reply to my thoughts, but if you are sharing your viewpoints, please don’t forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to:

smk@incrementum.li

Many thanks, indeed!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish you a great day and weekend.

Kind regards.

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li
Web: www.incrementum.li