BY STEWART SLATER
The Dark Knight is an unusually substantial popcorn movie, seen by those for whom nothing can ever be purely what it seems (i.e. everyone whose job title includes the word “critic”) as a meditation on the limits of state surveillance power in the post-9/11 world. Beneath its discussion of civil liberties, however, lie deeper questions about the world and human nature – to the Joker, people are flawed, self-interested creatures in a chaotic universe, to Batman, they are basically good inhabitants of a society in which order is possible.
It is to the film’s credit that it never entirely resolves this argument. Batman wins, order is restored, and the passengers on two ferries on which the Joker had planted bombs refuse to blow the other up to save themselves, but the city turns on its protector, and even Batman learns that, contra Dostoevsky, man must, at some level, live by lies—both as deceiver and deceived.
The Joker, of course, foresees this, telling his foe that those he protects will take against him. They cannot help themselves, they are “like dogs chasing cars”, driven not by virtue or reason but by instinct and a continual need to judge.
It is hard to look around and not think he had a point.
For if outrage were a fuel-source, the Green New Deal could remain a glimmer in Ed Miliband’s maniacal eye. The day before I wrote this, we were outraged by J.D. Vance disrespecting “our boys” (he might not have done but why let facts get in the way of a cathartic emotional spasm), we spent the weekend outraged by his disrespecting Volodymir Zelenskyy (or by the latter disrespecting the Oval Office-there is never a monopoly of outrage). In the words of one broadcaster who has made much of his commitment to impartiality, the Veep is a “piece of sh*t”. Last week some were outraged by Starmer’s slightly fawning performance in the same location, while Canadians were outraged by his failure to stand up for what remains one of his boss’s realms.
We have been outraged by the farm tax, outraged by the Winter Fuel Allowance cut. Outraged by the crimes of Axel Rudakubana. And outraged by his sentence. Public life has become nothing more than a continual rush from one side of the ship to the other in pursuit of something to be outraged about.
It may be we have always been like this, a Roman pivoting seamlessly from outrage at Varus’ performance in the Teutoburger Forest to being outraged at the cost of the emperor rebuilding the city in marble, but I suspect not.
For we live in outragogenic times. Whereas in years gone by social circles were tight and long-lasting, today we are known by many people who do not really know us, people we have picked up over the years and never, despite little contact, got round to putting down. If greater familiarity meant that time and regular acquaintance could stand as a guarantor for our bona fides, modern life means we must seek to display it, to give people reminders that we are the good guys.
This is, of course, not hard. A few deftly chosen words of outrage, tweeted or posted, and one has, once more, displayed one’s allegiance to the side of righteousness and justice. We are not, we say to our “mutuals”, like “them”, we are like you. This is why modern outrage so often appears to come with a side order of satisfaction. By feeling it and displaying it, we are telling ourselves and everyone else how good we are. “I stand with Ukraine”, so I must be a noble defender of the downtrodden, I must be a good person. And you must think of me so.
Nature may abhor a vacuum, but she loves a feedback loop. The more people express their outrage, the more normal it appears. And the more abnormal those who do not seem. If we are upset, and they are not, why not? Is there something wrong with them? Are they, perhaps, not like us? For a tribal, social species, outrage can quickly become a team-sport, less a genuine emotion, more a badge of belonging, each tweet and post giving that sweet, sweet dopamine hit familiar to a rat with a cocaine button.
There is a popular meme, Captain Haddock saying, “What a week, huh?” and Tintin replying “Captain, it’s only Wednesday”. Well, what a Presidency, huh? And we’re less than 5% through it. There are more than 46 months left to go. Do we really want to spend them haring around the hamster wheel of outrage, forever running but forever getting nowhere? Is it actually good for us to live at OutrageCon 1, nerves perpetually jangling that somewhere some politician might be doing something wrong (even if just temporarily – the President is hardly “constant as the North Star”)? Is the buzz worth all that?
For, in the main, outrage achieves nothing. Donald Trump will not march on Moscow because BigDave5382 thinks he should. Nor will Keir Starmer tear up the transatlantic alliance because Lottie (“Vegan. Loves dogs. Never kissed a Tory”) gets the ick from the orange man. Our sound and fury may not signify nothing, but they achieve nothing. We can huff and puff all we like, but all that will happen is we will get out of breath, and the house will stay standing.
At some level, of course, we know this. We may all be the heroes in our own stories but no-one who puts a Ukraine flag in their bio seriously expects this to lead to the liberation of the Donbass, no matter how convoluted the skein of causation their egos weave. We do it because it feels good. In Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail, the character Kazim asks the protagonist “Ask yourself why do you seek the Cup of Christ? Is it for His glory, or for yours?” We could ask ourselves a similar question about our outrage. Why are we doing this – to achieve change or to display virtue? And how much virtue can there really be in chasing a cheap fix of pleasant neurochemicals?
It will, no doubt, be a long four years. We can spend it marching up and down Mount Outrage, working ourselves into a bait with the regularity of a scandal hitting the BBC. Or we can choose to be engaged but not invested, aware that, at the end of the day, the world is going to do what the world is going to do. We’re not dogs. We can choose just to watch the cars go by.
Stewart Slater works in Finance. He invites you to join him at his website.