AODS- Acquired Outrage Deficiency Syndrome-An update
On June 14, “No Kings Day” I walked down the rows of protesters in Fort Myers and asked each one why they were out protesting. There were a hundred different answers, anyone of which might be sufficient to mobilize a protest. I estimated that there were 4000 people. Given the vast array of problems created by the Trump administration, it did not seem like enough. Perhaps “the zone” has indeed been flooded to the point where many people are turned off. A cultural version of learned helplessness.
Perhaps people have decided to censor themselves. Read the piece by Ai Wei Wei and let me know if you agree. Opinion | Ai Weiwei: How Censorship Works - The New York Times
Here is my previous lead in: Almost daily, we are confronted with news of preventable tragedy: Shootings, drug overdoses, motor vehicle accidents, and failure to vaccinate fill the headlines. In many of these cases, the death and suffering could have been prevented by prudent behavior on the part of individuals or society at large. It is not infrequent that we blame the perpetrator, or even the victim, but is rare to hold ourselves accountable.
Our lack of reaction is in part due to the numbing effect of repeated news. Many people experience the endless statistics about health disparities as normalizing. Why would we blame ourselves for failure to act? Not infrequently, we can distance ourselves from the experience of blame by thinking that the condition affects some group other than one’s own. If you drill down into the health statistics of the United States, you can see strong evidence of implicit bias writ large.
What can be done? The narrative that inspires me the most was written in 1987 by San Francisco Chronicle journalist Randy Shilts: And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic. And the Band Played On - Wikipedia. Let me know what you think.