BOSTON-It seems only yesterday that Brattleboro was checkered with homes flying Tibetan prayer flags on their front porches and yard signs that read "Hate Has No Home Here" and "Stop the Hate."
Because those make up my memories of living in Brattleboro, I was stunned to recently see a large sign of a screaming, fist-clenched individual in the front window of a shop on Main Street that encourages us to "Remain Outraged."
I was so dumbfounded that I took a photo of it. In an instant, all the "feel good" of a relaxing stroll while shopping on Main Street was suddenly muddied by thoughts, questions, and concerns about the relentless levels of rage and hate we are surrounded with today.
Of course, we all understand that the nation is very divided now, and I suspect that is what the sign is rooted in. But I have to wonder how divisive and rage-filled politics is now thought to be a commodity in Brattleboro, one even to be used as a form of marketing in a small tourist-town business located in a town where empty storefronts are common and small-business entrepreneurs learn that sustaining small businesses in Brattleboro can be a very real challenge.
Are signs that welcome everyone, that are aimed at making people feel good, now obsolete? Do we really need to encourage more outrage and contempt in the world today? If the need to bring politics to one's business is so great, why not a sign that engages with others, one that might ask, "How did we get here?"
According to an article on anger in Psychology Today, "moral outrage often is less about outing someone else for problematic behavior than it is about inflating one's own sense of self by buffering threats to one's own moral identity."
Again, why not engage with others by asking how we got here? Experts writing on anger and outrage also identify verbose displays of moral outrage as a type of moral grandstanding, a self-aggrandizing means of "virtue signaling" described by Grubbs et al. In 2019.
By loudly declaring one's self-perceived moral high ground, one can simultaneously isolate and mark those deemed as less virtuous than oneself, as "other." By anyone's definition, or measure, this is alienating and divisive, not peace promoting or community building.
Additionally, we have seen that politics used as a business marketing strategy can lead to unintended outcomes and significant damage to brands that took years to build - think Target, Hallmark, Goya, Barilla, and Bud Light here.
But to encourage anger and outrage in a society plagued with addiction, violence, and hate can be dangerous. Because not all individuals reading and hearing such messages are able to hold all their anger, or turn it into healthy action and discourse that might bring them some relief in changes they wish to see.
The recent shooting in Minneapolis is only one of so many examples where simmering outrage and hatred for others turned deadly, yet again.
Barry L. Adams
Boston
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