The culture of rage is here, a general acceptance of rule breaking in the furtherance of political ends. Rage is primal, reaching into the area of your brain that runs your internal “fight or flight” response. It shuts down logic and instead pursues action, no matter how unhinged.

A sad consequence of this indulgence of rage is that it rewards the party that can convince the highest number of people to turn off their brains. Alexander de Tocqueville marveled at the educated electorate that he met in America, and how everyone engaged in the democratic process. He’d be shocked to see that it only took 200 years to convert that America into a mob.

Humans are naturally trusting, and so it can be easy to accept reasonable sounding arguments, even if they’re fallacious. Many will ask you to excuse the intentionally killing of a child, but only in “rare” cases of rape, incest, or the health of the mother. A critical review of this request presents some questions.

Why is the only response to the violence of rape, the violence of killing a child? In what medical circumstance is it medically necessary to kill the child, rather than end the pregnancy early by delivering the child and admitting them to the neonatal intensive care unit?

Under the weight of logic, the argument collapses. We know inherently that killing is always wrong, with the sole exception of in self-defense.

Rage, and the beneficiaries of rage, benefit when you turn your brain off. Keep yours on.

Tags: Political Life