Mob action has always been a reliable means of obtaining emotional catharsis and validation. Thanks to Twitter and Facebook, mob action no longer requires any significant investment of time or physical energy. In essence, mobs have been subsidized, so we're getting more of them.
Mobs offer ordinary people a kind of lottery ticket to fame and power. Everyone secretly dreams of becoming a leader of the revolution, winning a prize of real POWER as a reward for their virtue and righteousness.
For many, low-ranking membership in a movement that suddenly becomes powerful and celebrated is as good as achieving personal power, maybe better, because less effort is invested to achieve the rush of righteousness.
Righteousness is the appeal of online mobs, the highly addictive drug they're selling. Old-time religion requires effort and personal discipline. Online mobs dispense righteousness for the low, low price of one mouse click.
No great effort or risk is required. The churches of online outrage demand nothing of true believers except likes and retweets. You can live a life of conspicuous consumption and still be a member in good standing of an eco-outrage cult.
Click, boom - an instant hit of righteous energy, the delirious rush of becoming an enforcer of collective morality, a crusader who needs no armor or sword. Your faith is signaled by your hatred of the infidels. It's exhilarating!
Best of all, the outrage mobs require no positive or constructive progress to validate their crusades. It doesn't matter AT ALL if the problems they claim to care about just keep getting worse. All that matters is the airing of grievances, the venting of righteous fury.
Progress is measured not by constructive achievements, but by sick burns and wounds inflicted on the infidels. As long as the unrighteous are seen as suffering, the righteous online mob basks in satisfaction. It doesn't matter if nobody wins, as long as the right people lose.
What an incredible emotional drug social media has created! Sure, the high doesn't last for very long, but chasing the next high is as easy as finding a new hot take to retweet, a new boycott to support. You can get a fix every day, more than one if you're online enough.
It won't stop, and it will get worse as every traditional source of righteousness, community, and moral validation is relentlessly wiped out. "Amen" is replaced by Retweet. The hunger for belief is as strong as ever. The new suppliers offer instant delivery and free shipping.
Crucially, this fervent new religion of online outrage says nothing about forgiveness, mercy, or loving the sinner. On the contrary, it says we are defined as human beings by our political positions, which are acts of either pure virtue or absolute damnation.
Sinners are not loved, understood, embraced, or forgiven. They are destroyed, without patience or mercy. Above all, they must be SILENCED. Impatience with them is taken as a sign of righteous commitment.
In the end, that is the most dangerous thing about the new righteousness: it is defined by what it hates, not by what it loves. It does not persuade, it silences heresy. It does not call for introspection, it merely demands that believers type its hashtags correctly.
In the future, we may conclude that no worse plague was ever unleashed upon a civilization than eliminating the time and effort needed to achieve the rush of a synthetic righteousness that fades quickly and leaves only an insatiable hunger for more. /end
