Indignation, The Fallacy of.

David Fleming
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Indignation is an urban emotion: it looks for action to be taken by someone else, believing that the way forward is agitation. It begs the question: if you are indignant about something, it has to be an outrage, and caused by someone other than you—otherwise, of course, you wouldn’t be indignant, would you? And it is urban in the sense that, in the city, it is easy to get away, so you can absent yourself from a conversation, indignantly telling the other person you find his views repugnant. You won’t be needing to borrow his horse.

Out of town, it is different. It is a waste of time being indignant in a field of buttercups. You have to see to it yourself. That may involve time in a circumstance not of your choosing, in a conversation not on your terms.

 

Related entries:

Blame, Empowerment, Unmentionable.

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David Fleming
Dr David Fleming (2 January 1940 – 29 November 2010) was a cultural historian and economist, based in London, England. He was among the first to reveal the possibility of peak oil's approach and invented the influential TEQs scheme, designed to address this and climate change. He was also a pioneer of post-growth economics, and a significant figure in the development of the UK Green Party, the Transition Towns movement and the New Economics Foundation, as well as a Chairman of the Soil Association. His wide-ranging independent analysis culminated in two critically acclaimed books, 'Lean Logic' and 'Surviving the Future', published posthumously in 2016. These in turn inspired the 2020 launches of both BAFTA-winning director Peter Armstrong's feature film about Fleming's perspective and legacy - 'The Sequel: What Will Follow Our Troubled Civilisation?' - and Sterling College's unique 'Surviving the Future: Conversations for Our Time' online courses. For more information on all of the above, including Lean Logic, click the little globe below!

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