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The Case for Outrage at the Cornell Rape Investigation
Temperance is for people who assign reflection papers.
Unconscionable. It’s the word that comes to mind when I think about the infamous Snapchat exchange among the Chi Phi frat brothers at Cornell University. It’s the peel of a bell that cannot be unrung, despite appearing on a platform designed to automatically unring its own bells. It seems that the unforgiving memory of the internet is not so easily thwarted.
Seeing the damning photographic evidence of these men so flippantly violating the humanity of a fellow human being is so appauling that it sears a hole right through one’s soul. It fills one’s entire being with an indignant fire that demands satisfaction. That is what is meant by unconscionable.
To be human is to become morally shocked in the face of an unconscionable act. Shocked enough to act in support of the aggrieved. Shocked enough to demand answers from the offenders. Shocked enough to feel outraged even before every last fact has been presented and analyzed. That is the nature of moral outrage: it seizes one in its grip even before one has the means to fully justify it.
Moral outrage is a distinctly human trait. It is not a flaw. It is, perhaps, humanity’s greatest feature.
