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About this quote

What does it mean?
Moral outrage is sometimes used to make someone who lacks intelligence seem more important or serious.
In plain terms
People use anger at morality to make fools look dignified.
What can you take from it?
Anger over morals can hide a lack of intelligence.

Where it applies

  • political discourse
  • social criticism
  • public debate

Putting it to work

  • identify emotional tactics
  • evaluate arguments
  • avoid reactive thinking

Questions to consider

  • When have you seen outrage used to cover incompetence?
  • Is anger always a sign of strong moral conviction?

Another view

Not all moral indignation is insincere or rooted in ignorance.

More from Marshall McLuhan

  1. There are no remote places. Under instant circuitry, nothing is remote in time or in space. It's now. (1965)

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  2. Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication. (1967)

    Permalink to quote #61

  3. We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us (1964)

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