The Addiction to Outrage and the Strengthening of Evil

by Ram ben Ze'ev

The Addiction to Outrage and the Strengthening of Evil

We are living in an age where people increasingly feel compelled to involve themselves in events that have no direct bearing on their lives, no capacity for meaningful influence, and no avenue for repair or responsibility. A tragedy occurs on the other side of the world and, within minutes, countless individuals absorb it emotionally, comment upon it, argue about it, repost it, and carry it with them as though it were their own burden to bear.

This behaviour is not compassion. It is indulgence. It is a voluntary assumption of emotional and spiritual weight that one has neither the authority nor the capacity to resolve.

When a person draws into themselves pain, cruelty, and chaos that they cannot act upon, they do not elevate the world. They diminish themselves. The soul is not an infinite reservoir. It has force, clarity, and purpose, and when that energy is squandered on events that demand nothing but reaction, the cost is real. It drains vitality that could have been directed toward acts of צדקה (tzedakah – charity), the performance of מצוות (mitzvot – commandments), the strengthening of family, community, and self-discipline. Instead, that energy is spent containing darkness that never needed to enter one’s inner world at all.

This is not accidental. Modern culture rewards reaction. It trains people to believe that awareness is participation and that opinion is action. In truth, most commentary changes nothing beyond the emotional state of the person who offers it. It does not rescue the victim. It does not restrain the perpetrator. It does not repair the world. It merely transfers the weight of the event into another soul, multiplying damage rather than containing it.

Even more destructive is the modern instinct to “fight” evil by endlessly repeating it.

We see this most clearly in the way people claim to oppose antisemitism. Images, slogans, threats, and acts of hatred are reposted, shared, and circulated under the banner of condemnation. The intention may be declared as opposition, but the effect is the opposite.

After the Shoah, more than eighty years of organisations, campaigns, and educational efforts have claimed to be combating this hatred, and yet it grows. That alone should force an honest reassessment of the method.

Evil does not need advocates. It needs exposure without limits. Every repetition strengthens it. Every share expands its reach. Every outraged repost ensures that more eyes see what should never have been broadcast in the first place. Those who already agree with you gain nothing. Those who hate you are emboldened. And those who sit undecided become accustomed to what once would have repelled them.

This is not resistance. It is distribution.

There is a profound difference between confronting evil and advertising it. Confrontation requires restraint, moral discipline, and an understanding of boundaries. Advertising requires only emotion and a platform. When people circulate what they claim to oppose, they become couriers for corruption, carrying filth into places it would never have reached on its own.

Evil thrives on attention. It feeds on repetition. It grows when it becomes familiar. And nothing makes it more familiar than those who insist on pointing at it endlessly and saying, “Look how bad this is.”

The same failure lies at the heart of emotional over-involvement in distant tragedy. When a person continually absorbs violence, disaster, and hatred that they cannot influence, they allow those forces to enter their inner world unchecked. This weakens the soul and necessitates תיקון (tikkun – repair), a repair that would never have been needed had proper boundaries been maintained. Energy that should have been used to build is instead spent defending against decay.

Judaism does not teach indiscriminate emotional exposure. It teaches responsibility. Where there is action to be taken, we act. Where there is genuine ability to help, we help. Where there is obligation, we carry it. But where there is nothing but spectacle and reaction, wisdom demands distance.

Light does not defeat darkness by describing it in ever finer detail. Light defeats darkness by existing, by strengthening what is good, by making the dark irrelevant rather than famous.

If you truly wish to fight evil, stop broadcasting it. Stop fixating on it. Stop dragging its imagery into the minds of those who would otherwise never encounter it.

Speak about principles.

Speak about limits.

Speak about accountability and truth.

And then live them.

Anything else is self-deception.

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Bill White (Ram ben Ze'ev) is CEO of WireNews Limited, Mayside Partners Limited, MEADHANAN Agency, Kestrel Assets Limited, SpudsToGo Limited and Executive Director of Hebrew Synagogue