On the Pleasures of Outrage

"Butkergate" at Benedictine College as a Symptom of a Cultural Neurosis

Church politics and media frenzies are not topics that typically interest me. Nevertheless, since the now infamous commencement address at Benedictine College, a lot of people have reached out to me for my take on the issue, and I probably have a professional obligation to comment with some nuance, if I can muster it. Thus, for good or ill, here is my attempt to do so.

I don’t want to make this conversation about my family, but a bit of personal disclosure is probably in order before we get into some points that will be more interesting. I am a professor of philosophy at Benedictine College, where I have taught for the last twenty-one years.¹ I am also a Roman Catholic (though the traditional Latin mass is not my jam), and my wife and I have been married for nearly twenty-three years. We have been blessed with six children, four of whom are now adults. For about fifteen years my wife stayed home to take care of and homeschool our children full-time. This is not a decision we regret at all. Just the opposite. We used what Butker refers to as “Catholic contraception,” i.e., natural family planning, to space the births of our children for financial and health reasons. My wife also has a Ph.D. in psychology and a Masters of Marriage and Family Therapy. As our children began to move along to high school (we only homeschool through eighth grade), she returned to the workplace, initially teaching part-time and eventually opening her own therapy practice. We don’t regret any of these later decisions either. We relish their fruits too. I’ll leave it to my friends to decide whether I’ve resisted “the cultural emasculation of men” to any sufficient degree.

I offer these personal disclosures only to point out that it would be quite easy for me to indulge either side of the orgy of outrage that followed Butker’s commencement address. I have “reasons” to be offended by both what he said and the scorn his remarks have catalyzed. Jumping into that fray might be quite enjoyable, maybe even temporarily satisfying, but I want to resist doing so. For me, the most outrageous part of all this outrage is how all the parties are missing the transparently obvious fact that they have come to depend on their mutual hatred.

Can any one honestly claim to be surprised that Butker, whose views in this regard were not entirely unknown beforehand, said these things while speaking at a place like Benedictine College?² Hardly. Likewise, can we take seriously the supposition that those who laud Butker are actually shocked that he has been pilloried by the sanctimonious professional pearl-clutchers in the liberal media? Again, this strains credulity. Is it really a matter of outrage for anyone to come to the realization that there are people who hold views like those expressed by Butker? Common sense facts are not outrageous. Is it a matter of outrage that there are people who loath those who hold such views? That too is not an outrage, because it’s an obvious truth.

And yet, we persist in repeating these cycles of indignation. One party to the culture war loudly and clearly utters what has been loudly and clearly uttered many times in the past. The opponents of such views, dutifully performing their role in the drama, utter a return volley of hatred and scorn. We’ve seen this movie many times before, but we keep returning for its worn-out sequels. The only thing we have in common now is our shared participation in this grand neurosis. It seems as though we are addicted to the angst the outrage creates. Both sides have had their victim status re-affirmed. Cultural conservatives can claim that the “media backlash” against Benedictine College is another case of the looming persecution of Christians by the maniacal secularists. Liberals and progressives can say once again “Ah-ha, I told you so. They are at war with women!” All the actors get to play the role of the oppressed victim. Everyone gets to be a hero, bravely facing the scorn of their enemies, even though we’ve done much to provoke the Furies. That feels pretty good. At least it’s exciting.

We now trade in an economy of outrage. Offense is our currency. I say something we both know will cause you serious offense. You then return with the expected dose of vitriol. We both get to enjoy something here. The last thing anyone really wants is for all these occasions for sweet outrage to go away. This is not merely an emotional economy. One of the worst things that could happen to an institution like Benedictine College would be a sudden religious and cultural revival across the spectrum of higher education. As Butker rightly points out, we grow and thrive while many small colleges are dying not-so-slow deaths because we provide the antidote to some of the ideologies dominating higher education and popular culture. That is all well and good (please don’t fly into a rage over that!), but we have to admit that there is a material interdependence between us and the ideologues against which we define ourselves. Whether we like it or not, our material flourishing presupposes the existence of the contradictory voices whose outrage we inspire. Butker’s jerseys are selling like hotcakes, and his “brand” has now been forever solidified. Meanwhile, the self-righteous scribblers of the chattering left and right are swimming in clicks, likes, reposts, and the advertisement revenues they generate. A professional athlete whose career (like any professional athlete) has a short shelf life creates a lucrative market niche that will outlive his ability to kick the pigskin between the uprights. The college continues to grow and materially flourish. Well-to-do media figures get all the more well-to-do. College professors (like me!) become even more secure in their already quite comfortable positions. We’re all cashing in pretty nicely on the outrage economy, even if unintentionally.

I’m not saying that any of this is planned consciously by the participants. There’s no conspiracy behind the outrage economy. This is just the trap we are all now constantly falling into unreflectively. The machine is running us in many ways. My point is not to assign blame, but merely to raise the question as to why we take such pleasure in this outrage. Why do we find means of enrichment built on acrimony so irresistible? I don’t believe we consciously found our way into this cycle of outrage, but I do believe we can consciously find our way out, once we see this trap for what it is. We don’t have to participate. We can refuse to take the bait, even though that means renouncing the enjoyments of outrage. Such a refusal, however, requires us to ask of ourselves some pretty dark questions about the real motivations behind our constant repetition of these tropes, and that is not something any of us will likely find pleasant. The choice is then between the enjoyment of our outrage and the discomfort of facing our inner motives.

Of course, there is a big “So what?” that my diagnosis begs. Just because we’re in a neurotic cycle of mutual hatred/enjoyment (and profit), doesn’t mean our opponents aren’t gravely wrong. Moreover, the fact that we are falling into the temptations of self-righteousness and delusions of heroic victimhood does not entail that we, whoever we are, aren’t on the right side of things. Maybe turning our culture into a infinite spectacle of mutual hatred is the only way to “speak truth to power” here in the fabled postmodern age. Furthermore, what is the harm being done? Everyone is having quite a lot of fun with the hyperbole after all.

The problem is that outrage distracts. It masks other things, facts less comfortable for all parties to the culture war, that we might otherwise talk about. Maybe that’s why we love it so very much. For example, Butker’s commencement address was given just a few blocks from ground zero of the epidemic of underemployment, addiction, and other diseases of despair that plague the working class of rural and inner-city America. In that context, the idea of even raising the question of whether women should work outside the home is a piece of absurd theater. Most of the women living within the city limits of Atchison probably do not have the luxury of entertaining such a question! The option of staying home with the children or being a working mom (or dad!) is a privilege enjoyed by increasingly fewer Americans.³ Legions of American women, both married and single, must work, or otherwise face material ruin for their families. The next time you are at Walmart ask one of the moms working there whether “diabolical lies” promising “promotions and titles” are what enchanted her into taking her job. I doubt those dreams are moving her, but of course she wasn’t at the Benedictine College commencement ceremony. We could be discussing the cruel strains that our economy has put on many families like hers, but that is not on the agenda of the people obsessing over the commencement address. Rather, we are too caught up in enjoying the outrage Butker caused. It’s a lot more fun obsessing over the foibles of a millionaire footballer who obliquely quotes his billionaire pop music star buddy than it is to talk about the bleak existence of many of our fellow citizens. Notice, however, these distractions are the privilege of the mostly upper-middle class participants in this pleasurable exchange of hatred. Our fetishes with fame and fortune protect us from seeing many of these realities that exist right under our noses. Thus, we go on enjoying our self-righteous indignation, while people on the other side of our towns and cities live increasingly difficult lives. We don’t notice the irony of the situation, because we’re too busy feeling really good about taking a “bold stand” against our mirror opposite.

The address distracted us from other uncomfortable realities, especially within the Church. Butker offered an extensive laundry list of complaints about the bishops and the rank and file of the priesthood. That’s all well and good, but there was a conspicuous absence on his litany of offenses by the Church hierarchy. Butker doesn’t mention anything about the clergy sexual abuse scandals. Of all the failings of the leadership of the Church one could emphasize, why would one leave that off the list? I’m not saying that Butker personally has anything but disdain for all of that, but this is a typical conspicuous absence, an expression of a convenient myopia that many people in the Church cling to. It is silly to claim that priests who take pictures with their dogs for the parish directory (one of Butker’s complaints) are expressions of the key problem for the cultural relevance of the Church as we bob in the wake of the seemingly endless waves of troubling revelations of child abuse and the prioritization of institutional self-protection over justice for and the well-being of victims. Might the persistence of these scandals have as much or more to do with the indifference of the laity toward the bishops than their underwhelming performance during the pandemic? Maybe the scandals are why the bishops no longer have “adoring crowds of people kissing their rings”? We could talk about that issue. We could deal with it in the open, but instead we enjoy ourselves in revelries of outrage over an athlete’s amateurish (by his own admission) theological views and the supposed crime that parish priests are too cosy with the their flocks. Again, our distractions are convenient and comforting.

All of this is to say that we are being duped. Not by Butker, nor by his antagonists in other camps of the culture war “reality show” to which we’re all addicted. Rather, we are being deluded by our own convenient obsessions and enjoyments. There is a path to liberation from all this, but it requires of us a sort of asceticism. In the idiom of Butker’s ilk, we need to “man up” and renounce the pleasures of outrage. I wish I could say I am optimistic that we will find the discipline necessary for this renunciation. Until then, business will continue to be very good.

The painting that appears at the beginning of this essay is Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (1808).

1. My position as a professor does not entail that I officially or even unofficially speak on behalf of Benedictine College.

2. This is not to say that anyone at Benedictine College had detailed knowledge of exactly what Butker would say in his address.

3. I realize that there is a lot of nuance neeced here and this issue goes over my meager economic pay grade. Be that as it may, whatever drives middle class women to work (economic necessity, personal fulfillment, or the availability of high wages), this is not a luxury for working class and poor women.