If you’re like me, you were raised by parents, single or not, who regularly reminded you of the virtues you were expected to demonstrate.

Patience.
Kindness.
Integrity.
Honesty.
Forgiveness.
Selflessness.
Courage.

They weren’t abstract ideals. They were habits. Standards. Markers of character. Things we had to practice.

Which makes something about 2025 deeply unsettling.

Why is outrage now treated as a virtue?

And just as importantly, what happened to the others?

Somewhere along the way, constant anger stopped being a red flag and started being rewarded. Not just tolerated. Celebrated. Platformed. Monetized.

This article is an attempt to understand how outrage reshaped our politics, hollowed out parts of our faith communities, and poisoned our discourse, and why restraint may now be the more courageous stance.

Politics
This is an obvious place to start.

I’m 35 years old. That means I’ve lived through Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden (and now Trump again).

Each mobilized Americans differently. Some leaned on hope. Others on legacy or inspiration.

And some discovered something far more potent.

Outrage.

Political strategists have moved all-in on the fact that anger activates faster than reason, travels farther than nuance, and binds people tighter than hope ever could. For many, hope is fleeting, needs constant reminders. Outrage is visceral, you can taste it, feel it in your bones.

You don’t need to persuade someone if you can frighten them. You don’t need policy if you have an enemy.

We didn’t resist this shift. We rewarded it.

Fear, of one another, of change, of losing status, became the fuel. Hatred became the accelerant. And outrage became the organizing principle.

You can’t argue with the engagement metrics. More people are politically activated now than ever before.

But that raises a harder question:

At what cost?

When outrage becomes the primary motivator, governance suffers. Compromise becomes betrayal. Complexity becomes weakness. And anyone who slows the tempo is accused of complicity.

The system doesn’t just tolerate outrage. It requires it.

Faith
This section deserves even more care.

Religion, at its best, was meant to orient people toward humility, restraint, sacrifice, and hope. For many, it still does.

But we can’t talk honestly about faith without acknowledging what it has also been: a tool for power, control, exclusion, and, at times, atrocity.

Both things are true.

What’s different now is how seamlessly outrage has fused itself to religious identity.

We are watching belief systems be hollowed out and refilled with grievance. New “churches” emerge not around shared moral formation, but shared enemies. Sermons become rally cries. Scripture becomes justification.

And this isn’t confined to sanctuaries.

Influencers and media personalities increasingly graft religious language onto pre-existing resentment. Not to deepen faith, but to sanctify hostility. The message is clear: your anger isn’t just justified. It’s holy.

Why?

Because it works.

If you convince people their outrage is divinely endorsed, you no longer need to persuade them. You only need to keep them angry.

Teachings are selectively distorted, or outright invented, to sustain their rage. And once outrage becomes indistinguishable from righteousness, moral accountability disappears.

This problem is not limited to one tradition. It’s a temptation wherever belief and power converge.

Discourse
Social media didn’t create outrage, but it industrialized it.

Never in history have so many people had access to such large audiences with so little friction. Comment sections, DMs, live chats, podcasts…everyone is invited to speak.

What’s rewarded isn’t clarity. It’s intensity.

Disagreement escalates into harassment. Debates turn into threats. Online conflict spills into real-world harm.

Outrage dominates because it performs well.

Reason is slower. Compassion doesn’t trend. Wisdom rarely goes viral.

So discourse becomes transactional. Attention is the currency and rage is the quickest way to earn it.

In that environment, restraint looks weak. Nuance looks suspect.

Anyone who refuses to shout is drowned out.

The Moral Middle
Here’s my argument…

Outrage may produce short-term results for a few, but it destroys the possibility of the greater good for the many.

When outrage becomes a virtue, every other virtue atrophies.

Patience disappears.
Kindness is mocked.
Forgiveness is seen as surrender.
Integrity is conditional.
Humility is confused with cowardice.
Self-control is framed as silence.

We create a feedback loop where anger is rewarded and thoughtfulness is ignored. Over time, we don’t just express outrage…we crave it.

Reason loses value. Self-governance erodes. 

Character is shaped not by what we claim to value, but by what we repeatedly practice.

When outrage is rewarded through attention, affirmation, or status…it stops being an occasional response and becomes a habit. And habits, practiced long enough, don’t just influence behavior. They form character.

The Moral Middle exists to resist that drift.

To use conviction tempered by humility. With courage that doesn’t need to scream. With restraint that refuses to surrender moral clarity.

Outrage is easy.

Steadiness is harder.

That’s the work.

If outrage is what our culture reliably rewards, then it may be shaping us more than we realize.

The harder question isn’t whether outrage works, it clearly does.

It’s whether we’re comfortable with what it’s training us to become.

I’m still wrestling with that myself.

I’d genuinely like for you to join the conversation and hear what you think about it.