Unequal outrage tracks a divide-and-rule moral mandate, not malice
Evidence
Why is it that death and destruction causes so much loathing and outrage when it takes place in Mumbai, London, Tel Aviv, or New York and not when it is multiplied ten thousandfold in Baghdad, Kandahar, Beirut, or Gaza City? The answer cannot be sought in the sandy domains of malice and malevolence. It must be carefully cultivated in the immediate historical vicinities where the politics of despair and the economics of domination combine to create a moral mandate to divide and rule—where some are perceived as more human than others. — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 56
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: The whole chapter’s central puzzle is compressed here: differential moral outrage as an engineered instrument of imperial rule rather than simple hypocrisy.