Audio Essay: Tired of Outrage?

In early September, Prof. Dr. Eva Marlene Hausteiner, head of the Chair of Political Theory and History of Political Thought, was on the philosophy magazine Sein und Streit (Deutschlandfunk).

The central thread of her audio essay is the tension between outrage and outrage fatigue. It is about whether a high number of scandalous events can become a normal occurrence, potentially leaving no consequences.

It raises a number of questions: How are scandals structured? How do different norm violations differ from one another? To what extent does the normalization of norm violations affect normativity itself? And who benefits from scandals – who benefits from outrage fatigue?