Martine St-Victor: Why are we so angry at everything all the time?
Our rage is rising, it seems. How did we get here? There are no easy answers, but the decline in political decorum isn't helping.
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For the past two years, the Pollara research agency has measured rage in Canada. The latest results, released a few days ago, reveal that the level of rage has increased since the first polling. Unshockingly, the economy in general along with both provincial and federal governments enrage Canadians the most.
In an almost synchronized manner, American journalist Frank Bruni has just released The Age of Grievance. In the book, Bruni argues that not all grievances are the same. That there’s a good type of grievance and that there’s a type that is, well, not justified. Some may not have liked the results of the U.S. election in 2020, for example, but it doesn’t make the result less certified and certainly, it doesn’t give those who have grievances about its veracity the right to storm the Capitol. Bruni writes about how the new tone in politics is one of outrage.
This is something we’ve also seen here in Quebec and in Canada. There was a time when sessions in the National Assembly and in Parliament were almost poetic (compared to today) — albeit stern — exchanges between elected officials. An exchange of prose by politicians who could bring a point home on its merits and not by insulting the opponent.
I’m always wary of evoking that things were better before — they rarely were, in my experience. Also, it comes a little too close to a ”kids, get off my lawn” vibe and ages me for no reason. But in the case of political decorum, the recent wave of resignations — like those of former Gatineau Mayor France Bélisle and former Québec solidaire co-spokesperson Émilise Lessard-Therrien — and the difficulty for political parties to recruit new candidates confirms that grievances from both the elected and the electorate can be too much to bear. And as professor, host and podcast host Scott Galloway explains: We are in an age of growing apathy toward algorithm-driven social feeds where enragement equals engagement — or so we think — making the hours spent online fuel our grievances.
How do we get here? Mad at everything all the time. There are surely as many answers as there are people.
I often wonder what the loss of rituals has done to us. Not baptisms, brisses or weddings. Rather, all the rituals in between. All the occasions to gather and celebrate life’s milestones and simple joie de vivre.
For security reasons, various American universities have cancelled graduation ceremonies, following the recent protests on campuses. The class of students affected is also the one that had its high school graduation ceremonies trumped by COVID-19 four years ago. Beyond the various chants heard on campuses, could it be that their grievances are born out of more than current geopolitics?
Social scientists have warned us that it will take years before the full effects of the pandemic will be properly measured. But what do we do in the meantime?
We get many of our cues from politicians, and the lack of decorum in the political sphere trickles down to us. Elected officials owe us civility and more than campaigns that are solely based on disparaging nicknames and four-word slogans that have little value besides fitting on a baseball hat and making for an easy hashtag. Leaders have the responsibility to not only give us hope and show us the possibility of better days but also to remind us that despite inevitable shortcomings and certain headwinds, they are working on fixing the broken. In return, in this collective bargain, we can’t act like everything is in shambles. It isn’t.
Martine St-Victor is the general manager of Edelman Montreal and a media commentator. Instagram and X @martinemontreal
