Jumping up and down and shouting: performative rage and lessons from the French resistance

A recent Fortune poll found that nearly one in three CEOs think the outrage over Alex Pretti’s fatal shooting by federal agents is “not relevant to their business.”

Those whose decisions shape industries and communities, are opting out of public moral engagement. Meanwhile, the rest of us scroll, like, share and urge each other to “speak out”.

It feels good. It feels righteous. But is it actually moving us anywhere, or are we, in our moral enthusiasm, keeping ourselves comfortably stuck?

The Allure of Outrage

There is an undeniable satisfaction in seeing others speak out. Rage loves company. When we observe others condemning injustice, our own indignation is validated. We nod: yes, someone sees what I see; yes, I am not alone. In that sense, moral outrage is pleasurable even as we feel pain: it connects, affirms and relieves some of the weight of knowing.

But pleasure, or relief, can masquerade as progress. The act of calling for others to act can become an end in itself. The moral energy that could propel tangible change is spent on performance, on display, on the affirmation of righteousness. We externalize our ethical responsibility, pointing the finger at institutions, leaders and systems, rather than looking inward at where we might act meaningfully.

Witness Is Not Enough

Elie Wiesel’s work on the Holocaust is often invoked for the power of bearing witness. But that witnessing, he repeatedly insisted, is morally insufficient on its own. Condemning suffering is a start; it signals conscience. But without action, it is incomplete and potentially complicit.

Wiesel wrote that silence allows evil to flourish, but speaking without doing changes nothing. Ethical responsibility requires not just seeing or shouting, but moving, choosing, acting, even, especially, when the action is small, dangerous, or uncomfortable.

This is an essential distinction: moral outrage, when contained to posts and marches may feel meaningful, but it is not the same as enacting resistance.

Anger Without Bridges

Wiesel’s insistence on action reminds us that anger is not virtue. Simply screaming louder without modelling alternatives can replicate the very patterns of harm we claim to oppose.

Martha Nussbaum, in Anger and Forgiveness, warns that unregulated anger often fuels retaliation rather than reconciliation; it hardens divisions instead of opening space for change.

Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, described anger as a kind of madness that clouds judgment and isolates us from reason and patience. Martin Luther King Jr., emphasized that righteous indignation must always be channeled through disciplined, nonviolent action.

Rage must be grounded in a larger ethical project. Lived resistance — the kind that transforms systems, communities and lives — is intentional, sustained and rooted in actions which hinder evildoers and directly benefit victims.

That means getting our hands dirty.

That means taking a risk much bigger than writing a post some professional connection might take offence at and snarking at others who don't.

Resistance is different from performing outrage.

The French Resistance: A Model of Quiet Engagement

The French Resistance to Nazi occupation in WWII was a clandestine effort, characterised by small, covert acts: sabotage, spying, providing resources to those fighting Nazism and helping people escape occupied territory: actions aimed at undermining the mechanisms of oppression.

The French Resistance was fragmented, minority and largely invisible, operating in shadows precisely because visibility would have meant death. What mattered was who acted in ways that directly weakened the systems they opposed.

They didn't call on others to act. They acted themselves. They didn't shame those who stayed silent; they took responsibility for themselves and worked with those who had the same outlook.

This matters for our moment because so much of modern social outrage is heartfelt but unchannelled. People feel deeply; but sincerity alone does not produce traction. When anger is not coupled with strategy, discipline and a sense of collective project, it dissolves into a performance that is emotionally satisfying even as it without any consequence.

I have written earlier on my realisation that people now know only how to be a consumer or customer, not a community member.

So it seems people know now only how to jump up and down and shout angrily for others to do something (the government, politicians, the police, men, the rich...so many vague others) and do not understand that social change is for them to enact, model and nurture. It comes from doing, not shouting; building not finger pointing.

That’s a useful way to understand what lived resistance means: it might be hidden but it moves things rather than merely expressing feeling. It models or creates an alternative which can be experienced rather than describing one.

Lost, Sad and Angry Because We Lack a Project to Belong To

When we deeply feel the injustice in the world it can stir powerful emotional responses: anger, grief, turmoil. But often what follows that feeling is disorientation and sadness rather than clarity or direction. We know, viscerally, that something is wrong. We feel our values exposed by the injustice. But we lack a larger project to belong to, a structured way of turning that feeling into progress or purpose.

That void of purpose breeds a strange psychological posture: we rattle loud about the wrongs of others while quietly avoiding the harder work of examining how we ourselves are embedded in the systems we denounce.

Thinkers who study atrocity and mass violence often note that complicity is not always conscious or overt. It’s woven into structures, patterns and small everyday decisions that accumulate into systems of harm. We may demonise Trump (we may say he does that himself) but suffering isn't just the result of monstrous leaders but of social, ideological and political conditions that many ordinary people helped sustain or failed to resist.

My aim here isn't to denounce as posturing or insincerity the heartfelt posts we are seeing these days. But if dark times are coming, and they are, it may not be enough. Worse, it may feel like we're doing something, when we're doing nothing of practical benefit, or involving any real sacrifice or risk at all.

The emotional effect of that realization can be unsettling: we do need to see ourselves partly as participants or beneficiaries of the very order that produces harm, rather than queuing up to proclaim ourselves as pure moral agents standing apart from it.

What I'm getting at is: expressing outrage toward others becomes a way to displace our discomfort at our complicity; to find relief in visible condemnation rather than sit with the quieter, deeper work of reckoning and response.

Getting Our Hands Dirty: Lessons from Real Resistance

The Underground Railroad, helped enslaved people escape the American South. Conductors risked their freedom and lives repeatedly, moving fugitives from safe house to safe house under cover of night, often relying on networks of trust and silent coordination. The work was painstaking, incremental and largely hidden. Success was measured not in recognition but in the survival and freedom of those they helped.

Both the French Resistance and the Underground Railroad illustrate a kind of action that is practical, effective and unfeted. They required moral courage and disciplined strategy, and they demanded that participants take personal risks for tangible results.

Crucially both were citizen movements which came into being precisely when and because those in power had failed to act.

When power is corrupt or ineffective,shouting at it to change doesn't work. We need to make the changes we wish to see in the world, rather than calling on others to do so.

Stop asking: what can I say. Start doing.

Why We Feel Lost And What Actually Works

One reason so many people feel defeated after outrage is structural. We are shaped by systems that fragment our attention, erode long‑term commitment and prioritise expression over collective action.

I'm sure that's no coincidence or byproduct.

In the aftermath of the Alex Pettit shooting, social media filled the vacuum with rumours, false claims and competing narratives, scattering attention across platforms and leaving no shared space in which facts could be gathered, tested and held in common.

In a world packed with influencers, there were very few folks offering leadership.

So what evidence is there of models of collective action that have real traction in addressing systemic harms?

I find these organising frameworks below helpful because they take us beyond our isilated grief and fury into spaces which have the potential to turn individual moral energy into sustained, coordinated action that actually shifts power.

The Ganz Model

One organising framework that points beyond isolated outrage is Marshall Ganz’s model, developed through civil rights and labour movements and later used in climate and healthcare campaigns. It is often misunderstood as a storytelling exercise, but in fact it functions as a discipline for turning feeling into coordinated risk.

Ganz argues that movements generate power through three linked narratives:

Story of Self — why I am implicated, not just upset
Story of Us — who we are, concretely, not abstractly
Story of Now — what must be done immediately, and by whom

The Story of Self forces people to name where their own life intersects with the harm: how they benefit, comply, participate, or fail to resist. This is where most outrage culture quietly stops. It is far easier to denounce institutions than to say: here is where I am entangled; here is the cost I am willing to bear.

The Story of Us is not “everyone who agrees with me online.” It is a bounded, relational group: people who can rely on one another, who share risk, who can act together. Historically, these were church groups, trade unions, neighbourhood committees, resistance cells. Today, we often mistake visibility for solidarity. Ganz’s insistence on “us” cuts against that: it asks who you can actually organise with, not who will applaud you.

The Story of Now defines a specific moment, a concrete intervention and a real choice between acting and not acting. Crucially, it implies loss: time, comfort, money, status, safety. A call that costs nothing is not a call to action; it is an invitation to emote.

Used properly, the Ganz model disciplines emotion. It channels grief and anger into structures that can endure beyond the news cycle.

Collective Impact — Not Louder Voices, Fewer Silos

Another model I have been researching is what’s known as Collective Impact.

Collective Impact starts from the premise that most social problems persist not because people don’t care, but because efforts are fragmented. Everyone is busy doing something — campaigning, posting, fundraising, protesting — but those actions operate in parallel rather than in concert. Energy dissipates. Power never quite accumulates.

The model insists on a small number of hard disciplines:

• a shared, concrete goal (not a value statement or a mood)
• clear roles across different groups
• ongoing co-ordination, not episodic mobilisation
• and mechanisms for accountability, so effort doesn’t drift back into symbolism

In practical terms, this model shifts the question from “Who should be condemned?” to “Who is already acting on this problem, where are the gaps, and how do we stop duplicating noise and start compounding effort?” It prioritises sustained pressure over expressive release.

Historically, effective resistance movements understood this instinctively. The Underground Railroad required co=ordination between abolitionists, free Black communities, sympathetic officials and ordinary households — many of whom could never publicly align. The French Resistance depended on networks that synchronised sabotage, intelligence, shelter and supply, without everyone needing to shout the same slogans or appear at the same marches.

Collective Impact names that logic in modern terms. It is not about consensus or moral harmony; it is about function. Who does what. Who sustains whom. Who takes which risk.

Against performative outrage, this model is almost deliberately dull. There is no viral moment. Progress is measured in reduced harm, disrupted systems, people protected or resourced — not in attention captured.

That dullness is precisely its virtue.

And this is what fascinates me at this moment: that so few want to go beyond the heartfelt to the practicalities of organisation, commitment, collaboration...the revolution needs a bureaucracy of it's own I am saddened to admit...and that tediousness, that painstaking application of methodology and process to our gried and anger, is what we fail to grapple with.

Directed Networks — Freedom With Spine

Horizontal energy feels democratic, alive but uncontrollable. Too often it collapses into noise. Rigid hierarchy, suffocates initiative and concentrates risk. Directed network models exist to avoid both failures.

At their core, these models accept an unglamorous truth: movements need structure, but not micromanagement.

A directed network has three non-negotiables:

• a small strategic core that sets direction — defining goals, boundaries, and red lines
• autonomous local groups who decide how to act within that shared frame
• clear co-ordination mechanisms so actions compound rather than contradict each other

It is leader-light resistance.

The strategic core does not exist to dominate or perform; it exists to maintain coherence under pressure. Its job is to decide what matters, what does not and when restraint is more powerful than expression. Without that spine, movements drift toward either internal conflict or constant escalation for attention.

The autonomy of local groups is equally disciplined. Freedom here does not mean “do whatever feels righteous.” It means acting creatively within constraints, so that hundreds of small actions push in the same direction rather than cancel each other out.

This structure matters because outrage culture produces speed without memory. Directed networks preserve both. They allow rapid response without sacrificing continuity; adaptation without moral dilution. They are designed for moments when attention is unstable, repression is selective and open leadership is risky.

Historically, this is how resistance survives. Cells knew the purpose, not the whole plan. Participants did not need consensus on everything — only alignment on what they were doing next.

That is very different from distributed shouting. It is action that scales without spectacle.

Rank-and-File Union Organising

If outrage culture is characterised by speaking about power, rank-and-file union organising is about building power where it can actually be exercised.

This model begins from the premise that real leverage comes from organised workers acting collectively at the point where value is produced.

It involves mapping workplaces, building trust among colleagues who may disagree politically, and developing the capacity to act together — quietly at first, visibly only when necessary.

What distinguishes this from performative activism is risk. Workers who organise this way place their income, reputation and sometimes safety on the line.

That risk is precisely why it works.

When people are organised where labour is coordinated, systems respond. Disruption demands response. Petitions don't. Power shifts when those who keep institutions running (ie workers) learn to move together — or withhold cooperation — in disciplined ways.

Historically, gains in labour rights, civil rights and social protections did not come from outrage. They came when moral claims were coupled with organised capacity: the ability to stop production, halt services or impose costs on unjust systems.

Rank-and-file organising is unfashionable because it is not expressive. It does not allow constant moral display. It demands patience, secrecy and solidarity across difference. But it answers the question outrage avoids: what leverage do we actually have, and how do we build more of it?

Self-Organising Circles

Movements like Extinction Rebellion are often caricatured as chaotic or theatrical, but their underlying structure is neither. They rely on self-organising circles: small, semi-autonomous groups that take responsibility for concrete tasks and coordinate through shared principles rather than constant instruction.

Circles are not social clubs, and they are not forums for endless debate. Each group owns a specific function — logistics, outreach, legal support, direct action, care — and is expected to act, report, and adapt. Authority is distributed, but responsibility is not diluted.

What distinguishes this from the free-for-all of online activism is commitment. Circles meet repeatedly. They build trust over time. They develop skills. Decisions are documented, disagreements are processed, and energy is conserved rather than burned off in public display.

One Extinction Rebellion campaigner I spoke to said this when I told him of this article I was writing: "we never published anything. We never talked about anything. All we talked about was: where do we need to be and when. That was all we needed to say because we all felt the same and we all knew what needed to be done."

This form of organising recognises that sustained resistance requires containers small enough to hold people accountable, flexible enough to respond to changing conditions, and quiet enough to operate without constant validation.

Self-organising circles are effective because they do not require everyone to do everything, or to agree on everything. They require people to take ownership of a piece of the work and to stay with it long after the initial surge of feeling has passed.

Alliance and Coalition Building

If decentralisation is one trap, ideological purity is another. Many movements fail not because their analysis is wrong, but because they refuse to work with anyone who does not share it perfectly.

Coalition-building starts from a less flattering but more effective assumption: large-scale change requires alliances between groups with overlapping interests, not identical values.

This work is frustrating. It involves compromise, mistrust, slow negotiation and the constant risk of fracture. It denies participants the moral clarity of standing alone. But it does something outrage cannot: it multiplies leverage.

Research on successful protest movements consistently shows that broad alliances are harder to ignore and harder to repress. When multiple constituencies act together — particularly those with different kinds of institutional access — power is forced to respond.

Coalitions shift the focus from being right to being effective. They replace the question “Do these people fully align with me?” with “Can we act together on this, now, at scale?”

Outrage culture rewards purity because it costs nothing. Coalition work is costly because it demands restraint, patience, and the ability to tolerate imperfection in others, including allies.

But history is clear: change is rarely delivered by the pure. It is delivered by the organised.

Why These Models Matter

What unites all of these organising models is not ideology, style or even morality. It is their refusal to confuse expression with power.

Each offers a way out of the psychological trap of modern outrage: the feeling of doing something while remaining fundamentally unchanged. They insist on structure where we prefer spontaneity, discipline where we prefer catharsis, and responsibility where we prefer display.

They also share something unfashionable: they assume that meaningful change will be slow, uncelebrated and costly. That it will involve boredom, conflict and risk. That it will ask people to stay when the moment has passed and the audience has moved on.

In dark times, the question is not whether we care enough. Most people do. The question is whether we are willing to move from feeling to function — from shouting at power to building the capacity to constrain it.

These models do not promise moral relief. They offer something better: traction.

It's not what you say, it's what you do

These frameworks all focus on collective action: not a series of individuals issuing their emotive posts, but strategic co-ordination. They emphasise:

• Building relationships and shared identity rather than transient outrage.
• Clear goals and tactical planning rather than amorphous condemnation.
• Structures that can endure beyond the moment of peak sentiment.
• Distributed power with accountability, not just viral noise.

All of them reject the idea that feeling upset is the same as being effective. Instead they focus on how people actually organise to shift power.

Crucially, they demand us to ask: who is in and who is out. Who can you count on. Who will do the work. Who will take the risk. Who is in in. Who is in.

You're a member here. That's actually an important step in moving beyond transient outrage; demonstrating commitment and a desire to share your knowledge, building an alternative.

You're a member here, and possibly elsewhere, of small groups of folk who share your values and your strong views.

Finding those like-minded folks is where it all begins.

The question is what will we DO. Not think or say or write or post. The question I have is what will you do today that makes the work of allies easier and the work of our enemies harder? What will you risk beyond your words? What will you, like the ordinary men and women in the French Resistance or the Underground Railway, do?

How will you organise?