Outrage

Bert Hellinger (founder of family constellations):

"When someone is outraged about something bad, they seem to be on the side of good and against evil, on the side of right and against wrong. They step in between the perpetrators and the victims in order to ward off further evil. But then again, they could also step between them with love, and certainly better than that.

So what does the outraged person want? And what are they really doing?

The outraged person behaves as if they were a victim without being one themselves. They claim for themselves the right to demand satisfaction from the perpetrators, without any injustice having been done to them.

They make themselves the victims' lawyer as if they had transferred the right to represent them unto them and then leave them without rights. And what does the outraged person do with this entitlement?

They take the liberty of doing harm to the perpetrators without the fear of serious personal consequences; for since their evil deeds appear in the light of good, they need not fear punishment.

In order that the outrage may remain justified, the outraged person dramatizes both the injustice suffered and the consequences of the guilt.

They intimidate the victims to see the injustice in the same terrible light as they do. Otherwise, they too become suspicious in the victim's eyes and must fear to become victims of their outrage themselves, as if they were perpetrators.

In the face of outrage, the victims can hardly leave their suffering behind and the perpetrators can hardly leave the consequences of their guilt behind.

If it were left to the victims and perpetrators themselves to seek balance and reconciliation, they could allow each other a new beginning. But this is difficult to do in the face of outrage, for outraged people are usually not satisfied until they have destroyed and humiliated the perpetrators, even if it makes the victims' suffering worse.

Outrage is first and foremost moral. In other words, it is not about helping someone, but about enforcing a claim as the executor of which the outraged person presents themselves and feels.

Therefore, unlike someone who loves, they know no pity and no moderation."