Liam Neeson and the culture of incessant moral outrage

The Liam Neeson controversy highlights, along with the recent Covington High School debacle, the need not to snap-judge at headlines and the moral confusion in a society when outrage, and not reflection, is promoted by some to be the apex of moral fortitude.

Neeson, the Hollywood star of Schindler’s List, volunteered an anecdote when interviewed by The Independent for his upcoming film Cold Pursuit, a film about revenge. He spoke of being possessed by a primal rage some 40 years ago, when a friend was raped by a black man. He told the interviewer: “I went up and down areas with a cosh, hoping I’d be approached by somebody — I’m ashamed to say that — and I did it for maybe a week, hoping some ‘black bastard’ would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know?

“So that I could … kill him.”

Reading this transcript and this transcript alone, which is heavily reported, one might agree with the headlines such as ‘Liam Neeson’s interview shows that for some, black people are still not fully human” by Guardian writer Gary Younge.

However, the context matters – Neeson clarified himself in another interview on GMA, saying that “I’m not racist,” as he told the interviewer that looking for a black person to confront was incidental. “If she [Neeson’s friend who was raped] had said an Irish or a Scot or a Brit or a Lithuanian, I know I would have felt the same effect. I was trying to show honour, to stand up for my dear friend, in this terrible medieval fashion.”

Another point of context is that Neeson was talking about an occurrence in Northern Ireland during ‘The Troubles’, when Norther Ireland was gripped in ethno-religious-nationalist sectarianism of the most violent kind. Tens of thousands of people, including thousands of civilians, were killed. As a young man living amongst incessant violence and tribal thinking, or as a matter of fact even a young man living in a peaceful country like Australia today, it is not unthinkable that his feelings would turn towards violence when provoked by an outrage like the rape of a loved one.

This is not to excuse his dangerous and irrational notion of wanting to hurt any black man who might offer him an excuse. But Neeson admitted to realising that even then. He said in the same GMA interview: "It really shocked me, this primal urge I had. It shocked me and it hurt me. I did seek help, I went to a priest, had my confession… I had two very, very good friends that I talked to. And believe it or not, power walking, two hours every day, to get rid of this,"

There is no reason why one wouldn’t take his words at face value because there was no need for him to volunteer this story. What might also be helpful to remember is that Neeson didn’t actually hurt anyone. He entertained violent thoughts and even went so far to seek them out (for about a week) but he didn’t do anything to hurt an innocent person. In fact, he told the story as a prophylaxis to those who might become steeped in vengeance and offered his own emotional journey as an example of how one might get out of the crooked spiral, how one might, with help, overcome the dominion of the amygdala and adrenal gland. So here it is in its full context – a man who stopped himself at a precipice with reason triumphant over base instincts.  

In an era when an off-colour tweet made when you are barely out of puberty can cost you your job, it takes tremendous courage to admit to one’s own lowest ebbs – one consequence of intersectional headline outrage is that it makes such candid conversations impossible. Like Medusa’s head, those who are ready and happy to brand people with the lowest motives turn all conversation attempting at gradation or depth into stone. Had Othello been written today, the same people would label it racist for making the titular protagonist murder his wife, without considering the nuances within. 

Neeson’s case also begs us to think what the conditions for forgiveness are. This is especially true for the Left or ‘liberal’ sect in the US, who are the most vehement in all these public shaming cases. They are also the ones who suffer the most acutely from internal contradictions. If Neeson cannot be forgiven by relating a deeply personal story, at his own cost, as a warning against indiscriminate violence, then what is the hope for people who have done far worse? Would the same liberals who want to extract from Neeson a pound of flesh argue that all actually violent offenders be incarcerated for life? Will there be no room for personal development and betterment? That one needs to jump out of the womb with all the correct moral positions lest you be found out one day that you might have thought a blasphemous thought almost 40 years ago?

And does anyone seriously think that there exists any person who has not entertained thoughts that they would never reveal publicly? Looking at those hollering on Twitter, one cannot help being reminded of Queen Gertrude in Hamlet, who gently but pointedly reminds us that “the lady doth protest too much, methinks.”