I heard Mick Nugent talking on the radio the other day, speaking in his role as chairperson of Atheist Ireland. He was talking about the place of the Angelus on RTÉ and how it has been pretty much exactly 60 years since it was first introduced (on 15th August 1950).

Anyway, he mentioned that the Angelus was something that didn’t annoy him. The show’s presenter appeared to instantly assume that this meant that Mick didn’t actually care about the topic. This idea worries me. The thought process goes like this: You do not feel angry about a topic, therefore you do not care about the topic, thus there must be an ulterior motive for your involvement in the debate. Otherwise why get involved at all? The Angelus debate is only a small part of the overall campaign for secular government and national media. This is clear.
However, the notion that you have to be angry or distraught about something in order to campaign for or against it is just foolish. The best debates are by those with cool heads; heightened emotion clouds judgements and prevents rational thought.
What I suggest and assume is that this concept is symptomatic of the current paradigm of news reporting and news media stories at the moment. Anecdotes, personal opinions and vox-pops are all the rage. You can’t move for hearing “It’s disgraceful Joe, it’s terrible Joe”.
Personal stories are moving and emotive. They are far more convincing than data and rational arguments. I can accept that; it’s well-established in social psychology literature. Surely, though, it’s utter foolishness for emotion to argue emotion.