Just in case Australia was suffering post-election outrage withdrawal, rugby player Israel Folau has burst through the gap with his own special breed of neo-feudal theology to get the nation firing again.

Folau’s social media comments have unleashed a tsunami of outrage: from those offended by his blunt homophobia to those who are outraged that those who are offended would dare to impinge on his freedom to outrage them.

There’s the outraged sponsors concerned the comments could spark a backlash from angry consumers, pressuring Rugby Australia into a pre-emptive intervention that Folau, in turn, has taken offence to, sparking deeper waves of outrage by the authorities who have responded by tearing up his contract.

Conservatives agitate for religious freedom law but Coalition voters not on board – Essential poll Read more

But it doesn’t stop here: there are the employment lawyers who are outraged that said employment contract could impinge so far into someone’s personal life, not to mention the people who are outraged that a player on a million-dollar contract would ask outraged members of the public to demonstrate their anger by funding his legal challenges.

Then there’s the outrage at the outrage: the rightwing culture warriors outraged that Rugby Australia should presume to enter the culture war; and the left outraged that the cultural warriors are at it again.

The Folau brouhaha is a case study in post-media media; a whirlpool of emotion that drives protagonists into the safety of their filter bubbles where they can whip up a frenzy, driving clicks in the legacy media and engagement on social platforms.

And as the outrage peaks to 11, the Morrison government dusts off laws purporting to deal with the “crisis” of religious freedom, which will surely fuel the next cycle of escalating outrage.

What’s missing from the whole thing, sadly, is a public square equipped to deal with the complexity of an issue that presents in many shades of grey. In a series of questions in this week’s Essential Report, the public appears to be displaying a degree of nuance sorely lacking in the shoutiness of the current debate.



A strong majority of respondents, across all voting groups, it should be added, reject the idea that religious freedom should be used as an excuse for abusing others. Yet a similarly strong majority are not comfortable with employment contracts that dictate what employees say outside work.

People also support the idea that they should think through how their words can affect others, even if that means that people are less likely to say what they really think. What they don’t support, however, is the need for stronger laws to protect people who express their religious views in public.

This suggests a collective desire for a degree of common sense sadly lacking in the current cycle of outrage: that this is not a fight about absolutes, but an argument for individual self-moderation.

A further round of statements takes this idea further.

Are you for Israel Folau or against? We love a simple answer but this is not a binary case | Gillian Triggs Read more

Rejecting the Brandian libertarianism that one has the “right to be bigot”, the public just wants Folau to recognise that his celebrity and his social media following carry with them levels of responsibility. Again these views are remarkably consistent across partisan lines.

That’s what this orgy of outrage really comes down to: not new attacks on personal freedoms but establishing norms for how one should behave in a digital world; especially when one has made a fortune playing a game that has given them a national profile.

Rather than just getting angry, it’s time we all recognised that what this is really all about is manners in a world where only the loudest cut through. We could start by turning the volume down just a notch.

• Peter Lewis is an executive director of Essential. His book Webtopia: The Worldwide Wreck of Tech and How to Make the Net Work is out now