"Moral clarity, these days, it means a lot less than I would like it to mean."

Said Jia Tolentino on "Fresh Air" yesterday. Here's the context:

We will have a mass shooting in America and people will get online and express their very true anguish, and people express their anger and their righteousness, and this formidable undeniable moral narratives [sic] about how children should not be dying in the U.S. like this — and then nothing happens.

And so the gun control debate is just a continual reminder to me: An opinion doesn't necessarily translate to action. Moral clarity, these days, it means a lot less than I would like it to mean. ... 

But there's nothing formidable about the "moral narratives" that "children should not be dying in the U.S. like this." It's "undeniable," but that's because everyone already agrees with the obvious truth that mass murder is bad. It's obtuse to speak of "moral clarity" about something that's isn't the slightest bit susceptible to unclarity.

What Tolentino is unclear about is the distinction between problems and solutions. Indeed, she is expressing this unclarity with anger and righteousness. It's a dangerous bait and switch. There is clarity and energy about the problem — mass murder is evil — and Tolentino (and others) attempt to appropriate that feeling and transfer it into action to adopt a particular solution. But there is still unclarity about the solution, and you can't dispel unclarity by mixing it with clarity. You can only trick people into thinking what was unclear became clear.

Here, quick, drink this glass of pond water. I just ran some tap water into it.

And you wonder why people don't act. I think they don't act because they've got the experience and presence of mind to see where the clarity is and where it isn't.