When a social group is frustrated, demonstrations such as protests appear, close examples are the events in Paris during these months; the Black Life Matters collective actions in the US and successive indigenous uprisings in Ecuador. Sociological theories of collective action analyze how social frustrations work and translate into activism.

Frustration was analyzed by Karl Jaspers, a philosopher and psychiatrist whose childhood was marked by illness. Personal suffering from physical pain led him to study suffering; Among his contributions is an analysis of what he called borderline situations, which he defined as “like a wall against which we collide, against which we fall. We cannot change them, only clarify them, without being able to explain and derive them from something else” (Jaspers, 1932, p. 203).

In some cases, pain and difficult circumstances – even – can be considered ingredients for development. For example, think about the pain after a day of sports or the suffering that precedes childbirth; both cases result in the presence of happy outcomes. But what if, despite the efforts and suffering, the consequences are worse? For Jaspers, it is necessary to assume the presence of pain as inevitable; which does not mean giving up in the fight to change the situation.

Although all nations have problems, there are some historical moments in which the unexpected has a greater degree of severity. Therefore, deteriorating living conditions, organized crime, lack of employment, corruption, injustice and bad governance cause a sense of frustration and put individual and collective emotions to the test.

At the individual level, emotional competencies enable people to read extreme situations as opportunities for development. At the social level, extreme situations prepare the ideal ground for community action. Learning to recognize circumstances and how to react in those moments of tension is an educational task for every family. This same fundamental action for the individual must be developed at the city level.

Therefore, sociological analysis is essential for the management of cities and for the introduction of new public policies. It is necessary to understand how the extreme situations of crime that plague Ecuador are accepted? To what extent are citizens willing to get involved in solutions? For Jaspers, there are moral emotions that must be identified, such as indignation, anger, or moral outrage.

Other authors call the latter—moral outrage—“just outrage,” which would be the engine that allows individuals to come together to protest and enjoy collective action. If governments recognize and channel the “righteous anger” in their societies, they will have the power to promote profound change; otherwise, that anger will spill over somewhere and explode into forms of social protest. It is time for societies to organize around solutions, to recover our cities. (OR)