Status seems too general. If a person takes offense to a derogatory comment about that person’s own race, they are offended by their status being lowered. If they take offense to a derogatory comment about another race, they are offended by their status being raised (before you object, think of the least charitable hypothetical and see if there’s a realistic way in which this comment lowers their status, and that this perception actually inspires the offense; I don’t think this is the case). It is possible to describe offense in terms of status, but the only constant is “status;” the direction (raise, lower) and the group (self, ingroup, outgroup) are not constant: people could take offense to their status being raised or lowered, their group’s status being raised or lowered, or an outgroups status being raised or lowered, or any of these things could happen and they could just not take offense. That seems, to put it mildly, problematic. Basically all human social interaction affects status in some manner. Nearly any human social behaviour (if not every) can be described in terms of status, even if status is not its primary motivator. “Changes in status” does not describe the mechanism by which offense functions very well.
It also does not explain why offense is rather precise. For example (and I’m not using a specific example, for obvious reasons), take “Race/Gender X has property M,” filling in X and M to make the statement extremely offensive. It is not hard to find another race/gender other than X where the statement would not be anywhere near as offensive, despite making the exact same status-lowering claim.
Offense is much more accurately and precisely described as “threatening social norms.” It explains why people take offense at specific threats to their status, but not necessarily others. It explains why people get offended at jokes that degrade groups they aren’t part of. It explains why close friends can get away with offensive statements. It explains why we can loudly and publicly deride people for some things (e.g. loud and obnoxious behaviour), but not others (e.g. unseemly appearance). It explains why a person may be offended by a statement that raises their status. This is more precise than “hurting status” since it requires fairly explicit social customs. It also explains how people from separate cultures are likely to accidentally give offense, and, to some degree, why people expect certain cultures or subgroups to give offense.
In all, it’s a little more black-boxy than I would like, but it’s the most precise description of a very broad phenomenon that I can think of. It does a better job that “changes in social status, in certain directions, at certain times, for certain groups, except when it doesn’t happen.”
One possible explanation for why I take offense at somebody making a racist comment to me (about other people/groups) is that I do so because I believe racist people are despicable (deserving to be among the lowest of the low in terms of status according to my ordering), and when the person implicitly assumes that I will take the racist remark positively, I equate that with them believing I am the sort of person I would despise and regard as low status. Under this interpretation, there is no raising of status. It is is still always related to some hint of being low status, either in terms of what other people think about my status or in terms of the implications on my self-judged status as a result of other people’s remarks.
ETA: abbreviated version: we take offense at racist comments because they implicitly assume we are what we might regard as “ignoramus racists”, and we regard ignoramus racists as having very low status.
abbreviated version: we take offense at racist comments because they implicitly assume we are what we might regard as “ignoramus racists”, and we regard ignoramus racists as having very low status.
This seems like a clearer idea than the “maintaining social order” one; in particular, it gives a better explanation for third parties taking offense. In general, one could be offended by a remark if silence would imply that you are a member of a group you consider lower-status… and that easily handles the case of say, abolitionists being offended by remarks in favor of slavery, even as a non-abolitionist could’ve been offended by remarks in favor of abolition, without resorting to elaborate justifications of how some sort of “order” is being threatened or maintained.
IOW, the key to the remark is not whether it raises or lowers the status of the remark’s referent group, but whether a lack of response would lower the listener’s perceived status by the listener’s standards. That’s a really nice formulation from a PCT perspective as well: PCT posits that remarks which disturb our self-perception of status would motivate behavior intended to restore our reference level of that perception.
But PCT or no, this perspective also makes it abundantly clear how the offense occurring really has nothing to do with the remark, the subject of the remark, or the person making it.
Expressing offense and feeling offense are correlated but by no means identical. One can very easily do one without the other. I’m uncertain which of these interpretations this fact comes down in favor of.
However, it seems like feeling (and to a lesser degree, expressing) offense (in most cases) is inspired by, “It’s just wrong for you to say that and you must be chastised!” rather than by, “You made an implicit assumption about me that I find offensive, and you must be corrected!” Offense feels a lot more like “They broke the rules!” than “They lowered my social status implicitly, kind of!”
I see no problem, for either model, coming from the abolitionist/fire-eater example. If you’re an abolitionist, you believe “Slavery is very bad.” If you’re a fire-eater, you believe “Slavery is very good.” Believing the opposite would lower your status in your peer group and it threatens the social order you desire (even if you haven’t established that order as a standard for society, it is the standard you believe society should operate by). I don’t see the latter as being much more “elaborate” than the former.
Althought, when two people of opposite political viewpoints argue a contested issue, I think they experience anger much more than they experience offense. They may incidentally offend each other along the way, but I think anger is the dominant feeling, which makes sense, because it’s a lot like an actual fight, mentally.
believing the opposite would lower your status in your peer group and it threatens the social order you desire (even if you haven’t established that order as a standard for society, it is the standard you believe society should operate by). I don’t see the latter as being much more “elaborate” than the former.
Of the two concepts, the former is easier to implement as an automatic, unconscious response, because it doesn’t involve multiple levels of abstraction. That’s why I’d tend to favor it over the second version.
Even simpler, though, might be to just model certain beliefs as “bad” or “good” and treat those that oppose the “good” as “bad”. (However, the controlled variable in that case is still “perceived status”, since we learn what beliefs are bad or good through applied status consequences.)
Status seems too general. If a person takes offense to a derogatory comment about that person’s own race, they are offended by their status being lowered. If they take offense to a derogatory comment about another race, they are offended by their status being raised (before you object, think of the least charitable hypothetical and see if there’s a realistic way in which this comment lowers their status, and that this perception actually inspires the offense; I don’t think this is the case). It is possible to describe offense in terms of status, but the only constant is “status;” the direction (raise, lower) and the group (self, ingroup, outgroup) are not constant: people could take offense to their status being raised or lowered, their group’s status being raised or lowered, or an outgroups status being raised or lowered, or any of these things could happen and they could just not take offense. That seems, to put it mildly, problematic. Basically all human social interaction affects status in some manner. Nearly any human social behaviour (if not every) can be described in terms of status, even if status is not its primary motivator. “Changes in status” does not describe the mechanism by which offense functions very well.
It also does not explain why offense is rather precise. For example (and I’m not using a specific example, for obvious reasons), take “Race/Gender X has property M,” filling in X and M to make the statement extremely offensive. It is not hard to find another race/gender other than X where the statement would not be anywhere near as offensive, despite making the exact same status-lowering claim.
Offense is much more accurately and precisely described as “threatening social norms.” It explains why people take offense at specific threats to their status, but not necessarily others. It explains why people get offended at jokes that degrade groups they aren’t part of. It explains why close friends can get away with offensive statements. It explains why we can loudly and publicly deride people for some things (e.g. loud and obnoxious behaviour), but not others (e.g. unseemly appearance). It explains why a person may be offended by a statement that raises their status. This is more precise than “hurting status” since it requires fairly explicit social customs. It also explains how people from separate cultures are likely to accidentally give offense, and, to some degree, why people expect certain cultures or subgroups to give offense.
In all, it’s a little more black-boxy than I would like, but it’s the most precise description of a very broad phenomenon that I can think of. It does a better job that “changes in social status, in certain directions, at certain times, for certain groups, except when it doesn’t happen.”
One possible explanation for why I take offense at somebody making a racist comment to me (about other people/groups) is that I do so because I believe racist people are despicable (deserving to be among the lowest of the low in terms of status according to my ordering), and when the person implicitly assumes that I will take the racist remark positively, I equate that with them believing I am the sort of person I would despise and regard as low status. Under this interpretation, there is no raising of status. It is is still always related to some hint of being low status, either in terms of what other people think about my status or in terms of the implications on my self-judged status as a result of other people’s remarks.
ETA: abbreviated version: we take offense at racist comments because they implicitly assume we are what we might regard as “ignoramus racists”, and we regard ignoramus racists as having very low status.
This seems like a clearer idea than the “maintaining social order” one; in particular, it gives a better explanation for third parties taking offense. In general, one could be offended by a remark if silence would imply that you are a member of a group you consider lower-status… and that easily handles the case of say, abolitionists being offended by remarks in favor of slavery, even as a non-abolitionist could’ve been offended by remarks in favor of abolition, without resorting to elaborate justifications of how some sort of “order” is being threatened or maintained.
IOW, the key to the remark is not whether it raises or lowers the status of the remark’s referent group, but whether a lack of response would lower the listener’s perceived status by the listener’s standards. That’s a really nice formulation from a PCT perspective as well: PCT posits that remarks which disturb our self-perception of status would motivate behavior intended to restore our reference level of that perception.
But PCT or no, this perspective also makes it abundantly clear how the offense occurring really has nothing to do with the remark, the subject of the remark, or the person making it.
Expressing offense and feeling offense are correlated but by no means identical. One can very easily do one without the other. I’m uncertain which of these interpretations this fact comes down in favor of.
However, it seems like feeling (and to a lesser degree, expressing) offense (in most cases) is inspired by, “It’s just wrong for you to say that and you must be chastised!” rather than by, “You made an implicit assumption about me that I find offensive, and you must be corrected!” Offense feels a lot more like “They broke the rules!” than “They lowered my social status implicitly, kind of!”
I see no problem, for either model, coming from the abolitionist/fire-eater example. If you’re an abolitionist, you believe “Slavery is very bad.” If you’re a fire-eater, you believe “Slavery is very good.” Believing the opposite would lower your status in your peer group and it threatens the social order you desire (even if you haven’t established that order as a standard for society, it is the standard you believe society should operate by). I don’t see the latter as being much more “elaborate” than the former.
Althought, when two people of opposite political viewpoints argue a contested issue, I think they experience anger much more than they experience offense. They may incidentally offend each other along the way, but I think anger is the dominant feeling, which makes sense, because it’s a lot like an actual fight, mentally.
Of the two concepts, the former is easier to implement as an automatic, unconscious response, because it doesn’t involve multiple levels of abstraction. That’s why I’d tend to favor it over the second version.
Even simpler, though, might be to just model certain beliefs as “bad” or “good” and treat those that oppose the “good” as “bad”. (However, the controlled variable in that case is still “perceived status”, since we learn what beliefs are bad or good through applied status consequences.)
Can I just ask which other groups according to your value system deserve to be the lowest of the low?
note: I’m not disparaging or praising your value system in any way I’m just curious :)