Trouble is, this goes both ways. If one wishes to get genuinely novel insight from others, one would do well to make some effort not to react with protestations of offense before first giving some rational consideration to the supposedly offending claims and arguments, and without considering the possibility that one’s instinctive triggers for offense might be a source of insight-precluding bias.
Oh yes, I absolutely agree. But to be offended is only to experience an emotion; it is not to reject a claim or to act aggressively.
If I tell you that I am uncomfortable, and explain (what I believe are) the reasons for my discomfort, there is no need to defend yourself. I am not making an accusation. The appropriate response is to express concern, or to propose a solution. If you tell me that I am wrong to feel the way I do, you only escalate the conflict.
I think Vladimir_M would say that people can hack society by taking offense at anything counter to their own values, and remain agnostic about whether or not it is “fake.” Fake offense might not even serve one’s interests as well as real offense, or be as powerful a signal. So it could be in one’s interests to be biased to take real offense at distasteful speech.
We all want to believe that our positions are so well established that others are being bad people for questioning them, or committing some sort of error, and that we are justified in taking offense because they should know better. See also: every cause wants to be a cult.
If these are the only options, then I can hack society by faking offense at every opportunity.
Not really. If you tell me that you’re offended by the letter “s”, I would express regret at having offended you, but also point out that for all of us to give up using words with “s” in them is really quite onerous, and suggest that you give up reading, or use some kind of hack to replace “s” with another letter. I would also be very curious to know why a single character offends you, but I wouldn’t expect to make things better by disbelieving your explanation.
Most of us have probably known people who seem to constantly use fake offense as a rhetorical weapon, and in my experience the result tends to be that these people have few friends. People may defer to them in the short run to spare themselves a nuisance (which is a good idea), but they also avoid further interactions.
Oh yes, I absolutely agree. But to be offended is only to experience an emotion; it is not to reject a claim or to act aggressively.
If I tell you that I am uncomfortable, and explain (what I believe are) the reasons for my discomfort, there is no need to defend yourself. I am not making an accusation. The appropriate response is to express concern, or to propose a solution. If you tell me that I am wrong to feel the way I do, you only escalate the conflict.
If these are the only options, then I can hack society by faking offense at every opportunity.
I think Vladimir_M would say that people can hack society by taking offense at anything counter to their own values, and remain agnostic about whether or not it is “fake.” Fake offense might not even serve one’s interests as well as real offense, or be as powerful a signal. So it could be in one’s interests to be biased to take real offense at distasteful speech.
We all want to believe that our positions are so well established that others are being bad people for questioning them, or committing some sort of error, and that we are justified in taking offense because they should know better. See also: every cause wants to be a cult.
Not really. If you tell me that you’re offended by the letter “s”, I would express regret at having offended you, but also point out that for all of us to give up using words with “s” in them is really quite onerous, and suggest that you give up reading, or use some kind of hack to replace “s” with another letter. I would also be very curious to know why a single character offends you, but I wouldn’t expect to make things better by disbelieving your explanation.
Most of us have probably known people who seem to constantly use fake offense as a rhetorical weapon, and in my experience the result tends to be that these people have few friends. People may defer to them in the short run to spare themselves a nuisance (which is a good idea), but they also avoid further interactions.