#offence

By: Andrew Doyle

Published: Mar 12, 2024

Every human interaction carries the potential to cause offence. There are almost no words that are bereft of connotations, and even silence can be a source of discomfort. We can all therefore agree that to insulate ourselves from the possibility of feeling offended is to withdraw from society altogether. 

To a degree, it is healthy to shield ourselves from those who would wish to hurt us. We do this in our choice of friends and associates, and on social media this can be accomplished simply by ‘blocking’ aggressors. An important aspect of freedom of speech is the right not to listen. To claim that using the block function on social media is a form of censorship is akin to saying that one violates Stephen King’s free speech by not reading his novels. 

But the avoidance of conflict is a tactic that can only ever be effective when it comes to navigating a familiar landscape. In order to live a fulfilling life, we must interact with strangers about whom we know very little. There exists a broadly agreed social contract that protects us from harm, one that is continually subject to revision, but there will always be those who feel compelled, for whatever reason, to transgress the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. 

In your adult life, you have taken great care to avoid causing offence wherever possible, but you have not always been successful. This is because our thoughts and intentions are only ever communicated in a partially accurate way. Our choice of language is the most direct means to express what we know ourselves to think and feel, and even then might not best reflect our true sentiments. Even in our moments of greatest clarity, we cannot be certain that our words will be interpreted in the anticipated manner. 

When I was a boarding school teacher, one of my charges was a German pupil who had somehow managed to offend every one of his peers. He had developed a reputation for rudeness, and schoolboys are rarely willing to indulge those who are perceived as antagonists. I spoke to the German boy on a number of occasions. Although his English was strong, his utterances would often sound cantankerous or needlessly curt. For instance, rather than say ‘Would you mind shutting that door please?’ he would say ‘You must shut the door now.’ As I got to know him better, I soon began to realise that something was being misrepresented in the process of translation. In other words, we were experiencing a version of his personality that was very different from his authentic self. 

In a sense, we are all speaking our own unique dialect, even if our language is the same. This is why generosity of interpretation is always to be advised in the first instance. As Socrates observes in Plato’s Meno, given that misery is the desire and possession of evil, and that nobody desires to be miserable, there can be nobody who knowingly desires evil things. In most cases, it is safest to assume that those who commit acts of which we disapprove must believe them to be good. Similarly, opinions that we find repellent often originate from the best of intentions. Once we understand this, we unlock the potential for meaningful dialogue. 

When we are offended, we should think carefully about why we have chosen to take offence and, more importantly, whether or not the offence was meant. In many cases, those who would wish us harm are explicit in their objectives. After all, an expletive-ridden insult is unlikely to be thrown in the spirit of benevolence. But even in such instances, is it right that our personal sensibilities should be the justification for curbing the speech of our traducer? 

In part, this is the inevitable corollary of years of risk-averse parenting and teaching strategies, as well as the implementation of anti-bullying measures that have a tendency to catastrophise. As Greg Lukianoff argues, ‘People all over the globe are coming to expect emotional and intellectual comfort as though it were a right. This is precisely what you would expect when you train a generation to believe that they have a right not to be offended. Eventually, they stop demanding freedom of speech and start demanding freedom from speech’. An overdiagnostic culture has reframed distress and emotional pain as forms of mental illness, rather than aspects of a healthy human existence. To feel upset is not an aberration; it is a sign that we are alive. 

Let us consider what exactly it means to be offended. There is little doubt that the feeling of offence arises from the disconnect between how things are and how we feel they ought to be. We can be offended by phenomena that do not directly impinge on our lives because they violate our sense of justice. More commonly, we are offended by matters that relate specifically to ourselves. Our pride is injured when we believe that someone holds us in low regard and, as status-seeking primates, we are bound to feel deflated when disparaged. 

Once offence has been taken, there are two likely reactions: we might feel that the slight was deserved, and that we should modify our own behaviour in order to avoid similar incidents in the future; alternatively, we might decide that the fault lies with the offender. In these cases, we might seek an apology, retaliate through criticism or mockery, or seek to stop this person from speaking. It is this latter impulse that explains the appeal of censorship as a means to safeguard the feelings of ourselves and others. 

To recognise that there are aspects of existence that offend us is not to suggest that the feeling of offence is meaningless. There is nothing wrong with being offended, and it can often spur us into action when it comes to redressing injustice as we see it. That said, if the source of our offence is a general discomfort that others do not behave or speak in accordance with our own specific values, we are engaging in a kind of solipsism that is best avoided, not least because there is no end to the endeavour. This is the kind of mentality that sees people take umbrage on behalf of others, an increasingly common phenomenon by which speech is judged to be ‘offensive’ even when there is no evidence of any offence being caused. 

A compulsion to change the world around us to suit our personal sensibilities is evinced by the tabloid columnist who calls for a film to be banned, the heckler at the comedy club who is outraged at the topic of the joke, the member of staff at a publishing firm who threatens to strike over a ‘problematic’ author, the student activist who sets off fire alarms to prevent a visiting speaker from upsetting his peers. We understand the impulse because we all feel it from time to time. However, to make the leap from the natural revulsion we experience at certain alternative worldviews to actively silencing them is to surrender to the authoritarian tendency. By doing so, we degrade ourselves by subordinating our reason to baser instincts. 

You're not listening

You're not listening

I said it with my chest and I don't care who I offend, uh huh, ha

§1 Dignity and violation (moral codes) - we can conclude that how you treat a person is how you evaluate them. It's your problem if you see them as just a fleshy figure for servitude or pleasure. Not on a woman to make you treat them with dignity or keep a dignity approach or not.

§2 insult - it's interestinf how somewhere in Great Britain the butt is used to insult the people you don't like. It mught be a synonym to diagust or showinf a tounge but in adult manner maybe.

§3 Shame (fake, bear's assistance (disservice), female empowerment followed to antishame, a cake with smb else fetish fantazy fanservice)

women in history were told how they'd be wearing, percieving, a barbie antiutopia to just how male rule, view while abusing God world and religion against women. Now since those developers or producers are self-proclamed emancipators we immediately find out that skimpy clothing is empowering and women should not be ashamed. While not correcting or critisising the hanful error ways their system abused and bossed around women's apperance and wardrobe. Also yup adding more to lusting offence and unadressed predatory acting.

§4 trigger femnazis (in order to)- they are always dissatisfyed, complayining, sensituve and ruining ev3rything for us. We would especially do that to make they upset, scilent and ashamed of themselves even more.