Taking Offense

Hello out there

My friend brought a rather relevant topic to my attention today, which I thought might interest some of you as well--taking offense. We can’t deny that offense is in abundance everywhere, that it’s too common a reaction to the national and personal discourse, and finally (and most importantly) it is avoidable and a harmful way to respond to others. To specify, we harm both others and ourselves by taking offense (but really mostly just ourselves).

The etymology of the word offend is interesting in that it means both “to strike against, to hurt” and “to displeasure” or “cause annoyance.” This is a word where physical and psychological pain meet. While I do think that words are important, and therefore do try to measure my own speech in order to avoid miscommunication, unnecessary harm, or disrespect, words really only hurt us if WE let them. And boy are we letting them. People are getting offended over real or perceived slights, women offended over real or unintended off-color comments, men offended when women don’t respond well to their advances, others offended when Libs are attacked or Trump is attacked or moderates are attacked etc etc. Offense abounds, and I have indulged in my share of it myself throughout my lifetime. Thus my gratitude when my friend brought the subject to my attention that I might give it a little thought and introspection. We agreed that taking offense is a selfish and insecure response to a situation.

I don’t like rudeness/crassness/bigotry and luckily I don’t have to spend much time with people who embody these characteristics. Nor do I have to get offended by them. Hopefully, people will extend me the same grace when I unintentionally offend, or when I’m in terrible form and am just acting rudely or thoughtlessly (I try never to do this but I don’t always live up to my best intentions). Getting offended as a response to words is simply another habit, such as anger, jealousy, fear etc, that can be broken. I think we’d all be a bit happier putting this bad habit behind us.


None of this is to excuse other more egregious injustices that people are facing. I see real issues facing Americans, some new and others go back generations, but these require wisdom and proactive measures, not indignation.

What are your thoughts on the topic?

a reply to: zosimov

Well one can always try to communicate better,

but often that leads to the revelation of how F retarded some people are.

Back to square one

As much as I hate to say it, perhaps there was something to be said for the old system of duels - Code duello.

Codes duello regulate dueling and thus help prevent vendettas between families and other social factions. They ensure that non-violent means of reaching agreement be exhausted and that harm be reduced, both by limiting the terms of engagement and by providing medical care. Finally, they ensure that the proceedings have a number of witnesses. The witnesses could assure grieving members of factions of the fairness of the duel, and could help provide testimony if legal authorities become involved.

This held sway up through the 19th century, and the aim was to ensure that all methods of settling grievances nonviolently were exhausted before it reached violence. Sure, we can argue that this was for a less civilized time, but look around - can we really claim that our society is socially evolved at the moment?

The other aim was to prevent or reduce vendettas between groups and families - something else that we need right now in our tribally divided society. Who knows? This might even be good if gangs were to pick it up. No one says the duels would be to the death as much as that's what we see in Hollywood.

But maybe, a similar system would wash the need to beat the crap out of each other away fairly quickly and force us to rediscover the rules of civility.

Dogs have many friends. Because they wag their tail instead of their mouth .

a reply to: zosimov

Great OP. It’s nice to see some actual humanity on ATS for a change.

a reply to: zosimov

What I see are people going miles out of their way to offend people and then bitching about the targets being upset/angry/retaliatory. Then there's the other side of the coin with people who seem to spend their time looking for reasons to be offended. If you think about it, the latter are just as keen to offend as the former, they just take a sneakier route to get there. Both of whom are as bad as each other and made all the worse because they get amplified by all the other assholes who do the same thing.

Nice music link

This one might sum up how some people feel being ambushed by either type of the assholes. Can't hear it without a foot starting to tap and my head doing a Jagger. Get off my cloud!!

originally posted by: Kandinsky
a reply to: zosimov

What I see are people going miles out of their way to offend people and then bitching about the targets being upset/angry/retaliatory. Then there's the other side of the coin with people who seem to spend their time looking for reasons to be offended. If you think about it, the latter are just as keen to offend as the former, they just take a sneakier route to get there. Both of whom are as bad as each other and made all the worse because they get amplified by all the other assholes who do the same thing.

I'm chuckling here Kandinsky because you definitely have a great point here. I loved that bolded part, a very keen observation on your part I'd say.

And yes, the snarky, cruel, hateful comments people make are horrible. I don't condone those at all, and they do seem to be on the rise due to anonymity or callousness. One big problem I see is getting offended by these often results in responding in kind, which exponentially adds to the hatred.

In any case I am glad you liked the song.

a reply to: zosimov

By sheer happenstance the next track on YT was this one. Great track and I hadn't heard it before! It's what Wu Tang used as the backing loop on this one.

And yes, the snarky, cruel, hateful comments people make are horrible. I don't condone those at all, and they do seem to be on the rise due to anonymity or callousness. One big problem I see is getting offended by these often results in responding in kind, which exponentially adds to the hatred.

Exactly. 'Don't start nuthin' won't be nuthin.' It's an arms race with either extreme leaving landmines where the rest of us would prefer discussions. We're all guilty of being on one side or another sometimes.

Some people have bought a mortgage and live there 24/7 and that's the difference.

a reply to: zosimov


Weird. I was reading this report last week (sciencedaily.com): Schadenfreude sheds light on darker side of humanity,

Schadenfreude, the sense of pleasure people derive from the misfortune of others, is a familiar feeling to many -- perhaps especially during these times of pervasive social media.

This common, yet poorly understood, emotion may provide a valuable window into the darker side of humanity, finds a review article by psychologists at Emory University.

New Ideas in Psychology published the review, which drew upon evidence from three decades of social, developmental, personality and clinical research to devise a novel framework to systematically explain schadenfreude. The authors propose that schadenfreude comprises three separable but interrelated subforms -- aggression, rivalry and justice -- which have distinct developmental origins and personality correlates.

Which had me wondering about things for a while. It is like a mirror book end of taking offense!

After reading this article, we had an incident in town where one group felt they had been mistreated. They worked themselves into a frenzy on social media. Then somebody, they don't know who but you can see what led up to this, went back to the restaurant and did some stupid violence and pyrotechnics upon the kitchen.

All because some homeless people were asked to leave with their order. Which is another can of worms.

But the whole psychology is fascinating. Self identifying as "being dehumanized" leads to an act of aggression in some method of getting justice. In a society that you are personally isolating yourself from by not taking part. And that is the reason for mistreatment and identifying a group as "they" and taking out the personal (and human). A vicious circle.

In addition to taking offense, you can add Schadenfreude, as it seems to be part of the spectrum.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

I shake my head whenever people are revelling in schadenfreude.

Ahhh f***, I'm schadenfreuding schadenfreuders!

a reply to: Kandinsky


I have been saying "PC is neither. Political or Correct." because you are not dealing with people just the labels you are using. You know, "A rose by any other name..."

But what do you expect from [enter favorite PC terms that are more meaningless than helpful]??

I used to get, "Hey brother!" from anybody with long hair. Since I cut it off (got tired of taking care of it), not so much. How weird our social life is! Latest example, I hurt the bartender's feelings for yelling at her, twice, to leave the World Series part on (all other sports were over with anyway). We fist bumped it out later but she was hurt. As was I for watching a bunch of Boston games during the season and not getting to watch a bunch of sweaty guys wearing ski goggles pouring champagne over each other because "watch football"! That hurt!

Hey, we need a :fistbump: emoji! lol...

I don't get offended easily for the most part. What does peeve me off are guys that talk down to me using patronizing terms like "sweetheart" or "honey." I don't mean those that call all women sweetie or honey. I mean those that use "that tone" which drips in "you're a dumb female" vibes. There are a few of them that come around the store and I just want to tell them to eff off every time they hit my department.

I'm not one of those women that get offended by endearment terms, nor do I bristle if someone calls me Dude. I call people Dude all the time, be they male or female. It's just a nonspecific designation to me by now. Kind of like how people say "You guys" to indicate a group regardless of gender in that group.

I sure don't scream sexual harassment over an off-color joke, but don't put your hands on me. Male or female. I like my personal space and you don't gotta be right in my face or touching my shoulders or arms. Touchy feely people are a big noooope for me.

Frankly, I'm tired and done with the PC crowd though. FFS, not everything is about you, nor is it deliberately about offending you.

There was recently a woman that hit up the World of Warcraft forums and she was upset that one of the NPC's in the game has the name Endo. She claimed that "endo" is a term used to indicate endometriosis and therefor might trigger and bring pain to women suffering from the disease. She wanted Blizzard to consider changing the NPC's name. My eyes rolled so hard upon reading that post I think I hurt myself. This is what we're been reduced to as a society. Taking offense of a pixel character's name just because it shares the first 4 letters of a disease that some women get.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

I used to get, "Hey brother!" from anybody with long hair. Since I cut it off (got tired of taking care of it), not so much.

Lol mate, I had the same thing happen after having long hair for years. You get flushed from one in-crowd to another an nothing's changed under the skull - same views and character. People eh? We're f***ing ridiculous!!

🤜🤛

a reply to: Subrosabelow

She claimed that "endo" is a term used to indicate endometriosis and therefor might trigger and bring pain to women suffering from the disease.

Man that's sad. Everyone knows an endo is one of these:

originally posted by: zosimov

Thus my gratitude when my friend brought the subject to my attention that I might give it a little thought and introspection. We agreed that taking offense is a selfish and insecure response to a situation.

Listening Without Inward or Outward Defence.

originally posted by: zosimov
Hopefully, people will extend me the same grace when I unintentionally offend...

When's the last time that happened? 2000 and never?

While people can be very hurtful, often on purpose, to create a reaction.... when we become offended and allow ourselves to remain in that state, we allow others to have control over us (at least to a degree).

I think the current climate of “you can’t say/do that because it offends me” is dangerous and stunts the growth of those who want to live by that rule. People are allowed to be offensive, they are allowed to hold offensive beliefs, or dress in offensive costumes - because they are their own person.

I believe this is a sound argument:

a reply to: zosimov

snarky, cruel, hateful comments people make are horrible. I don't condone those at all, and they do seem to be on the rise due to anonymity

My husband has theory, or a vision- not entirely sure if it’s entirely his own or pieced together from things he has read/listened to. But he believes that, eventually, our society will be SO review driven that everything we do online (all accounts, comments, buying, selling....) will be linked together and people can get a glimpse of what kind of person we are (inflammatory, truthful, honest, kind, douche, creep...). That anonymity online will be a thing of the past.

That’s kind of scary, but I think it is kind of awesome as well. People shouldn’t be ugly because they can hide their face- if you can’t own what you say and do, then you shouldn’t be doing it.

a reply to: chelsdh

Precisely.

For a lot of the things people blame others for, the offense is in the eye of the beholder so to speak.

Let's take some of the things called microaggressions. Apparently, if all the seats in the room are taken and a POC has to enter last and take the last seat, especially if no one else in the room is a POC, that's offensive and shaming to the person of color.

But to blame all the people who got there first for causing that offense basically is accusing them of creating a conspiracy against that one person. They all had to more or less coordinate their efforts in order to ensure they all arrived before that one person to denigrate them and create that discomfort.

The offense, such as it is, exists solely in that one person's mind, and that person likely never once stops to think that any other person, upon arriving after everyone else, no matter their color, could feel equally on the spot about having to enter in front of all their classmates to take the very last seat.

But we create a world where if you feel bad about anything, the cause is because someone else made you feel bad and the blame lies with them. Intent no longer matters.