What happens when someone feels offended?

[Justmyownself]

Just that really.

I believe that people choose to feel offended, or angry, or sad or whatever emotion they think is relevant to the circumstances.

For example, words are literally just soundwaves. We hear them, consider them, and then attach meaning to them. Consequently we choose an emotion which corresponds to that meaning.

So, if I am overweight but genuienly have no issues with it, and someone makes a remark about my size, I may not choose to attach any meaning to their words because they are of no interest to me. If on the other hand, I am self concious about my weight, if it's an issue for me, then i might choose to attach meaning to that persons words. As acknowledgment of them forces me to confront an issue which makes me uncomfortable.

But what actually happens when someone feels offended? Ok, they might feel bad, but surely that feeling is their own responsibility?

As far as I can see nothing actually happens. The world still turns, the sun still rises. But nothing really happens. You could choose to feel so offended by something that you have to sit in a corner, rocking back and forth while dribbling all over yourself. But nothing actually happens.

Im not talking about obvious criminal offences like public order, as those obviously have legal implications. Im talking about the everyday "offences" which for some reason people seem obsessed about being offended by.

It sometimes feels like being offended by something is just a form of attention seeking. Are grown adults really that weak of character? To me, it sometimes feels like there are no adults in the world anymore. Just a bunch of characterless, over sensitive, narcissistic individuals.

I've got my flame proof knickers on just in case!

It depends what about. If it's a matter of sexism, homophobia, racism etc and you are someone who is not affected by those issues, it's easy to shrug off the concerns of those who are and go 'Oh, surely it's not that bad'. But I think offence can depend a lot on context.

The example I might give is a news story where a Muslim man a few months ago was upset to find someone had left some bacon on his car. Now, to most people that would just be a silly prank, but to someone Muslim, or Jewish like me, that's an upsetting action not because as Jews or Muslims we have an irrational fear of bacon, but it is symbolic of someone saying 'I know you are Jewish/Muslim and I want to upset you and make you feel unsafe'.

It's easy to feel 'That wouldn't bother me, so why would it bother anyone?', when for someone with different life experiences, small things can add up to being very upsetting and oppressive and often that needs to be taken more seriously.

There is a very small minority of ridiculously brittle attention seekers, but when someone different from you says they find something you find OK offensive, you should to consider why you experience it differently.

I tend to be of the opinion that it’s better to have opinions out in the open and challenged rather than hidden. The subversive and forbidden is attractive but the ludicrous and mocked is not.

Take Jayda Fransen for example. She’s an absolute joke. She walks around the streets harassing innocent people with her silly bloody cross. She claims she is a devout Catholic but when challenged she can’t answer basic questions about it, and she doesn’t know basic facts about Islam either. Everywhere she goes crowds turn up to jeer and mock her and reject what she stands for.

But there are more shadowy elements particularly online like Stormfront and Combat 18 that are attractive to a certain type of young man.

It’s the same with extremist Islam. I have seen videos of extremists being publicly challenged by other Muslims who are more knowledgable than them and just trash their points and end up making them look like fools. That’s a lot less attractive than being involved with a secretive subversive organisation.

I tend to be of the opinion that it’s better to have opinions out in the open and challenged rather than hidden.

I agree. But, I think that a lot of the people who complain about people being offended or snowflakes just don't want the inconvenience of people disagreeing with them. They are offended at people being offended.

Why are they so bothered? They seem to be having some sort of reaction to people saying they are offended.

downthestrada, I agree. If you want to voice your opinion you have to be prepared to be told if it offends someone and why and listen to them too. It’s not a one way street.

Yep bundles that's exactly how I see it.

I think the problem lies in the simple shutting down. For example, I live close to Rotherham and there is quite a well known and active local forum. For years before it all came out it used to get raised on there. Particularly when the regular ‘teenage girl gone missing’ articles were in the local paper and then the inevitable ‘girl found in Bradford’ (where they were pimped out) follow up happened. Or warnings about letting young girls use taxis. Obviously nobody could really defend that because it was going on and everyone knew it. So they just shut it down instead. Ditto a local nightclub which is popular with some members of the black community. People said things about gang related crime and it was shut down for racism but then the club lost it’s licence for exactly that.

And that causes another problem - if you shut down everything and some of the things being said are true, people will assume most of what is being shut down is true. They will lose trust in the people shutting it down. IMO it’s much better if you here something you don’t like to make a convincing argument against it and show it’s untrue than having it hidden away leaving some people believing it.

I agree, Bundlesmaids. There was a doctor in Yorkshire who spoke out about the effect inter-family marriage amongst the Pakistani community was having: ie many severely disabled children being born. She was reprimanded for being offensive and any discussion of this practice stifled.

Deliberately trying to cause offence is clearly unacceptable (eg bacon on a car) but failing to address public health problems for fear of causing offence is preposterous.

For example, words are literally just soundwaves. We hear them, consider them, and then attach meaning to them. Consequently we choose an emotion which corresponds to that meaning

That's complete nonsense though, isn't it? It assumes that the person sending out the soundwaves didn't attach a meaning to them before sending them, which the recipient recieves, rather than invents.

You made your OP sound good, but it's a steaming pile of bullshit really, isn't it?

I don't agree with many of your statements, OP. Words have started wars, especially words about race. they are not just soundwaves.

I will always stand up against racism, against racist comments and remarks, against discrimination. Words are not just soundwaves, and the racist comments don't make me sad, or upset. They make me want to take action against racism.

And also against discrimination based on religion, homophobia, etc.

As I've alluded to. The world has cracked its face. You can't open your mouth without someone getting offended

twofishfingers, if ten years ago you had been in Sheffield and seen a post on a local forum saying that local taxi drivers had been exploiting loads of underage girls trafficking them and pimping them out (and implicit in that was that they were Asian and from Muslim backgrounds, because almost 100% of the taxi drivers here are) what would you have done?

Would you have reported it and had it deleted? Sat back and felt good that you had stood up against discrimination? Because that happened here and it was part of a cover up that allowed industrial scale abuse of children.

Bundlesmads, what? how on earth did you come to that conclusion? Reporting crime has absolutely nothing to do with standing up against racism. Reporting crime is what it is. Someone's race would not stop me from reporting a crime. Why would it?

And I think you'll find that people did report it, but it's the police that did nothing. I'm sure you know that they are not an institution known for their stand against racism...

twofishfingers, see my post above. I was talking about my experiences at the time when people tried to discuss it online and it was shut down as racism. But it really was happening.

I was talking about reporting online rather than to the police.

This scenario comes to mind. My brother is a devout Christian who has very fixed views. His wife panders to his needs and runs after him like a servant. At a family gathering he, as usual, shared his views on religion and was talking about the 'Rapture' when all Christians will enter heaven and all 'non Christians' will be sacrificed. He stated that as I am (in his words) a non Christian I will go to hell because I am not worthy like him. I didn't respond or take offence (I think he's bonkers) however after his wife had brought him endless cups of coffee at his request he finally relented and went to get himself some food. My response was a sarcastic ' Praise the lord, he has risen!' In their opinion I was being blasphemous but i was not supposed to take offence at being told I would burn in hell.

Double standards and transferring responsibility onto the other person.

S0upertrooper

No, I disagree. You had every right to feel offence at what was said to you. Just as the others had every right to feel offence at what was said to them. The fact that YOU did not feel (or show that you felt offence), in NO WAY diminishes their right to feel offended.

in their opinion I was being blasphemous

A victimless crime .., ;)

Again offensive? Maybe. Abusive? Nope.

There is a big difference between taking offence and receiving abuse.