To be exasperated with posters who refer to ‘the terminally offended’?

[BernardBlacksBreakfastWine]

Been lurking on a couple of threads recently and I just get so frustrated by posters who use these phrases:

”People are offended by EVERYTHING these days.”

”Snowflake”

”The terminally/permanently offended”

etc

It’s just so empty and pointless; you could equally have used these phrases against, say, people objecting to page three photos a few years ago (and, to be fair, some of these posters probably did).

People get so angry when prejudice is pointed out to them. You just know they’re aching to say “This is political correctness gone mad!” but they at least know that’s been discredited, so they pull out one of those other meaningless catchphrases.

AIBU to wish that people could actually articulate a reason that people shouldn’t be offended by insidious prejudice rather than just slinging pointless insults?

It is a well documented fact that black people are treated more severely by the police than white people. I have no idea what was happening in either of these cases, but it is always worth taking into consideration.

Unless he acted in contravention of a prior instruction NOT to say it, a complaint that an employee greeted customers in a polite and traditional manner does not need to be investigated. Whether the person ends up exonerated or not, a complaint investigation is stressful for them, and time consuming for the employer. If the company want to change their language to avoid offending non binary people then that's their call, but to investigate this man was a ridiculous waste of time and unfair. I don't blame the complainant nearly as much as the train company. Who would be far better employed investigating complaints about delays, overcrowding, cancelled services and filthy carriages.

Gobbledegook!

"Oh the irony" doesn't quite work here because @CurlewKate was neither virtue signalling nor bullying you in that post.

It's always Interesting that words like "getting offended" "being worked up""ranting" even occasionally "shrieking" or "hysterical" are used to describe what is usually suggestion or enquiry or opinion. If anything is shutting down, it is language like that!

@5128gap "Unless he acted in contravention of a prior instruction NOT to say it, a complaint that an employee greeted customers in a polite and traditional manner does not need to be investigated."

Well it does- even if the investigation consists of "What exactly did you say? OK, fine, that's all."

Do you have any evidence to back this up?

If someone asked a question or made an enquiry I wouldn't think they were offended.

But if someone complained about me on twitter tagging in my employer and said that I had made them "alarmed and uncomfortable" at first I'd be mortified that I must have done something awful without realising, then when I discovered what I'd actually done was to use a perfectly ordinary and innocuous phrase, I suppose I'd think they were "professionally offended".

I agree. It’s the new version of the unintelligent ‘PC gawn maaaad’. People aren’t usually ‘offended’ as such but questioning the appropriateness of something. I am rarely ‘offended’ by stuff but like to question if something is acceptable or not. It’s analytical and an example of critical and intelligent thinking.

When posters write, ‘some people are looking for things to be offended by’, I think less of them. (Unrelated but see also, ‘if this is the most important problem you have in your life, then I envy you’. )

Oh dear. You think that is ‘ranting and raving’. Your post is such a cliche.

But Person B is deliberately using the "snowflake" and "permanently offended" terms as insults, with the singular intention of shutting down the conversation with their pronouncement. They know what they're doing. They do actually think that women should look pleased at all times and that men should be able to tell them what to do. They can't say those very words (because they're too cowardly to be on the receiving end of "you sexist pig"), so they use acceptable insults like "snowflake" and "permanently offended". What they want to say is: you are a person who dosn't chime with my world view, and you need to shut up. Person B has zero intention of engaging in reasonable debate.

I think you give them too much credit.

Did you actually type that without irony 😧

What country do you live in?

@Iloveyoubut sorry? What the irony?

No, I think it was ironic.

What @LancashireTart has done here is turn @CurlewKate's demands for examples back on her hoping to "prove a point"

@LancashireTart "Do you have any evidence to back this up?"

I think the accepted response to this is "Why should I do your research for you?"

You’re not looking to ask
a question or understand. You’re looking to be an arse. What’s the point.

Why so defensive? A simple "No, I don't." would have sufficed.

@Iloveyoubut "You’re not looking to ask
a question or understand. You’re looking to be an arse. What’s the point."

I am absolutely willing to join in the debate. And to understand. But I can't do that without evidence and something concrete to discuss.

Yes, but if someone said something that really really didn't chime with your world view, would you honestly always give them the debate? Or would you maybe sometimes say 'Nope. You're being racist/sexist/homophobic' and try to shit them down?

No, you’re genuinely being obnoxious, it feels pointless to try and discuss with you.

The thing is, we can have examples forever. It won’t really help.

Some things are offensive. Some are not, even by the most creative stretch of the imagination.

Many are in a sort of grey area.

So there will always be a level of disagreement about those categories. The people who are defending the term ‘permanently offended’ will find some things offensive (presumably!) so even they might be called ‘permanently offended’ if their boundary for ‘offensive’ is in a different place from someone else’s.

So we can’t really come to a conclusion on that unless we run through every single example of everything potentially offensive.

But my point was more that, in a disagreement over those ‘grey area’ examples, one of the most stupid, unintelligent things someone can say is “urghh - you’re permanently offended” - because it brings literally nothing to the discussion. It shows a lack of thinking, and I think if you’re going to usefully participate in a discussion about what is and isn’t acceptable or prejudiced, you should be prepared to use your brain.

No, I wouldn’t always give them the opportunity to debate. Frankly, at this age, I’m more inclined to shut it down with a “ugh, racist pig” and move away. The difference is that I’m owning my reason for shutting down the debate, and if I’m challenged I would have no problem defending myself and I would also be right. I’m not hiding behind a curtain of “YOU, the original proclaimer of something, are yourself such and such [snowflake, terminally offended, whatever]”. Throwing out a counter-accusation is easy and lazy. It’s intended to create defensiveness, normally in people who are themselves defending against something in the first place (racism, sexism, whatever). It’s also intellectually lazy because almost always they’re wrong or besides the point with their counter-accusation. It’s meant to deflect. It just makes them look stupid and intellectually stunted.

See, for example, every thread on MN ever about Meghan Markle where someone comes on claiming out of nowhere that someone saying, oh I don’t know, that her Netflix special was crass is in fact just spewing racist bilge. It’s puerile behavior which repels people.

@Iloveyoubut "No, you’re genuinely being obnoxious, it feels pointless to try and discuss with you."

Fair enough. Sad that neither of us will learn anything but so it goes.

This is the sort of stuff I associate with those who throw around terms like ‘professionally offended’:

Some things are offensive. Some are not, even by the most creative stretch of the imagination. Many are in a sort of grey area.

Yes I'd say there's a spectrum. From things that are unlikely to offend anyone through to things that would offend almost everyone.

But do you not also think there is a spectrum of attitudes to receiving offence, from people who find very few ideas offensive to people who take offence easily?

Could it be the case that both the "terminally offended" and the "bigot" accusations are just the people at either extreme of that spectrum failing to see the others' perspective?