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?

Why do people think it’s the same people who point out each potentially offensive situation? Different people might find different situations challenging. People are not homogenous. The ‘terminally offended’ (dreadful phrase) are not one single entity. Different people, different views, different triggers.

@Underthinker

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?

Well, yes! That’s sort of what I was saying. Offence is in the eye of the beholder (at least in that grey area I referred to). So it entirely depends on the views of those ‘receiving’ the offence.

‘Song and dance’, ‘Virtue signalling’ , you’ve just proved OP’s point.

Some people don’t like to be confronted by the possibility of injustice and racism and cry these clichés to draw attention away from what’s happening.

It’s so obvious and tedious.

And yes, forums like Mumsnet are the perfect places to discuss these issues and get people’s views. Where would you prefer people to go?

I think the most obvious professionally unoffended threads are the gollywog ones. They are so extreme that I sometimes some sort of Big Golly cartel.

But do you think a person at the very easily offended end of the spectrum should always be accommodated? So, as has been suggested earlier, if they are offended by something we should stop saying it because it doesn't hurt us to be nice?

For example, if I were to say, it offends me to have women called 'mums' (it doesn't, just an example!) it offends me because the role of mum has negative connections for women, reducing them to their biological and social role and defining them by their relationships to others not in their own right..would you stop using 'mums' yourself? Join my campaign to have the site renamed as personintheirownrightnet?Perhaps you, who clearly have the vocabulary and articulacy to express yourself would refuse and put forward your reasons for that. Other people might want to refuse but not have the words or motivation to explain why (after all, I'm pretty dogmatic in my view and you won't shift me) that's when they eye role and terminally offended tends to appear. Obviously it's no substitute for discussion and debate, but I do understand why people use it and I have never seen it bring a discussion to a close.

@5128gap Personally, I'm not sure the extreme end is a particularly useful place to discuss a language shift, although I'd usually try to accommodate an individual person's wants/needs. There are people who object to the name Mumsnet because it doesn't include dads. Personally, I think that there has been such a history of women being excluded that I'm happy for it to lean the other way for a while. But that's in general terms. If an individual woman didn't want to be called a mum, then I probably wouldn't. But because it's not a derogatory term (even though it's one that I actually don't like!) then I'd keep using it in general terms. Sorry- that was a bit stream of consciousness. I hope it made sense. I'm a bit thrown by being called obnoxious downthread!

@5128gap

But do you think a person at the very easily offended end of the spectrum should always be accommodated?

Not personally no. In most cases I'd lean towards people who are offended at others' speech toughening up a bit as opposed to everyone else adjusting their language. There are probably exceptions though.

No, Person A wasn't claiming to be offended BUT making a big 'sexism' thing out of a man telling a woman to smile will be considered by some to be 'making a mountain out of a molehill'.

We currently live in a era where it seems everything is politicised. And the majority of people are sick of it.

Accommodating individual preferences is a good place to start. Most people who have unusual views - like a dislike of “mums” would be - aren’t looking to change how everyone describes themselves, only how people talk about them individually. Decent people respect that, but that doesn’t mean a complete re-brand of the term in general use.

Where there is a consensus, or at least a reasonable cohort of people who agree with that view, then a change in general usage might be sensible, unless you actively want to go around pissing people off, just to prove a point.

And if you think your desire to use a specific word to describe other people is more important to you, than how that person feels about being described that way, I have questions about your motives.

I agree in principle. The problem lies in the definition of 'reasonable cohort' though, as how many would that be? And do we know they're the majority, or just the loudest? As a general principle I would agree that there is no harm in using an individuals preferred words and descriptions and that that is the right thing to do. There are however, imo exceptions to this, and at times a person desire (and right) to use certain language is of at least equal importance to another persons preferences for the language used.

But do you think a person at the very easily offended end of the spectrum should always be accommodated?

No, of course not. As I’ve said, there are grey areas, and people should be able to explain their point either way.

I sort of get what you’re saying about people who may not be articulate enough to respond and therefore just shout ‘snowflake’ or whatever… but I find those people exasperating, as per my OP! I’m afraid that people need to be able to defend their views if they want to challenge other people’s views! To be brutally honest, if they can’t explain why something is not offensive, they probably won’t understand why some people might be upset.

Okay. So you’re offended.

So what?

Oh, you speak for majority, do you?

I thought that example was obvious enough in terms of its sexism, but apparently not. It doesn’t mean it’s a massive deal, but men telling women to smile is, in my humble opinion, rooted in sexism. Ask yourself this: how many women have you heard telling random men to smile in public?

Sorry? Who’s offended? Not sure who you mean 🤷‍♀️

I don’t understand why you think it matters.

If X is offended because Y said something they don’t like, so what? Okay, they’re upset. So what?

Oh I see. You think if anyone is offended by anything, it’s never an issue?

Well, firstly, I wasn’t really talking about being ‘offended’ as you’ll see from the start of the thread. I was talking about identifying prejudice.

But, yes, people are offended by prejudice. That’s why, for example, it’s deemed unacceptable to shout racial slurs in the street. Do you think that’s an ok thing to do?

People who use that phrase are usually offended themselves

Like, if you point out something they do is offkey, they get offended by that, feeling personally criticised, and so defend their behaviour by saying you're the problem, you're just too sensitive.

Same as "political correctness gone mad" or more recently, "woke".

It's easier and reassuring to them to use an ad hominem attack about the person pointing out the behaviour. So they don't have to question themselves and how they behave.

Kind of like DARVOing and a sign of emotional immaturity perhaps.

I didn’t say it was okay. I said okay, X is offended over Y. So what?

Bill doesn’t like that Janet said JKR should be cancelled. Okay. So what?

Jane doesn’t like that Luke thinks the Tories are a better party. Okay. So what?

Lily doesn’t like that Alma thinks the term chest feeding is fucking ridiculous. Okay. So what?

Bill, Jane and Lily need to move the fuck on with their lives. They either decide it doesn’t matter enough to carry on seeing the person, or they decide they have their knickers in too much of a twist and go NC.

No drama necessary.

I’m fed up being told I’m offended when I critique something. I’m not sure why am emotional aspect is attributed to it.

From what I see and hear, yes. They just don't say it out loud for fear of being cancelled by a very vocal minority.

In your example, it's not about whether it's sexism; just how much we want to make an issue of it. You do, I don't. And I'm like that generally in life. There is very little that offends me.

This! 👏👏

No one said there needed to be any drama though?🤷‍♀️

But if we didn’t identify prejudice and act accordingly, you would still hear racial slurs in the street and no one would bat an eyelid.

We seem to be conflating a lot of different things here. I don't think we're talking about being offended by other people having different mainstream political opinions, are we? "Mary's so triggered by conservative voters that we never mention them in her presence." I thought the professionally offended charge is usually brought out against people who are careful about language. Or about other people's cultures. Like saying "Happy Holidays." Or when there was a fuss about the Red Cross not selling Christmas cards, until it turned out that there was a very good reason they don't.

But if we didn’t identify prejudice and act accordingly, you would still hear racial slurs in the street and no one would bat an eyelid

Absolutely, I'm all for finding injustices and making the world a better place. But then we can't just assume that every bit of prejudice identified is valid. If you think X is sexist, racist, unjust or whatever, maybe it is and maybe it isn't. Some people might even call you terminally offended as a knee-jerk reaction then reflect on it later and agree with you.

Indeed. I sometimes think that those posters who are vehemently defending some bit of sexism to the death on a particular thread might actually go away and reflect in private and re-think.

I’m not suggesting that every time someone identifies something as prejudiced, they must be right either. As I’ve said - people need to argue their case.

But we’ve seen on this thread that some people will, when confronted with the obvious (eg men telling women to smile is usually down to ingrained sexism), try to dismiss it without actually engaging with the details. That’s exasperating.