Are we all too easily offended these days?

[Gigitree]

After calling someone out for their ’jokes’ full of chauvinistic bigotry, I was met with that oh so nuanced argument ‘oh everyone is so easily offended these days, you can’t say or do anything anymore’

What are your thoughts? Are we generally more easily offended these days? Should we just ignore ‘jokes’ like these or should we call people out for their casual racism, homophobia or anti-feminist attitude?

justturtlesallthewaydown--your initial response on this thread was so brilliant! So succinct, so to the point! 6 stars out of five!

Splillinteas

Lucky them going into a bar !! One can only dream of such pleasures!!

Students are being told that they are the (paying) consumers

Well in the UK they are.

Of course but that doesn’t mean that they can made crazy demands of the ibis and colleges. They don’t ‘own the business’.

^Why are universities so spineless when students threaten faculty and staff like that?!
What an awful thing for him and his family to experience^

Nonny

Douglas Murray describes this enabling behaviour as the adults have left the room. I think academia has long been dominated, especially in the social sciences and humanities, by a default left wing perspective. In the era of identity politics, and its sinister certainties and denunciations, the idea that anyone who questions the new orthodoxy is a 'fascist' goes without challenge. I just read here today on another thread about the awful bullying of a PhD student. What's so shocking about all of this is this is there are activists on campus who want to silence debate and prevent academic research. What is going on in academia? There needs to be a vigorous defence of freedom of speech. I think you would like The Madness of Crowds. Douglas Murray is scathing about the 'anti fascist' activists who adopt stormtrooper tactics.....

This whole policing language thing is akin to tidying up a room by simply hiding the mess. Pulling up the rug/carpets and sweeping all the mess under it. You haven’t cleaned up the room you have merely given it the superficial impression it has been cleaned.

Real racism/sexism isn’t tackled by simply telling people what words they can/cannot use. All you get then are covert racists and sexists who know how to play the game and not sound like they are. Look how many men will pay lip service to women’s equality but carry on brutalising and disrespecting them when they think no one is looking

Those Evergreen students were, pure and simple, bullies. They found their victim weak, and ramped it up - moving on to the cafeteria. They were like a mob of out-of-control militia raping and pillaging. I wonder what their parents thought about their behaviour. If I'd seen one of my dcs behaving like that I'd have been thoroughly ashamed.

Evergreen is terrifying. I don't know how anyone can look at it and not be deeply shocked.

Evergreen is terrifying. I don't know how anyone can look at it and not be deeply shocked

Dido

It really is shocking. Douglas Murray describes how George Bridges, the College President, was treated during the Evergreen debacle. It included being initially refused perpermission to go to the toilet then being accompanied to the toilet. Unbelievable. Then there is a section on Yale. It's astonishing.

^They claimed themselves as the most oppressed but had no issue using their power to target a working class member of staff just doing their job.
This is how easy it is to manipulate language of oppression if you have a vested interest in constantly changing language to wrong foot others^

Molten

Isn't that interesting? What despicable behaviour. The entire thing is beyond grim.

I doubt that the capacity of human nature to feel ‘offended’ has changed very much. In some respects our attitudes are more enlightened so that sometimes we’re able to point out what we find unacceptable.

I think ‘people are too easily offended these days’ is often a lazy get out clause; a way for people to avoid examining what they’ve said. If I had to make generalisations about ‘people these days’ I’d say they are too quick to dismiss others’ concerns about offence rather than being too easily offended.

It really is shocking. Douglas Murray describes how George Bridges, the College President, was treated during the Evergreen debacle. It included being initially refused perpermission to go to the toilet then being accompanied to the toilet. Unbelievable. Then there is a section on Yale. It's astonishing.

Bridges was a wanker who largely created the whole situation and threw his faculty under the bus.

Bridges was a wanker who largely created the whole situation and threw his faculty under the bus
Goosefoot
How did Bridges, irrespective of his shortcomings, responsible for the bullying, threatening behaviour of a bunch of students? What a preposterous comment. Those students are responsible for their actions and their actions demonstrate a grotesque totalitarian #no debate zealotry.

@redcarbluecar

I doubt that the capacity of human nature to feel ‘offended’ has changed very much. In some respects our attitudes are more enlightened so that sometimes we’re able to point out what we find unacceptable.

I think ‘people are too easily offended these days’ is often a lazy get out clause; a way for people to avoid examining what they’ve said. If I had to make generalisations about ‘people these days’ I’d say they are too quick to dismiss others’ concerns about offence rather than being too easily offended.

There is a difference between finding something unacceptable and being offended by something. Being offended implies a visceral feeling of annoyance/ upset - you take it personally. That is different from finding something unacceptable. I certainly get offended (visceral reaction) by overly-generalised things people say about my socio-economic group, but I recognise that me feeling that doesn't, of itself, make what they said unacceptable. I may or may not say something about how I feel depending on context. I may or may not pick apart what they have said. Equally, I sometimes think that something someone says is unacceptable but I am not personally offended (though maybe angry or shocked) and again I may or may not say something depending on context. Obviously the two can go together, but we need to be able to separate the feelings from the rational analysis of what was said.

How did Bridges, irrespective of his shortcomings, responsible for the bullying, threatening behaviour of a bunch of students? What a preposterous comment. Those students are responsible for their actions and their actions demonstrate a grotesque totalitarian #no debate zealotry.

It's not crazy if you actually bother to find out about the whole series of events.

There were all kinds of steps leading up to the cafeteria business. Bridges was the one who initiated the scheme of decolonizing the campus, he encouraged the students all the way along with their horrible schemes and behaviour, encouraged them to humiliate and intimidate staff and other students, did not discipline them even after their worst excesses, made it clear to the staff they would not be supported and they had better get used to the new way of doing things or they were not wanted.

After the whole thing was over he indicated that the administration was quite pleased with the way things had gone.

Bridges was the one who initiated the scheme of decolonizing the campus

So the student were merely following the orders of Bridges? You absolve them of any responsibility for their repellent behaviour? Seriously? If what you say about him is true and he instigated these events, can you provide a link?

Quillette has an interesting article on Evergreen and Bridges. It highlights the toxicity at the centre of identity politics. It is unsurprising that Bridges is a sociologist. The rejection of rational discourse. The promotion of Manichean certainties. The # no debate fanatics. The demonisation of anyone who questions the new hierarchy of intersectional oppression. How many times is this paradigm being replicated across social science departments on both sides of the Atlantic?

^Bridges systematically implemented a grievance culture by empowering radical faculty members, rejecting reasoned discourse in favour of the sanctity of subjective experience and multiple truths, promoting a binary worldview of allies and enemies, draping major initiatives in vague notions of equity and social justice, and consistently apologising for every accusation, whatever its merits. Eventually, he was devoured by a beast of his own creation, as anger and righteousness engulfed the students and they were egged on by radical faculty members acting without restraint.
Despite all that has happened, Evergreen has continued undeterred along the path set by Bridges when he arrived. When confronted in an interview with a student’s statement that he’s a white supremacist, Bridges said he doesn’t believe he is, but was quick to add “I’m a white person in a position of privilege.” Towards the end of their article, Heying and Weinstein remark that they feel “we were paid to leave a burning building^

quillette.com/2017/12/18/activists-took-control-university-case-study-evergreen-state/

rejecting reasoned discourse in favour of the sanctity of subjective experience

I see this in other areas. But particularIy see this happening with a vulnerable segment of society I am involved in supporting. The result so far has been the destruction of support and replacement with a very narrow view that does not reflect the experience of the members of that segment (other than a very few privileged members). Proper research is dismissed as it does not centre the subjective experience of the activists.

So the student were merely following the orders of Bridges? You absolve them of any responsibility for their repellent behaviour? Seriously? If what you say about him is true and he instigated these events, can you provide a link?

I didn't say anything about the students not being responsible for their actions, why would you think that?

I certainly don't feel sorry for Bridges though, he was very much hoist by his own petard. Leadership makes a real difference in these kinds of scenarios, and this wasn't just weak leadership. He wanted to make a mark by leading the school in a particular direction, so he encouraged these student groups to come up with demands, and supported them when they tried to implement them. He failed to stand up for and support the staff, or call the authorities when he ought to have done so.

There is a good documentary on Youtube about the whole chain of events, including Bridges' role. I'd love more insight into what in God's name he was thinking because he seems totally cracked, but I've not seen anything about it.