[Three of Seven]

COMMUNITY DEBATE
IS IT COOL TO BE OFFENDED?

In todays culture, we have seen a number of incidents with a large group of people getting offended about small details in a game, a recent example is the Tracer pose incident in Overwatch. Although it extends outside of gaming and into the real world as well, with people becoming offended and calling for a safe space. There are many notable examples where people have been offended by something and a large fallout has ensued, in most cases causing someone to be judged as guilty before they have even spoken.

With so many people getting offended and that resulting in changes being made, are people jumping on using being offended to push through their own agenda or is there something legitimate to it? Do we back down more now to people being offended than we used to in the past?

[Shatterhand]

Oh, I absolutely think people are using so-called offense about certain things to gain leverage for themselves. And why not? We've made it so easy.

We, as a society, have become obsessed with three things: fear of offending someone, actually being offended by something, and reparations for said offense. Even by accident, you can stumble onto any given website (news, fan page, forum, whatever) and read about some incident where someone said or did something and how someone else (or a bunch of people) is outraged and offended about it and expects an apology or other type of reparation. It seems to be an almost-daily occurrence. The subject, the source and the unwitting target may be different, but the routine never changes.

The problem really started happening in the late 80's and early 90's, when people started coming out of that fog that convinced us we could use demeaning gender, racial, religious or lifestyle terms and get away with it. We were finally being told, "Hey! You're not allowed to say/do that anymore!" But since the pendulum only swings in extremes (especially in the US), we went completely overboard with it and the P.C. (politically correct) movement began. Political correctness continued to grow and mutate - especially so with the dawn of the Internet - and now we're at the point where we've almost done a full 360-degree turn back to using demeaning/shaming terms and actions towards other people. The difference now is that, thanks to the visibility modern media and the Internet provides all of us, we're seeing and hearing about it more easily so the offenders are getting called out fairly quickly.

The aforementioned mutation comes into play when that over-sensitivity causes people to switch into "OFFENDED!!!" mode over things that are not intended to offend anyone or have never knowingly offended anyone before. We've become FAR too sensitive about nearly everything and don't know how and when to pick our battles. We're not content with just an apology anymore; we engage in aggressive boycotts, demand punishment of some sort.

As easy as it has become now to find offense, it's also just as easy to feign or exaggerate offense to gain personal ground. If there's something we find personally inconvenient or troublesome, how do we solve it now? Claim it offends or violates us in such a way as to make anyone who contests us seem like a terrible person for advocating its continued practice. It happens far more than we care to think. People are eager to play the race, gender, religion, or lifestyle-choice cards in order to effectively counter or sabotage that stands in the way of what they want to achieve or de-stabilize.

[aceman67]

"I'm offended at you being offended at my offensiveness." ~Most people today.

Seriously, sometimes people need to cool their jets sometimes. Just because something is offensive, it doesn't need a response, or be stopped.

[Stormy]

I could actually write a couple of chapters about this, or possibly something of novel length....but I won't.

People today are self-centered and selfish. Period. Many believe they are entitled to live their life without any adversity whatsoever... yet they want to do so in a world that is the definition of diversity. I've always thought these people needed to be placed in one of those bubbles where they have no contact whatsoever with the world around them. Then I decided these overly-sensitive types would be offended by that as well. These people worship the failed belief of all-encompassing political correctness. Should this vein of consciousness grow, we are doomed. No society which values a person's right to individuality will survive where the mantra of "political correctness" is the mandate of the day. It is my opinion the doctrine of political correctness can actually destroy a nation quicker than a full-scale invasion by another country.

I am a Southern-born American who was raised on very conservative Judaeo-Christian values. This works for me and I'm happy with who I am. At the same time I am aware there are those whose culture and values are very contradictory to mine.

WARNING: DISCLAIMER ALERT! ! ! THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS COULD CAUSE SOME TO BE OFFENDED! ! ! BY READING ANY MORE OF THIS POST, YOU FULLY ACCEPT ALL RESPONSIBILITY FOR HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT WHAT IS WRITTEN FROM THIS POINT ON! ! !

Guess what? I do not have to accept your values, your culture, your lifestyle or your beliefs. Period.

Still reading? Yes? Good.

If I do not have to accept your values, culture, lifestyle or beliefs, that means you do not have to accept mine. Period. It's a two way street. To believe anything less would be hypocritical.

Now that we have agreed we can disagree, let's agree on one more thing. Even though you and I may be completely different, we can still respect one another as individuals and co-exist without taking offense in each others differences. We can work with one another, eat with one another, play with one another (Not like that! OK, maybe like that, too!) and one day, explore other galaxies together in an effort to find even more civilizations with values and beliefs not like ours. After all, isn't that the very core of what Gene Roddenberry tried to teach us when he created this thing called Star Trek?

Still offended? No? Good. There's hope for us yet.

[Buckaroo]

Stormy, I think you need to put your TRIGGER WARNING label at the beginning of your post.

Also, I couldn't agree more with you on the whole subject. Although I wasn't raised in the south (actually, I was raised in the most northern state of the US), I was raised with the same principles and beliefs.

[Avenger]

I work with 85% of my workforce who love drama, everything is too much effort, everything is outside their job description, they're all unhelpful and love to get wound up over the smallest crap you've ever known because they love to pretend they are the big I am by telling their other coworkers how much they've had a pop at somebody over something!

People are just infuriating who love a bit of drama!