I’m afraid we’re offending minority groups reading this site
There is probably a substantial population of people who are minorities and more offended by your projection of them as emotionally fragile and thin skinned, if you’ll pardon the expression.
I’ve meditated on this comment, and have sorted this out: your comment appears to be raising the question, in a particularly non-face-saving way, of whether this conversation is offensive.
Because if it is offensive, then I can surely regret offending. If it isn’t offensive, only then would I be projecting ‘emotional fragility and thin-skinned-ness’.
I would like to point out the obvious, that if it turns out to not be offensive, then this only means that I am emotionally fragile and thin-skinned, a persona I’m happy to wear if it gives me liberty to speak out earlier than otherwise. I speak again of the discomfort I feel of ‘speaking out’ towards the end of this comment. I’m not sure where it comes from but it’s not really a fear of being emotionally fragile. Rather, it’s the confusion of not knowing where to draw the line, and looking for a line to be crossed, and wondering if the line was crossed already and you should already have said something or say something stronger.
I would guess (charitably, I hope) that you expect that any carefully measured, rational discussion of any issue should not be offensive.
However, from previous experience I simply don’t trust this site to have this conversation. My prejudice is that in particular commenters here are overall too naive to notice, or too apathetic to respond appropriately, to the ways evil introduces itself into these intended rational conversations.
Humans are humans are humans everywhere. We have this potential for evil when we try to convince ourselves we’re superior to another group of humans. The next step is rationalize things being different for that group of people. We’ve already been there, for a long time, with minorities. Things are better but they’re still bad and humans are humans are always humans. I’ll skip enumerating examples of the blatant racism I’ve encountered in my life. There’s way to much hatred going on to pretend that this is ‘just a question’, and there is too much potential for abuse—even if the conversation really is rational, which I believe might be possible in a closed discussion here—due to the public nature of the conversation.
My point isn’t that this question is particularly taboo (I think it’s rather absurd, actually) or that a rational discussion isn’t possible. I really think there are other steps that need to be taken first, for example, beginning with a panel of people specifically educated in the appropriate topic (social justice? I’ve no idea) to moderate and make the correct disclaimers regarding the intention of the discussion. I think we (including myself certainly, I have continuously felt extremely uncomfortable speaking out due to being so inarticulate and uninformed) are just butchering the topic, applying a hack-saw willy-nilly to a set of issues that needs some care, considering.
As you may have guessed by now, I think the answer is status. Specifically, to give offense is to imply that a person or group has or should have low status. Taking offense then becomes easy to explain: it’s to defend someone’s status from such an implication, out of a sense of either fairness or self-interest.
I would guess (charitably, I hope) that you expect that any carefully measured, rational discussion of any issue should not be offensive.
Offensiveness is not a property of a discussion, it’s a property of a relationship between an action like speech or a discussion and a person, the offended person. For every discussion, there are possible minds who would be offended by it.
superior
Error: word undefined. Any definition implicates not only a theory of facts of the world but also a theory of values.
There’s way to much hatred going on
Why do you speak primarily of hatred, rather than of other emotions, or of thoughts, or of consequences? For example, it is possible to feel hated while actually being despised, envied, or not thought of at all; one can only infer another’s emotions, it’s an unsure thing.
make the correct disclaimers regarding the intention of the discussion.
Your enemies are not innately evil. When you infer only one meaning from someone’s speech, it is not necessarily what they meant, and the notion both the listener and the speaker may have that the speech only had one meaning is a failure of inferential distance. These are the most important disclaimers.
There is probably a substantial population of people who are minorities and more offended by your projection of them as emotionally fragile and thin skinned, if you’ll pardon the expression.
I’ve meditated on this comment, and have sorted this out: your comment appears to be raising the question, in a particularly non-face-saving way, of whether this conversation is offensive.
Because if it is offensive, then I can surely regret offending. If it isn’t offensive, only then would I be projecting ‘emotional fragility and thin-skinned-ness’.
I would like to point out the obvious, that if it turns out to not be offensive, then this only means that I am emotionally fragile and thin-skinned, a persona I’m happy to wear if it gives me liberty to speak out earlier than otherwise. I speak again of the discomfort I feel of ‘speaking out’ towards the end of this comment. I’m not sure where it comes from but it’s not really a fear of being emotionally fragile. Rather, it’s the confusion of not knowing where to draw the line, and looking for a line to be crossed, and wondering if the line was crossed already and you should already have said something or say something stronger.
I would guess (charitably, I hope) that you expect that any carefully measured, rational discussion of any issue should not be offensive.
However, from previous experience I simply don’t trust this site to have this conversation. My prejudice is that in particular commenters here are overall too naive to notice, or too apathetic to respond appropriately, to the ways evil introduces itself into these intended rational conversations.
Humans are humans are humans everywhere. We have this potential for evil when we try to convince ourselves we’re superior to another group of humans. The next step is rationalize things being different for that group of people. We’ve already been there, for a long time, with minorities. Things are better but they’re still bad and humans are humans are always humans. I’ll skip enumerating examples of the blatant racism I’ve encountered in my life. There’s way to much hatred going on to pretend that this is ‘just a question’, and there is too much potential for abuse—even if the conversation really is rational, which I believe might be possible in a closed discussion here—due to the public nature of the conversation.
My point isn’t that this question is particularly taboo (I think it’s rather absurd, actually) or that a rational discussion isn’t possible. I really think there are other steps that need to be taken first, for example, beginning with a panel of people specifically educated in the appropriate topic (social justice? I’ve no idea) to moderate and make the correct disclaimers regarding the intention of the discussion. I think we (including myself certainly, I have continuously felt extremely uncomfortable speaking out due to being so inarticulate and uninformed) are just butchering the topic, applying a hack-saw willy-nilly to a set of issues that needs some care, considering.
Why would anyone expect that?
What does it mean to be offended? How is it different from being insulted? Is an insult that is true not an insult?
Relevant: The Nature of Offense.
Seems to match this case perfectly.
Offensiveness is not a property of a discussion, it’s a property of a relationship between an action like speech or a discussion and a person, the offended person. For every discussion, there are possible minds who would be offended by it.
Error: word undefined. Any definition implicates not only a theory of facts of the world but also a theory of values.
Why do you speak primarily of hatred, rather than of other emotions, or of thoughts, or of consequences? For example, it is possible to feel hated while actually being despised, envied, or not thought of at all; one can only infer another’s emotions, it’s an unsure thing.
Your enemies are not innately evil. When you infer only one meaning from someone’s speech, it is not necessarily what they meant, and the notion both the listener and the speaker may have that the speech only had one meaning is a failure of inferential distance. These are the most important disclaimers.