The very word “offensive” asks to be interpreted subjectively, therefore it is not very good for anything that is supposed to not be subjective. People do use etymologies to determine what words mean and derive “offensiveness” from “taking offense” which is inherently subjective. There are other words that are much better for these cases, for example, “impolite” covers mostly the same territory as “normative offensiveness” and it also nudges people to think about exactly which social norms, which norms of politeness are being used here. For example, insulting a conversation partner can be described both as being offensive and as a violation of norms of politeness. But when we ask people to clarify the situation further, the differences might occur. I think that if we frame the situation the former way, we are likely nudging people to think in terms of subjective feelings, to appeal to them, whereas if we frame the situation the latter way, we are likely nudging people to think in terms of widely known social norms, norms of politeness—something that we can attempt to articulate. And I think that people are much less likely to reach common understanding of what happened if they each retreated to their subjective feelings instead of talking about if a widely known social norm was violated.
I agree that a rationalist taboo would also work. But you can’t always rely on people being willing to taboo their words. It is also best to avoid infer that someone is doing something majorly wrong. By arguing, “You’ve proven offensive-1, but you need do extra work to prove offensive-2” we allow people to save more face. What’s nice is that instead of trying to get someone to retreat from their previously held position, you’ve extended the goal so that the onus is on them to find a way to bridge the gap. I need to do more experimentation with both techniques though, to determine which one is more effective.
The very word “offensive” asks to be interpreted subjectively, therefore it is not very good for anything that is supposed to not be subjective. People do use etymologies to determine what words mean and derive “offensiveness” from “taking offense” which is inherently subjective. There are other words that are much better for these cases, for example, “impolite” covers mostly the same territory as “normative offensiveness” and it also nudges people to think about exactly which social norms, which norms of politeness are being used here. For example, insulting a conversation partner can be described both as being offensive and as a violation of norms of politeness. But when we ask people to clarify the situation further, the differences might occur. I think that if we frame the situation the former way, we are likely nudging people to think in terms of subjective feelings, to appeal to them, whereas if we frame the situation the latter way, we are likely nudging people to think in terms of widely known social norms, norms of politeness—something that we can attempt to articulate. And I think that people are much less likely to reach common understanding of what happened if they each retreated to their subjective feelings instead of talking about if a widely known social norm was violated.
I agree that a rationalist taboo would also work. But you can’t always rely on people being willing to taboo their words. It is also best to avoid infer that someone is doing something majorly wrong. By arguing, “You’ve proven offensive-1, but you need do extra work to prove offensive-2” we allow people to save more face. What’s nice is that instead of trying to get someone to retreat from their previously held position, you’ve extended the goal so that the onus is on them to find a way to bridge the gap. I need to do more experimentation with both techniques though, to determine which one is more effective.