The Right to be Offended

How long can we keep trying to frame offence as impermissible?

[ronin]

If:

i) the offended is the arbiter of what constitutes verbal / written offence; and
ii) offence is impermissible

then we all end up censored, on every (even mildly) controversial topic, everywhere.

If free speech is worth anything, the offended must be enabled to declare what it is that offends them and, crucially, they must be allowed (and allow themselves) the right to be offended.

This is not to say I think offence is in any way desirable. Absolutely the contrary.

But any spoken or written offence, when highlighted as such by the offended, this is... something to be negotiated sensitively - above all by enabling and encouraging the offending and offended parties to communicate, to find the limits of their differences and to find their common ground.

[thecoalman]

I'd agree Ronin, you can try and sweep offensive speech/ideas under the rug but it's still there. It's counter productive for everyone involved, "shut up" is not a debate platform. You either have free speech or don't, there is no in between.

[ronin]

I feel (strongly) the most important point is that communication is the foundation stone of every healthy, inclusive interaction.

Some conversations aren't easy to have. That's probably an indication that those are the most important conversations to have.

There are 8 billion of us. It would be surprising if 8 billion of us didn't have (at least) several dozen million perspectives between us.

But we all share the same chromosomes, we all share the same planet - we all share each other.

Communication helps us see and understand better the perspectives of others which aren't the same as the ones we've evolved ourselves.

The issue with no-platforming JK Rowling or (dare I say it) stabbing Salman Rushdie fifteen times is that these are expressions of less communication, not more.

I don't think much of Nigel Farage's public perspectives - not least because most of the time I suspect he only half-subscribes to them, himself. Which, if my hypothesis is right, makes him disingenuous, scheming, hypocritical and manipulative (ie. the archetypal power-seeking populist) in addition to promoting views I find distasteful, odious and, quite frankly, shameful in a 21st century world of open borders and opportunities (not least opportunities for social mobility).

Yes, sometimes he makes my blood boil. But I don't want to see Farage no-platformed. I want to hear him articulate his perspectives, so I can see what I disagree with and how I disagree with it and I can think about my own perspectives are and what my counterpoints would be.

Because I listen to people like this, whose perspective I vociferously disagree with, I am able to comprehend their perspective better than I otherwise would (e.g. Farage is so accused of being xenophobic but it seems to me he is not xenophobic, he is statist - he just has a lot of xenophobic supporters).

Very occasionally indeed, I might even hear something from the individual's perspective that I don't strongly disagree with - like the contention that the expansion of the EU to the Black Sea may have taken place a few years sooner than it probably should have done. (Though, forgetting about the 2007 levels of corruption in Bulgaria and Romania, momentarily, there is a much bigger question mark over the accession of Estonia and Latvia in 2004, given the patterns of ethnic democracy which evolved in those states in the 1990s.)

I digress.

My point is we can better find common ground and better understand our differences only when we communicate.

Sticking ones fingers in ones ears and singing loudly so as no longer to be able to hear the other person (or otherwise punching them) is never going to lead to positive progress.

Permitting oneself to be offended and recgnising it and wanting to have a discussion about it and wanting to understand how it could be that two human beings could have two perspectives, each of which actually offend the other, might do.

[coothead]

The real problem is that human stupidity is infinite and,
unfortunately, we are, each and everyone of us, infinitely
and blissfully unaware of it.

Is there a cure? if history is anything to go by then the
answer is no. It will probably need a secular apocalypse
to get rid of the abomination.

Please bear in mind that this is just the prattling of a
very foolish old man and shouldn't be taken to heart.

coothead

[ronin]

On reflection I think what I'm trying to focus on here is that it feels like - in some ways at least - there is tangibly greater discord now than in the 1990s.

And that's because the tremendously impressive global peer-to-peer communication network which evolved in the nineties has exposed a greater number of people than ever before - vast numbers of people - to... alien perspectives which very many of those people probably would never have encountered in the 1980s, 1970s, 1960s...

Now, if you expose people to alien, uncomfortable, unappealing, offensive perspectives and that's all you do (and you do it in a very superficial way), it's not surprising that some individuals might get very cross and others might want to stick their fingers in their ears.

This is - arguably - what Twitter and Facebook (though not necessarily other social media platforms) do - and have been doing so entirely intentionally since around 2014. It becomes especially toxic when you combine superficial exposure to alien perspectives with echo-chambering of ones own perspective, to the extent that one comes to believe that ones own perspective is what 98% of other reasonable people believe.

The vital step we were missing in the 2010s - and we're still missing now in the early 2020s - is for people with one perspective to talk to people with an alien perspective.

Fortunately, because the technological innovation which enabled the exposure in the first place is explicitly a communication network then we already have all the tools we need to further communication - if that's what we decide we want to do.

And, if we do, then, as above, some of those conversations will be uncomfortable - perhaps it's not an exaggeration to say that the web has succeeded in bringing some of the most difficult-to-handle aspects of culture shock (with regard to the environment, with regard to socio-economics, with regard to gender and other identities, between ethno-cultural groups, between generations) right into ones living room. But, again, those conversations are explicitly the ones we most need to be having.

As the 2020s progress, we may need new platforms that take us from observing perspectives we barely understand to reciprocally learning from them (and, hopefully, moving from thesis vs. antithesis to synthesis).

We certainly can do better than 2010s-style algorithms which thrive on provoking shock and outrage and entrenched prejudices.

[ronin]

If I had to describe it using an analogy, I'd come up with something like this:

A family spends their time all in the same room. They're all engaged in various separate activities thinking their own thoughts but the kids have their wireless earbuds in so they can only hear their own music and grandad, half-asleep, thinks nobody is saying anything because his hearing aid no longer works and he hasn't realised it.

Suddenly, somehow, the room is transformed - this is the arrival of the web.

The kids can still hear their music but the volume has decreased a little so if they try a little they can hear everything else in the room too - and they can participate in conversations with other generations in the room. Meanwhile, grandad's hearing aid has suddenly started working again, so now he can hear everything and converse with others too.

Slowly, almost imprerceptibly at first, the apparent harmony that reigned before starts to dissolve.

Now that each generation can hear the conversations of others, they feel the need to speak up and correct what others are saying - to make things right according to what they know, what their experiences have told them.

Flickers of annoyance, become interruptions, interruptions become sharp words.

Before long, half the room is arguing, leaning forward, furiously shaking fingers in each other's faces.

[ronin]

There’s a paragraph in an opinion piece in The Observer (the weekend version of The Guardian):

Even more shocking than the fatwa, issued when democracy looked ascendant, was the failure of democracy’s defenders to stand alongside Rushdie as he was forced into hiding for almost a decade and his associates were murdered by fanatics.

Many so-called liberals, including senior British politicians, appeared more concerned to express sympathy with those he offended or to say why they disagreed with him than to unequivocally condemn those who called for his death or burned his novel The Satanic Verses in an attempt to get it banned in Britain.

Source: [theguardian.com...]

If there were a Right to be Offended there would be no need for such sympathy. Anyone would be able to say (should they choose):

“No, it’s okay that you’re offended. It’s okay for someone to offend you. You may not feel great about it - and that’s perfectly understandable. But let’s establish that you are offended and you have the right to express that. And now let’s talk about what you find offensive about what the author wrote. And let’s also talk about what the author intended. And let’s talk about where those two perspectives are mutually incompatible and where they can tolerably co-exist. And let’s try and understand one another, instead of unthinkingly exalting the offended and rendering the offender as persona non grata.”

[tangor]

The only thing the web has done is remove the face to face personal interaction. That's it. In real life you speak differently, interact differently. On the web it is a computer screen or smart phone and there are zero consequences. Real life? You might get punched! Or... you might get hugged.

It's not a right to be offended, it has become de facto scream all you want, nah nah nah yah!

Reasonable folks just ignore the noise---while keeping track of those "easily offended".

There is no fix for this since there no longer exists ordinary courtesy. Current fact of life and we best learn how to deal with it.

Old Phart observing the kids in the room these days.

[ronin]

it has become de facto scream all you want

In some instances, yes - but that's rather my point.

People scream because they feel offended. But there is a meta-concern - they also feel that being offended is an intolerable state of affairs - that there is not and cannot be any allowance for this.

Offence is an individual, emotional reaction. There probably isn't a huge amount we can do about that. What does and does not cause offence changes glacially over time, as culture changes. It's the second item - the meta-concern - that I wonder if we can take steps to tackle.

What I'm suggesting is that we try to move the dial from intolerable to limited tolerance; that we seek to make an explicit allowance for the state of being offended instead of running away scared every time someone calls for a public speaker to be no-platformed or for a book or a film to be banned and ending up (so often) self-censoring for fear of causing offence:

"There are eight billion of us. We don't always share the same perspectives. Sometimes you will hear someone say something which offends you. That's okay. You are allowed to find things offensive. Then we will talk about what the original intent was, why you find the other person's perspective offensive, where the common ground is and how the square can be circled. We will learn how perspectives which initially seem mutually exclusive can be reframed so that they can learn to co-exist."

I want to suggest that if there were publicly acknowledged room in which to feel offended, having read or heard something written or spoken by others and the room to articulate the nature of the offence and be heard and room for subsequent discussion then there might be a much lesser sense of feeling constrained and thwarted - and a lot less frustrated screaming going on.

[engine]

Before the Internet, folks would scream via radio and newspapers: Editors would limit the extremes, although it did happen. Before all that it was as simple as avoiding the people that lived around you. Nowadays, everyone can communicate their views worldwide, and everyone can see and hear those views. The result is anger and opinions distributed globally, with intolerance on a global scale.
It's human nature that we're individuals, and I don't think we'll ever accept the extreme views distributed online, just as the extremists will accept those of a more tolerant nature.

[ronin]

Entirely by coincidence, I've just come across this quote from Neil Gaiman, which feels highly relevant to this thread given that he is talking both about the early 1990s and the early 2020s:

“Sandman” as a graphic novel series, as comics, was me getting to say things to the world that I believed. They were things about inclusivity. They were things about humanity. There were things about shared humanity. There were things about dreams and things about death. There were words of comfort and there were words of warning.

And back then when I said them, they were important and I felt that they were true and I felt it was right to say them; including, you have your story and your story is important, and including, you get a lifetime. And those are the things I wanted to say.

And I don’t feel that any of those things are less important or less relevant now.

And in fact, I feel in this sort of weird world in which sometimes I feel like people are fragmenting and forming into smaller and smaller groups and closing ranks and regarding anybody on the other side as the enemy, that people need to be reminded that standing next to them is somebody who contains a thousand worlds and every world is a door and through every door is somewhere that you’ve never dreamed of.

And people are cooler under the surface than you would ever imagine.

And I wanted to remind people of that.

Source: [variety.com...]

[thecoalman]

and I don't think we'll ever accept the extreme views distributed online,

Depends on what you mean by accept. There is an enormous difference between accepting what they are saying and accepting their right to say it.

There is group here in the US called the Westboro Baptist Church that says some of the most vile things imaginable. If you want an example of extreme speech allowable in the US I don't think you will find a better example. The things they do and say are so bad I'm honestly surprised no one has put a bullet in one of their heads. I wouldn't piss on one of them if they were on fire but I will defend their right to say what they want.

[explorador]

ronin: I feel (strongly) the most important point is that communication is the foundation stone of every healthy, inclusive interaction.

Exactly. There is a huge problem there, and it's communication being broken because some people take offense first and then refuse to listen, and so they never really take what you mean, they take what they think things mean.

When there is open communication, someone can take offense but still get over it, listen, understand, disagree or agree, and interactions are still possible. But some people just close their minds because they do have an ambition to get offended because this means something to them (like thinking they are right, or that they have the power to cancel someone). I do believe underneath there are other problems, not just broken communication but also mental health issues, and people are over sensitive to that, specially because they are not apt, but want to avoid appearing so.

[martinibuster]

If free speech is worth anything

There have always been limits to free speech, codified by law and society.

We certainly can do better than 2010s-style algorithms which thrive on provoking shock and outrage and entrenched prejudices.

Yes!
But I think it's more than the algorithms, it's the television/radio media that plants the seeds of rage. The role of social media is largely to amplify the rage, water it so to speak. The rage begins on television and radio.

[ronin]

The role of social media is largely to amplify the rage [...] The rage begins on television and radio.

A good point. I wonder, though, if what we have by now is a paradigm not dissimilar to the dynamic between life and art. Does social media respond to broadcast media or does broadcast media respond to social media?

I agree that something shocking / controversial usually needs to be said or done (or reported) on mass media first, before certain corners of social media can amplify it.

But what is to say that it isn't the awareness of the existence of those corners of social media that provokes the shocking / controversial thing to be said or done in the first place?

For example, if you were a sufficiently machiavellian public representative, you might, in full awareness of those corners of social media, want to promote policies (perhaps unrealistic or impossible to implement) purely on the basis of their capacity to offend others - and the intention in all of this is not to offend others (that's just a stepping stone to the goal) but to ensure people remain divided, mistrustful of others, unwilling to communicate with them and, consequently, disabled from finding common ground with them.

There is a huge problem there, and it's communication being broken because some people take offense first and then refuse to listen

It's aeons since I formally studied psychology, but that sounds like the victory of the amygdala over the prefrontal cortex.

Or the Dionysian over the Apollonian etc.

[martinibuster]

and the intention in all of this is not to offend others (that's just a stepping stone to the goal) but to ensure people remain divided, mistrustful of others, unwilling to communicate with them and, consequently, disabled from finding common ground with them.

That is the Russian strategy, for some years now. Not just on social media but also in bankrolling secessionist movements around the world.
They've been involved in secessionist movements around the world, including the secession movement in California [msn.com].

There's an interesting documentary out on this topic where they discuss Soviet propaganda strategy of sowing doubt in order to cause confusion so that people will say, "You can't trust anything today, anything could be right."

[tangor]

Should I truly be offended that somebody else is offended?

[ronin]

Should I truly be offended that somebody else is offended?

Whether you are or not (and part of my argument is that - to some degree - we all get to decide whether and how much we take offence) my point here is that whenever you are, you should allow yourself to be offended and allow others the space and capacity to offend you, rather than screaming in rage and fury because you have subscribed to the idea that being offended is an intolerable state of affairs and must be instantly, immediately negated, one way or another.

I suppose what I'm stumbling my way towards here is the idea of meta-offence - the notion that if Person A offends Person B, the latter is not only offended but, further, suffers some kind of intolerably unbearable indignity at being placed in a position that they feel they should never have to endure at all.

This cannot be right. Nobody wants to be offended. Most people, most of the time, don't want to give offence. But it happens sometimes.

Since it does, we might do well to re-evolve a space and a culture where offence can be articulated, discussed, resolved, by parties who are content to talk and committed to listening. They don't have to get along like best friends. But it strikes me as really important to reprioritise something I feel we lost some of in the 2010s: communication between parties with radically opposed ideas.

It strikes me - I'm happy to be corrected - that the primary common, shared space worldwide is Facebook. I have no idea what it's been like for the last three years (I left in Dec 2019), but if it's still anything like it was at the end of the 2010s, it's a toxic disaster for inter-subcultural human relations. Facebook is - as constituted from around 2014 onwards - not at all the kind of space where offence can be articulated, discussed, resolved.

I don't know how we get past this.

- Most people won't voluntarily leave FB, because the social connectivity it provides is an unparalleled utility
- FB won't radically overhaul its attention-pursuing algorithms in any way that detrimentally affects profits

That leaves:

- all of us agreeing that offence happens sometimes and it's better to make allowances for this and come up with strategies to cope with it than seeking to persist with a kind of culture which aspires to successfully banishing all offence for all time - which, in practice, appears to, not least, deliver and reinforce irreparable, irreconcilable divisions.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

We all got along once, we can all get along again, offended or not.

Your neighbors haven't changed. Love your neighbors, they'll still be there when policies and leaderships change.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

P.S. Do you want to live with a social credit score and to have all your behavior and activities monitored or would you rather learn to cope with being offended?

Ultimately that's the discussion.

[tangor]

True ... question is ...

At the moment a mystery!

Commonsense seems to be in short supply these days.