Offensiveness

[fpb]

Now I know that I have angered and insulted people. The point is, I meant it when I did it. I knew what I was doing. It may have been the wrong thing - in some circumstances, I know it was - but I did not just blunder into injuring someone's self-esteem or besmirching their public image.

And that is what is so really bewildering about the progressive mind. There can't be one progressive in fifty who is even aware when he or she is being offensive. We get the most outrageous statements plonked down in our faces in public with the blandest air of self-regard; and our prog friends - or acquaintances - are surprised, often downright shocked, sometimes even angry, that we should find any of it even mildly irritating. Their minds and experiences are so narrow that they genuinely don't know that they are being offensive.

Comments

[ihuitl.livejournal.com]

Any difference of opinion on big issues is going to ruffle feathers on both side of the debate...as someone who you might call a 'progressive' (depending on the issue but definitely with regards to issues of contraception and gay rights, being gay myself), I acknowledge this.

The problem is the often irreconcilable ways that both parties have of looking at the world: for example, the differing priorities given to certain ideals (i.e. freedom, property, happiness, dignity, love, life, etc.) often lead to exasperation. Same for when two people define a concept in vastly different ways and/or differ over what they classify under that heading.

Sometimes it's best not to argue: for example, I'm not going to get anywhere in a debate with someone who is a substance dualist, idealist, theist and believer in teleology. Their worldview and mine are too incompatible to even agree on how the world is constructed let alone on the specifics.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It's not about having fundamental disagreements. It's about not realizing that a disagreement might exist. That is what makes me furious.

[ihuitl.livejournal.com]

Ah, well, that's just being oblivious. I avoid debating such people since I cannot have a meaningful exchange with them, let alone convince them of my position.