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

[eliskimo.livejournal.com]

It's funny you should have written about this in time for me to see right after I got into a bit of an argument on Facebook that basically boils down to this very point.

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

I will, inevitably, post something that offends you at some point - and probably I will know that you will disagree (hmm, is 'disagreeing' the same as 'angering and insulting' people? I disagree with you regularly, but it was only when you appeared to suggest that I was racist that I felt it was specifically distressing). However, I offer an apology in advance for that..

What I would ask, however, is that if you want to challenge my point, please do it with sensitivity. I'm almost CERTAIN that I've said something with which you profoundly disagree already (and I'll probably go on doing that on a regular basis) and you have already been kind enough not to be angry and insulting in my direction. Which I appreciate more than I can say.

But also, I actually *do* want to know (usually) when I'm being accidentally offensive, so would appreciate a gentle comment telling me why. But - I'm human, and weak, and the emphasis therefore is on GENTLE :)

[johncwright.livejournal.com]

Are you sure it is unintentional? That the innocence and surprise of the progressives is not a pose or a mask? I have always sort of assumed that it is intentional, just part of the progressive pretense that their abnormalities are norms, and always have been.


On another topic, have you seen this book? http://www.amazon.com/dp/0956395244/

An excerpt is here: http://thoughtprison-pc.blogspot.com/

[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.

[affablestranger.livejournal.com]

This very phenomenon has boggled and irritated me for years. That someone may've been offended by their statements usually is met with at first a measure of condescension and if that does't make them drop it, self-righteous indignation.

I put it down to passive-aggression, personally.