I don’t care if you’re offended…

A quick search in google for the word offended and you get:

resentful or annoyed, typically as a result of a perceived insult.

This actually means that to be offended by something or someone, you have to know they are directing an insult at you or you have to assume they are.

But I have a question.

Where do we set the difference between being offended and taking offence?

Because let’s be honest, you can find a lot of things offensive. The question is…

…..can you always justify why you find something personally offensive?

Now allow me to be clear that of course there are plenty of things that are offensive because they are created or used in such a way that they are intended to cause offence, such as calling someone a brainless idiot. While it is not actually true that the recipient of such a title is not physically brainless, it is implied by the offender that the person is so idiotic in thought or action that they resemble someone without a brain. There are also insults which use things like race, gender, sexuality, beliefs and a host of other things that someone could use to insult someone. This is done by calling someone what they are but in such a way that it is derogatory or demeaning.

Both of the above mentioned are in fact offensive.

It should also be said…. that should someone suffer an insult based on a part of their identity and someone else who also has that same characteristic as part of their identity is aware of the offence given to the initial victim, then it is justifiable that the second individual also feels offended.

 

So…. does it make sense that someone can take offence at something that has nothing to do with them?

They can certainly show compassion towards someone that has been offended but cannot claim to be offended themselves. When someone claims they are offended by something that has offended someone else who shares no characteristic with them they are in fact turning that offence into a joke. Why? Because if you do this then you are stripping away their identity and this, in turn, would make the offence itself no longer valid. 

To put in it a nutshell….. those who claim to share the offence of a group that is completely different to themselves are actually and indirectly breaking the offended party’s validity to be offended in the first place.

This is something that is very evident in many forms of social justice causes.

However many social justice causes take this a step further. 

Many of them act in a way that displays them as wanting to have that which they hate but in reverse. 

This means that they want to reverse the very thing that offends them and instead of putting an end to it would rather it continues elsewhere. It is ironic that the offence that many social justice causes claim to suffer is something which they are perfectly happy to wield back and claim it is justly so in an eye for an eye fashion. What many social justice causes, therefore, fail to realize is that the reason the rest of humanity is not compassionate to their taken offence is that they visibly undermine it whilst building it.

The Truth is,

Nobody cares….and why should they?

Why should they care about a group that continues to fumble their own argument whilst trying to attack those they believe to be opponents? 

This is why they don’t care, and quite frankly…. its why I don’t either.