'I am offended!'

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That is literally a perfect example of the behaviour I refer to. Publicly shaming you as an ageist will make others fearful of having the same happen to them, and also appeals to the twisted modern mentality that is entitled self-victimizing.

It's not black and white, obviously, but when somebody blasts you for something as ridiculous as your personal dating preferences, with the intention of manipulating you via group pressure, it's just so obnoxious. It's not as if you said 'I only date these people because all younger/older people are stupid.', in which case I would be more understanding of their taking offense.

And it's so common with these strong terms now. Even words like 'bullying' are so overused to the point that they seem to have no real definition anymore.

Are there a lot of hypersensitive people on other forums and sites?
I am only familiar with wp, which is quite hypersensitive and reactive from my perspective.
The thread is refreshing for pointing out the behaviors.

I can't stand the way some people label almost any unpleasant interaction as bullying. I was just now called a bully in the thread on PPR about why some people say it's a choice to be gay. Somebody had a knee jerk reaction and called me that and a bigot. I'm extremely pro gay rights and far from a bully, but I disagreed and I was harsh in a debate. Not mean, no personal attacks, just to the point, firm and somewhat harsh. Nothing that violated any rules either. Yet I'm a bully. Go read it, you'll see what I mean. It didn't upset me though, I just shook my head and signed and laughed a little at how that word has lost all meaning now.

Labeling anything that upsets someone as bullying is a horrible disservice to the people who are actually bullied. People are going to start hearing the word and immediately associating it with pantywaists whining about nothing and real issues are going to be ignored. Once that happens then they will blame those of us who didn't want the word to be bandied around like a badminton bird but it will really be the fault of the oversensitive hand wringers who in their completely misguided attempt to turn the world into an encounter group have caused their truly abused and harassed brethren to be ignored and forgotten. Crying "big bad wolf" too often doesn't make people more sensitive to others plights, it just makes them sick of finding out the wolf is stuffed dog.

I'm also not saying that people who are actually offended and hurt by something small aren't entitled to their feelings. They are entitled to them. They are also entitled to speak up for themselves. They are also entitled to learn that the entire world is not going to change to keep from hurting their feelings either. There are a lot of small things that offend me. I speak up about them when I run across them, and if I change someones mind or open it just a bit, then good. Sometimes that happens. It usually doesn't but I've done my bit and I've tried to fix it. However, most things that offend me don't directly effect my life. Small things that offend the pout police don't actually effect their lives either but you would sure think they did by how they act over it.

When did strength become a bad quality? When exactly did having a sense of proportion become synonymous with "heartless b***h"? When did teaching children to ignore small insults and how to pick their battles become the same thing as passive approval for hate speech? And speaking of battles, you cant even use the word battle and kid in the same sentence anymore without somebody accusing you of teaching your child to bully other kids just because you tell your child to hit a bully back. It's no small coincidence that the school shootings started around the time that zero tolerance for violence at school became the rule of the day. Kids aren't that good at impulse control and while it's best to just use your words, kids aren't that good at that either. Sometimes the way kids take out aggression and work things out is by the old playground fight. Oh no, somebody will experience physical pain, we can't have that. It's not what you want for your kid, not at all. I didn't want mine to be in fights but I did want them to stand up for themselves and told them to hit back and they did. But it's seen as so horrible now to let little Johnny or Janey be in a situation where big bad Bluto might punch them in the arm or the nose. It's not pleasant but it's something that we all went through for generations, until we got older and learned how to handle things better. But bottle up all that aggression and frustration in a kid who doesn't have a completely developed adult brain yet and it's a recipe for Columbine. If kids weren't expelled and possibly arrested for a fistfight in the playground in fifth grade a whole lot fewer of them would think it's their only choice to go in and blow people away Clint Eastwood style.

The PC brigade also want to change how everyone thinks too. I have a very good friend who dislikes Paganism, pro choice, feminism, gay rights, liberals, legalizing weed, legal prostitution, etc etc etc. He's the polar opposite of me and he's a fundie minister and about as far right as you can get. We agree on racism, that it's bad, and we agree on dogs and that they are better than cats and that the Crimson Tide is God's gift to college football, but thats about it other than food. He and I debate a good bit but we don't change each other's minds. We don't really try to, only to get each other thinking. We then agree to disagree and move on to eating. The extreme PC bunch would never be friends with someone like that. They would keep on until they either changed his mind or he changed his phone number and we all know which is more likely to happen. They wouldn't ever be able to see him as he is, a nice man with different opinions than me. His opinions would be the only thing important about him, even though he's very tolerant of my views and opinions as I am of his. In other words they would create conflict where none existed before.

I think a lot of them are people who feel like they missed out on the big social upheaval and struggle of the 60's and since we don't really have anything of that magnitude now they try to create their own. Look at todays uberfeminists. I don't mean all feminists of today, I'm feminist, but the ones who are over the top. You know the ones I mean. We have accomplished pretty much what was set out to be accomplished back in the day, but they don't see that. They equate guys whistling at women as the same as bosses who would be handsey and you couldn't do anything about it. They equate manners such as opening a door for you to be the same as the slamming of a door in your face in the corporate echelon. They see not hiring a woman to do a job that requires a lot of upper body strength as sexism and misogyny when it's really nothing more than physics - if you can't lift it or move it then why hire you to do just that? They missed the struggle so they blow things out of proportion so they can feel that they struggled just as much as our mothers and grandmothers did. You see it here all the time. A bitter lonely guy who has no love life and who most women just don't like complains that "alll women only want x type of guy" and here they come. He's a misogynist! He's creating an unsafe place here! He's ::gasp:: triggering my PTSD that I got from being whistled at or called honey! See what I mean? They are going so far overboard you would think that they were walking a plank on a pirate ship.

Where do we draw the line, and how do we do it now that we have all started taking everybody's pet peeves as seriously as we do? I don't know where it's going to end up, but I do know that we need to draw the line somewhere and draw it fast before we forget that it really is ok to tell somebody that they are being silly and the thing they are so upset about is not that important.

God help us we have turned into a parody of ourselves.

Oh yes. They are all over the damn place, plus on FB and in real life too. It's a very, very common problem and it's not just limited to those of us on the spectrum. Sometimes NT's throw such fits about their little sensitivities you would think they were autistic as well. Being offended is the new thing to be. If you aren't offended by something for yourself then you should be offended for other people.

I honestly think it's dependent on what is deemed offensive - if someone is blatantly being racist or is actively discriminating against anyone in a public forum of any sort, in the presence of the people who are the targeted group and decides to hide behind the concept of "free speech" in order to get a free pass in being inflammatory and rude. Then I honestly don't feel sorry for them if everyone offended by what they have said comes for their neck. They deserve everything they get. You can't really expect to stand amongst a group of people and spout absolute horse s**t without getting any consequences. Freedom of speech works both ways.

On the other hand, people get offended by the littlest of things. Seemingly minuscule things are blown out if proportion. And what is incredibly annoying is the mental gymnastics that goes into all of this to try prove something that had no intentions of malice to begin with is offensive.

I personally distance myself from racist, bigoted and ignorant people. I avoid them like the plague and choose to not subject myself to their ignorance. If they make their bigoted opinions known. I don't argue with them. Instead I ignore them completely, as if they were not speaking to begin with. Just to let them know their opinion of what I should be or not be, is worthless. And will forever remain worthless. So I see no reason to get upset or angry when they say these things. Nothing says "your opinion don't mean s**t" more than complete indifference.

Laugh at their ignorance instead. The world becomes a humorous place, trust me! If someone is going to hate me for being what I was born as, then they aren't worth my time or effort to begin with. I am not going to play the role of the audience to their ignorance. I will simply put them on mute and move on.

Everyone really should do that. These people want you listening to them. Why give them your time when you could be elsewhere doing something more productive?

Someone says that gay people are undeserving of equal rights? Turn your back and put them on mute! They have no weight here and they don't control the law. No point debating them.

I read and agree with your whole post but I find these two snippets in particular to be gems.

What you say about the misogyny and especially the 'triggering my PTSD' fuels me with anger. The effect of this behaviour is quite literally what you said above, a 'horrible disservice to those that actually experience it'. I generally forgive younger people for this because it is something you learn, but when you've got 20yo+ individuals parading excuses (i.e. 'disorders', quotations are intentional) to sap up apologies, victories etc. I literally cringe.

I actually think that people love to look for problems now, because life is so good in general. There must always be something to complain about. I find false identification with diagnostic labels to be an incredibly common way in which people do this and especially online. Posters here disagree with me but my experience shows me otherwise.

Strong terms like bullying, PTSD, bigot, OCD are all so overused and for the most insignificant reasons, and that, I find to be the real offense.

Agree!



In real life I avoid them because I'm worried they'd bash me up, but online I love picking arguments with them because I know they ain't got nothin', so it's a free shot of dopamine from the backlash I receive. I guess in that sense I'm a breed of troll. A cannibal troll perhaps?



Sadly I can't agree with this part, only because they do affect the law. They won't be around forever, though!

I think people feel comfortable self diagnosing all sorts of things now because we have so much information geared toward the consumer about those disorders. You can't pick up a popular magazine without seeing an article discussing the signs of some psych illness or other, or a physical one with vague symptoms and encouraging you to see your doctor about it. We have so much information thrown at us about this disorder or that disease, treatments, prognosis, etc, that it would be unusual if we didn't start self diagnosing and diagnosing our friends and family members with things. We are given a very small amount of information about these things and then turned loose. It's just enough info to make us feel informed and in the know but not enough to really do more than send us to the doctor for a professional opinion. Unfortunately, many people don't go for the professional opinion, they just claim the illness. Especially if it's one that doesn't have much of a treatment.

All this started when pharmaceutical companies started advertising their wares to the general population and not just to doctors. While it's good, and even imperative many times, to know what our choices are and to know about new drugs, we don't have the basic knowledge that professionals have to be able to recognize and differentiate between the different things we read about. What started out as something to help us be more health conscious and to make healthier choices has turned into a disease in itself, pseudo hypochondria. I think that this is one of the main reasons for all the self diagnosed aspies out there. It sure as hell is one of the major reasons for all the parent diagnosed ADHD back in the late 80s and 90s.

All this half assed knowledge and self diagnosing about so many things has made us a society that is entirely too self assured when it comes to our own health. That sounds like it's impossible, but it's true. People started going to the doctor so he could confirm their own diagnosis rather than tell them what they have. Others started simply treating themselves with OTC meds and herbal and homeopathic cures. The rise in popularity of alternative medicine coincided with the rise in consumer information about health issues if you didn't notice. While most people probably don't do any harm by any of this, it's very possible that many will accidentally do so. It's also caused a national obsession as well.

Yes, knowledge is a good thing to have as long as we recognize the limitations we have with it. No matter how much we may read about a particular thing we will never have the doctor's basic foundation of knowledge which we need to be able to use this consumer information properly. Also, this consumer information and sites like WebMD cause so much avoidable stress that it's unreal. People who are sensitive to the health issues and worry about their own health more than others can be very distressed for long periods of time after doing online research and finding things that point to serious and life threatening illness. While you would think that would motivate them to go to a doctor immediately, in many cases that isn't so. Many times a person can be frozen by fear and not go because they think they will get a death sentence. There are times when it's really better to be in the dark for a while, but there's no way to know when those times are in advance.

It's a case of a little information being a dangerous thing, and feeling like we are "in the know" about all aspects of our health can lead to over (self) diagnosis of most things and incorrect (self) diagnosis of other things which are in fact the life threatening things we fear in the first place and we have just written them off as a harmless thing treatable by OTC meds. I'm not saying to quit treating us like intelligent adults and keep the medical info just among the professionals, but I do think that we need an overhaul in how we digest, interpret and use the information that is given to us.

Well, I'm offended by your being offended by others' taking offense … wait a minute, I need to go diagram this.

Be offended all you like. Maybe it's reasonable and justified, maybe it isn't. In any case, your feelings do not entitle you to any special privileges, and they certainly don't give you the right to demand the suppression of opinions you dislike. Do an image search for 'Stephen Fry offended' to see a rational attitude.

I value kindness, which means being aware of the effect one's words and actions may have upon others and not deliberately setting out to be hurtful or cruel. However, there have to be limits. I draw the line at pandering to ignorance: I refuse to stop using the word 'niggardly' or the phrase 'a Chinese in the armor' just because some stupid people think they're racial slurs.

Haha that's golden. I might use his quote there from now on.

I don't think people have gotten worse, I think it's just more visible these days with social media. You don't even have to say anything to offend people, sometimes silence is enough for them to think you have some moral failing.

Don't see how others can wade in on this without actual examples of what's been said. You could be being rude, others may be being over sensitive, social climbing may be a factor or you may be getting trolled. Either way it's obviously causing distress and others are evidently keen to help you tackle the issue. Any chance you could post a real life example for disection?

I actually don't have many good real life examples that I have been personally involved in, because I haven't been out often. I have however experienced it many times online, on forums and social media etc.

Here is a condensed example from a Facebook group discussion:

Me: It bothers me when somebody readily tells others that they suspect they have a medical condition as it trivializes the suffering of those that actually have them.

Them: But what if they really do suffer from it?

Me: They don't know that, and I actually think that makes it worse because not only are they excited to inform others that they have some kind of disadvantage, they are likely spreading misinformation and that tends to romanticize illness.

Them: You're not the judge of them, though, they know themselves better than you do. You're not in any position to claim that others don't suffer from something, so you should give them the benefit of the doubt.

Me: It doesn't matter if they truly have it or not, expressing how proud you are to be medically disadvantaged is so obnoxious. And I would bet that the majority of those who actually suffer would feel this way.

Them: How can you seriously be so uncaring?

Me: -.-

Them: You realize how awful you sound, right?

Them: It's a good thing that this is only a temporary group, some people are just so close-minded.

Me: ...

Me: W/e

This was of course, all seen by other people. I didn't copy paste it and grammarized it so that it was readable. Honestly I don't think I can convey what I meant in the OP by writing down an example, unless I spend like a whole day on it. Too much of the context is lost. For example, I can't really capture the element of group pressure, because the conversation was drawn out over a long period of time.

Here is an example of something that happened to me on here. It's an example of people using anything at all to try and find and label any sort of bigotry or discrimination when it doesn't exist. I mentioned that if I were single I'd only date a man around my age. Maybe ten years older or younger at the most because I'm just not romantically attracted to guys past that. This chick called me an ageist because I'm not attracted to guys of other ages for a relationship with me. This gal was so intent on finding something wrong with my preferences she went way out on a limb and promptly fell off head first. Of course I'd assume she's actually done that very thing in real life to have the sort of reasoning she's got, but thats neither here nor there. She picked something completely harmless and labeled it as a terrible prejudice.

There are tons of people on high alert all the time when talking to other people, looking for any signs of discrimination that they can find and when they find something they can twist into any sort of ism they jump on it and shrilly insist that you are guilty of whatever it is that they just made up. The more you try and explain how they are wrong, the worse you become in their eyes because then you are not only a bigot but one who refuses to see "the truth" and makes up all sorts of ways to "justify it". You can't actually win with these people, not that their opinion actually matters, they probably have a reputation among normal people as being ridiculous, but as the number of their type increases the more difficult it will become to defend yourself against any of their made up BS.

This is the most common one I see. Well, this one and the one where you should have known not to ever mention x topic around a particular person because they have PTSD over it. This doesn't apply to people with actual PTSD diagnosed by a doctor, but to people who decide they had it because something unpleasant happened that still upsets them to this day.

I find that most people think OTHER people are oversensitive about the things that bother those other people.

The things that bother people themselves though, that's different!

It is usually simple solipsism: the person identifies with group X and finds insults to group X offensive and intolerable, but also thinks that members of groups A-W, Y and Z are oversensitive cry babies who can't take a joke and need to develop a thicker skin.

There is a kind passive aggressive tactical deployment of offense to win arguments that is annoying, but it often happens that people who are offended by group characterizations are actually offended.

What good does it do to discount their reactions or deny their sensibilities? It's one thing if they are stifling debate, but another if it's just people abandoning a discussion of ideas and issues for an exchange of interpersonal hostility. That is a path that leads nowhere good and being "right" about the other's oversensitivity doesn't somehow make that a better place to be.

A good guideline seems to be: Don't try to easily give or take offense and stick to issues and specific situations not personalities or groups.

I understand what people are talking about in this thread--particularly OOM's example of the ridiculous "you're an ageist!" charge she was subjected to--but there is another side of this which is bullies telling the people they are bullying that they are being oversensitive and should just take it.

I am avoiding both the L&D and News boards because regular posters there frequently offend me. I don't think this is my problem, I think they are dumb as planks and half as emotionally aware, but better for me just not to go there.

One other thing: OOM you were saying people can be kind of hypochondriacal based on a little medical or psychiatric research in ignorance and I am sure that is a real problem, particularly for some personality types. But there is another side to that issue. Sometimes the "experts" don't have good answers and we have to rely on ourselves a little:
http://metro.co.uk/2015/06/16/doctors-t ... t-5248583/

Some kind of balance is needed in all these things.

I get what you are saying in your last paragraph, but I think it's really a big problem. I am one of those internet hypochondriacs. If I notice something that worries me then the absolute last thing I let myself do is Google it. I'm the same way about when something is wrong with one of my kids. I'll go insane about it and probably end up in the ER over it and luckily it always turns out to be nothing. On top of that, I went to nursing school too, way back in the dark ages. I dropped out when it was time to do my clinicals and I was pregnant with my first baby. I barely remember most of it, but when I start worrying about something like that I'll remember the scary stuff and I'll remember every detail of it but nothing at all about the rest. I have no sense of proportion whatsoever when it comes to that kind of thing.

Also the thing about the girl Googling cancer is similar to something I pointed out. While there are terrible things on those sites which upset people, there are also mild illnesses which look almost exactly like something bad and you can sometimes easily discount your symptoms as the nonserious illness and then just not go to the doctor until you are about to die.

One more thing, about the first part of your post. I know that I get offended by some ridiculous stuff sometimes, and I admit that it's silly. However it's still my thing and I reserve the right to take offense to it. The difference is that I don't want anyone else to stop you (general and collective "you" not you in particular here) from saying this stuff, I'd like to convince you that you are wrong and when I don't I'll insult you back and then ignore you but whatever it was you said doesn't effect my quality of life. It's just me taking offense to something, not me getting shot for my opinion (although I'm not guaranteeing that nobody will shoot me for insulting you back lol). The people who are so quick to take major offense to so many little piddly ass things which don't really effect anyone's life other than momentary offense would like to force others to stop saying/doing/thinking whatever it was that offended them in the first place. Thats my problem with the whole thing.

So, I do admit I go overboard on things, but people need to stop trying to put a sock in other people's mouths. Let as*holes be as*holes. People will stop liking them and talking to them and maybe then they will get the message.