'I am offended!'

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Being easily offended seems common these days, and especially on the internet. It seems increasingly enforced that others are expected to give a s**t. Pressure of being the 'bad guy' is placed upon those that hold opinions that do not baby the readers. And these opinions are not hostile, malicious, and do not tangibly limit lives like, for example, an opinion that literally strips homosexuals of reasonably equal rights.

I encounter such individuals often and it's so obnoxious - yeah, I'm totally an evil devil preying upon my internet victims. It's not that they disagree or express their rage where my opinion is concerned, but their consistent (sometimes subtle) appeals to some kind of twisted social justice that entitles them to unhurt feelings and a veneer of superiority through being moralistic/empathetic or whatever.

I find this behaviour incredibly passive aggressive and self-victimizing.

I created a poll for fun.

Opinions?

I wish people, in general, would stop getting offended over every little thing.

Decided to finally register when i saw this.

I agree, people on the internet have been becoming softer over the last... 10-15 years as it has slowly become more and more mainstream, i would however not say that this is a new thing for the world, in a way.

I do not think that the question is "are people becoming too entitled?", rather it is "why are they becoming too entitled?", exactly how far does the range of the blame extend?

Too entitled. Too politically correct. Yadayadayada

People think it's ok to force change on other people just because something they do makes you uncomfortable. It's a load of crap, honestly, and it's maintained by people who think it's their right to tell you how to live.

You cannot have a free country and a society that forces conformity due to personal feelings, the two are opposite concepts and one cannot truly exist as long as the other is in play.

If you do not want to cause offense, be considerate and open to learning what that entails. If you are accidentally insensitive and somebody tells you, learn from it. I don't have any sympathy if you'd rather complain about "political correctness" than give any thought to experiences outside your own.

In my mind there is a big difference between actually being insensitive and being expected to bend over for a person because they found your post oh so offensive that they make you out as the bad guy.

I am literally so sick of having to jam within a conversation or post 'I apologize for any offense', because it rarely works anyway. Though this isn't nearly as bad as the threat of oppression purely as a result of holding a somewhat controversial opinion.

It reminds me of when I was younger, where I would have a fight with my sister and because she was the one that cried first I was forced to apologize. Usually she smirked afterwards, because she knew what she was doing.

To me it feels like a form of manipulation. It seems to raise a person's reputation when others' blindly agree with their making out of a bad guy - an appeal to feelings I suppose? It gets them what they want and there isn't really anything you can do about it due to the influence they can have over a group.



I agree. I think people should be able to hold any opinion they want so long as opinions not based on fact do not dictate laws or rights etc. The only time I have a problem with opinion is under such circumstances.

If someone else takes offense at something I say or do, that's not my problem, it's theirs, and no-one is forcing them to be subjected to any of it.
Furthermore, it is supremely more egotistical to expect everyone else to take you into consideration when addressing you, or displaying something a certain way, just because you might take offense at it, than to expect to be able to express yourself as you are (within legality, obviously) in this supposedly free country.
People have a right to be who they are, to display what they will, that's how america works, you don't have to like it, you don't have to agree with it, and you don't have the right to tell someone else they can't do something just because it makes you feel uncomfortable or offended. If you want to live your whole life not being offended by other people, then you can live in a hole, away from society, because that's the only sane method of doing so.

Agreed, as far as I'm concerned, people can do what they want (within legality), be who they are, think what they do, as long as it doesn't harm my life in any way, it's not a big deal to me.

It's something I've often wondered about. I tend to agree that playing the "offended" card is often a form of tyranny, but I'm not convinced that offense is always entirely in the mind of the offended. In a society of people who have some strongly-held but different standards of acceptable behaviour, there's no definitive answer to whether an action or statement is offensive or not when those standards happen to collide. The only way I can think of to work out whose standard is right is to consider carefully the effects of applying that standard, in terms of the harm and good it would do to the entire community, but it can be very difficult to do that well, and whatever rule you apply, somebody will think it silly or offensive, or be violently opposed to it.

I don't get it. Your feelings are hurt by other people's feelings being hurt?

This is a pet peeve of mine: People often consider themselves to be paragons of human kindness, so if they don't understand or agree with someone else's ethical concerns, they figure that person must have an ulterior motive such as making themselves look good.



Yeah, you have the freedom to act like a jerk, but that doesn't mean other people don't have the freedom to call you a jerk. Freedom isn't all about you.

I very much agree with what you're saying, Norny, Logston, KK, and Jaden.

It's not just online either. When they're rewriting children's books because of one word they don't like, and that being a word that never was bad in the first place.. gimme a break!

My feelings are not hurt by other people feeling hurt, I find it incredibly irritating feeling like I have to walk on egg shells if I don't want to take a double-barrel of social justice to the face.

I'm confused what you mean with what you say next. Are you saying I consider myself a paragon of human kindness, or those that are readily offended? I do think they have ulterior motives, because they do, which is seen as they reach out to others in attempt to oppress or shame you.

I'm not talking about calling somebody fat and them taking offense to it, but when you express a well-meaning opinion with no intentions to offend whatsoever and without prompting them a person blasts you or those that hold your belief, all the while attempting to sway the group in their favour by emphasizing how hurt they are. As a basic and highly filtered example, 'these kind of posts should be unwelcome here' following a gigantic negative reaction to the person who held the opinion, not the opinion itself. Appeals to authority are often made, in order to assert a position of righteousness. That is highly manipulative.

It's not about people "calling me a jerk", it's about other people trying to tell me that I cannot be myself because it offends them, that's what this topic is all about, it has nothing to do with their opinion and everything to do with their expectation that I change for their benefit. It's a load of horse crap.
The fact that you felt the need to meet my statement with hostility tells me that you either don't understand what's being said here about the topic, or you think I'm somehow being selfish in assuming my rights to be who I am, regardless of what other people think.
People have the freedom to think what they will about me, but that does not give them the right to tell me how to act, what to say, or what to do with my life, just because they find it offensive.

Stuff like that literally makes me cringe. Christ almighty.