How Offended Are We? Depends On Our Opinions These Days.

JazzyYaketys wrote:First, it helps to understand exactly what we mean by “offended”. Is it the same thing as being insulted? No. Feeling insulted is certainly part of being offended, but you can feel insulted without being offended. If I call you a lazy jerk, you will probably feel insulted by that, as you should, but you probably aren’t offended.

So what is the difference? Outrage. How dare you say that, do that, or think that? Now we're entering the territory of offended. Insult + outrage, but sometimes the insult isn’t even necessary.

Now that we know what it is, why does it happen to people so much? Is it intentional, a function of our brain wiring, or both? Here are a few possible ideas I’ve come up with:

Self importance: We naturally tend to think that our thoughts, our opinions, and our actions are right or correct. By definition, that means that anyone who thinks, believes, or does something different is wrong. On unimportant subjects we ignore this, but on issues that we consider to be important, we tend to think that their wrongness is damaging and therefore offensive. Religion, politics, abortion, gun control, immigration, race, and diet are common areas where this happens. Vegans are offended by people eating steaks, racists are offended by other races being treated like humans, democrats are offended by whatever the republicans said this week, and so on. We rarely stop to consider that we may not necessarily be totally right and the other people may not be totally wrong about the issue. We see it as black and white, not grey areas. Our position seems so solid and obvious that anyone who disagrees must be doing it on purpose with malicious intent.

Emotions are addictive: People know this and play off it for their benefit. The news shows you people doing bad things, politicians on “the other side” “attacking our way of life”, and other things that are designed to offend. By getting offended by these things, we separate ourselves from them. Look how offended I am by this, I’m a good person, unlike THEM. That feeling of outrage and anger, followed by a feeling of superiority, causes addictive chemicals (emotions) to be released in the brain. So like any addiction, we seek more of it.

What we can do about it: Forget about preventing other people from getting offended. They’re outside your control. Focus on preventing it for yourself. First, avoid things that are only designed to offend. The news, politicians, the KKK, you get the idea. You can’t stick your head in the sand, and you’ll inevitably see something designed to offend in your daily life. It is important to be vigilant towards this. One tactic that I’ve found helpful is to mentally label incoming information as useful or not useful, relevant or not relevant, biased or not biased, etc. Anything that is not useful or relevant can be immediately discarded without triggering offense. Anything potentially biased should probably also be discarded as it is most likely presented in a way to distort things and cause outrage. This is far from a perfect strategy, but it can help filter out some of the most egregious offenders.

That's my BYTE on this....