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Psychohistorian comments on The Nature of Offense - Less Wrong
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I'm having difficulty putting my finger on it, but this concept and definition don't seem to square with my understanding of offense in practice. Your instances do not include politically incorrect statements (racist, sexist, or various other -ists, depending on who exactly is listening), whether factually incorrect or otherwise, which seem to be one of if not the major sources of serious offense. There seems to be a strong bent towards maintaining the existing social order, as opposed to being concerned specifically with the status of the speaker. I'm trying to arrive at insight cogent enough to post, but, since I'm not there yet, I'd just hand-wavingly say that offense has more to do with the preservation of an existing social order than it does with status specifically; if I can back that up rigorously I'll comment or post on it.
As one example, taking offense to vulgar language or imagery does not seem to fit into this mold. If I ran into a church picnic and started yelling obscenities, people would get offended, even though I'm not threatening their "high" status so much as advertising my "low" status. This doesn't seem to be suggesting that a person or group should have low status, and "person" can't mean "me," since I doubt they're getting distressed on my behalf. "Preserving social order" seems to wrap it up pretty neatly, though.
It also doesn't seem to explain why (in some cases, for some people) you can make incredibly offensive comments towards a close friend with no ill effect, yet a person hearing the exchange might themselves be offended. This may be humor as a special case, but it doesn't seem to square with a status interpretation.
Indeed, I think that jajvirta was largely right in observing that status is fairly ubiquitous in human exchange. I think this simply rides on that ubiquity, rather than providing genuine insight. I'm working on the genuine insight myself, but I haven't gotten something cogent enough to post yet, unfortunately. I'm just fairly confident "status" does not pay enough rent.
Edit: spelled this out in another comment here.
A racist statement is usually one that, if accepted by the listener, will tend to lower the status of the targeted race. Same for other -ists. I'm not seeing how it doesn't fit with the status theory.
Of course you're threatening their high status. You're implying that vulgar language is appropriate in their social circle, and the only way it could be appropriate is if they have low status.
Edit: On second thought, I think what's going on here is that once you're a close enough friend with someone, there is no longer a significant chance that you'd want to intentionally lower their status, so an otherwise offensive comment (especially in private) becomes a signal for close friendship. You're signaling that you believe your friendship is so close that your friend won't think you're intending harm, and by not taking offense, your friend then signals the same thing. This probably takes a mathematical model to make completely clear, but maybe you get the gist.
In Impro, Johnstone (mentioned by jajvirta below) actual defines friendship as relationship where we can play with status more freely without retaliation, for example by joking.
He compares this to when dogs play catch, always switching pursuer and pursued roles in the middle of the play. Of course dogs can both play catch, and really pursue prey.
Racist statements don't seem to automatically imply lower status for the offended group. For example, many people found this "joke" offensive, even though the only claim seems to be that black people eat lots of watermelon. Similarly, a statement like "Jews control the financial system" could easily offend Jews, even though if anything it assigns them high status.
If a statement concurrently attacks and asserts status of people in different ways, it can still be offensive. "Jews control the financial system" places Jews in out-group, which lowers their status, even though at the same time the statement seems to assert their status.
One way to look at this is that racist stereotypes promote viewing members of the target race as an undifferentiated mass with little or no individuality. This lowers the status of that group since individuality is important for status. The watermelon joke invokes such a stereotype of blacks.
BTW, I'm afraid that having espoused the idea that offense can be explained in terms of status, and having probably increased my own status in this community as a result, I'm likely quite biased on this issue now. I bet it's much easier now for me to find arguments for this idea than counterarguments. So, reader beware. :)
Stereotypes imply lack of individuality, which is usually low-status. As does grouping them as a single entity, especially if that grouping is made with a hint of sinisterity as would often be the case when talking about financial system -controlling jews.
There may be some "treating as a non-person" involved here: people are individuals with different tastes, goals, etc., and stereotypes like the ones you mention ignore this.
i have to agree with psychohistorian with respect to the church-picnic example; it seems a bit of a stretch to say that their status is lowered by other people's obscenities.
I think that offense is dependent on the relative positions of the offender and the offended. Who would take offense of what a drunk on the street says?
I would. Especially if in female company. Alone I might well ignore it, with a male group I might engage in 'witty' banter. With women present I might demand an apology or take a swing.
Can you say more about how the presence of women factors into your decision?
E.g., say we're both in a mixed-gender group, I am drunk, and I start muttering obscenities (just to be specific, say I start repeating "fuck" over and over). If I've understood you, you're more likely to demand an apology from me (and back up that demand with the threat of violence) than if we're in an all-male group. Do you have any theories as to why?
Vaguely relatedly, does your decision change if I'm female?
He could, but I wouldn't expect the set of people who are self aware and forthright about their signalling motives in such cases to overlap to a large degree with the set of people who start unprovoked street fights to prove their dominance through faux-altruism.
It's possible we're talking at cross purposes. I replied "I would" to "Who would take offense of what a drunk on the street says?".
I was imagining someone shouting insults at me. When you say "unprovoked" I wonder if you're imagining someone swearing randomly to himself. I'd take no offence at that.
You could be right there. Primed by djcb's comment I was more considering "offense at the degree or nature of other people's obscenities" than "offense at deliberate attempt to insult". In the latter case I would replace "unprovoked" with "ill-advised". It potentially also removes the "faux-altruism", depending on whether it was you or your party member's who the insults were directed at.
Nor would I as a general rule, but people occasionally surprise me, especially around here. I figure it's worth the price of a question to find out.
I'm somewhat curious what the response will be myself, particularly now that I spent the price of an answer in changing his incentives. Now the most obvious (and most boring) 'purely righteous, pro-social' spin comes pre-emptively loaded with connotations of naivety and bullshit. I have no idea what the optimal response is now. It may even be the accurate one!
Indeed! Now torn between 'desire to provide accurate data', 'desire to project correct image for future google searches', 'desire to look clever' and 'worry about advisability of confessing to anti-social personality traits in a public forum using my real name'.
I'm slightly reassured by my belief that most men would feel the same way. On the other hand if that belief's wrong, it needs changing.
Ironically any signalling of actual anti-social traits would have already taken place in the earlier declaration of potential violent tendencies. But given that you are signalling approximately normal human behavior---and behavior that tends to be respected in practice anyhow---the only negative signal you could actually give now is a weak signal that you are unable to signal smooth-hypocrisy.
Almost universally, at least the 'relative' part. That is nearly all males would be more inclined to take offense and make violent dominance displays with female observers present. There is more to gain by making the move and more to lose by failing to. I am not sure whether the absolute part "I would [take offense at what a drunk stranger says]" applies to most males or not. Possibly. I know it doesn't to myself---in general I don't get offended by direct insults, particularly those with obscenities. Rather, I take offense at passive aggressive insults that superficially conform to polite norms. And as with djcb if the speaker is a random drunk stranger almost nothing they could say will offend me.
Dodging your question, I doubt I'd react badly to the situation you describe. I'm British and one can hardly speak British English without saying "fuck". Also we spend quite a lot of time drunk. If a friend got drunk and started to say "fuck" over and over again I'd probably be worried that something was wrong. I have trouble imagining why I'd be offended.
Above I meant that I'd take offence in response to a direct insult from a stranger, and my memory informs me that I'm likely to take more offence if there are others present, and even more so if there are women.
If the insulter was a woman then I imagine my reaction would be completely different. Mainly confusion and a desire to calm the situation down and get away from the crazy lady as soon as possible.
I'm trying to introspect on why and it's surprisingly hard. What I'm remembering and imagining is mostly emotional (and moral in the sense of Pinker's crazy angel), but I'm sure there is a calculation/bluffing/stake raising/status game going on as part of that. Why it seems more important not to back down when there are women present is completely beyond me, but it certainly does. I can feel an essay coming on.
(nods) The reactions you describe aren't uncommon... and, as you intuit, often have a lot to do with status management. In my experience, learning to recognize the forces at play as they arise in real time is extremely useful.
He believes females are more likely to be offended by that than males?
No, definitely not. It would be about me and how I am seen and see myself.
That's certainly one possibility.
I think agree with you that status doesn't quite seem to cover everything. But "threatens social standards" seems like too much of a black box to me to be a very satisfying explanation in itself. I guess if it suggests anything, it's that offense, like social standards, have too many distinct, and not always sensible causes to be traced back to a single root.
While Wei_Dai makes a very important contribution, I think there are couple of technical points that are probably more complex.
Out-group does not necessarily have lower status. There are groups within the out-group, such as moviestars, we regard as having high status. Threatening somebody with out-group is probably other deeply ingrained mechanism at play rather than status. For gregarious animals, being forced out of group maybe even worse than death, if it includes your offspring. It is not directly about status but survival.
Politically incorrect statements (racism etc.) however fit the description of Wei_Dai because groups also have status, and the statements lower the status of the corresponding group.