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huono_ekonomi 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.
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.