Larks comments on Don't Get Offended - LessWrong

32 Post author: katydee 07 March 2013 02:11AM

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Comment author: Larks 07 March 2013 05:53:11PM 2 points [-]

You're only taking examples from one side. What about when the husband is offended his wife won't sleep with him, the bullies are offended by the gay kid, and the racists by the black people moving in?

Comment author: [deleted] 07 March 2013 06:29:50PM 1 point [-]

Then the husband shouldn't rape his wife even though he's offended, and the bullies shouldn't assault the kid even though they're offended, and the racists shouldn't lynch the black people even though they're offended.

Offense and harm aren't the same thing. The OP conflates them senselessly.

Comment author: Larks 07 March 2013 11:28:05PM 1 point [-]

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean - do you mean that HaydnB was (wrongly) conflating being offended, which is not very bad, and being harmed, which is?

Comment author: [deleted] 08 March 2013 01:04:55AM 1 point [-]

Katydee (the OP I meant) and you both seem to be conflating offence, a word that seemds to describe a broad class of possible emotional states and responses to something (two people might as readily say "I'm offended" before respectively starting a loud, angry argument and quietly asking if it's okay to change the topic), with the subset of offence that deals with what HaydnB was talking about.

The gay kid standing up to peer bullying, or the woman standing up to a husband who's acting entitled about access to her body for sex for that matter, are not the same thing as the peers' reaction to someone's perceived homosexuality, or the husband's assumption that his wife should put out whenever he wants. There are numerous other factors to take into account; the people bullying the gay kid aren't harmed by queer folks existing in anything like the way the kid emself is harmed by violent physical assault. The husband feeling frustration over not getting sex on his terms alone is not harmed by this in anything like the way the woman is if he forces himself on her or even just continues to act as though her body is presumptively there for his pleasure.

All of those examples will involve very different emotions, and very different motivations. I daresay even those that take the same "sides" you've framed here will be quite different from each other.

Comment author: Larks 08 March 2013 11:19:25AM 2 points [-]

HaydnB said

When someone says something offensive to you ... it seems like you should be offended by that. ... to the extent that you can shape your reactions (or character traits), this seems like one you'd want to keep.

His examples were cases where we might want to keep the reaction. But that doesn't mean he was talking about "objecting to harm" instead of offence, as you suggest. He was just using the most positive examples for his argument.

Comment author: [deleted] 07 March 2013 07:11:15PM -2 points [-]

You can have a debate about when offence is justified. I was making the point that in some cases it definitely is, and we shouldn't view offence as obfuscation/manipulation or follow the principle 'Don't Get Offended'.

Comment author: Larks 07 March 2013 11:29:02PM 2 points [-]

I was objecting to your assertion that being offended was in general a good reaction to keep by providing instances where it was not.