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TheOtherDave comments on Don't Get Offended - LessWrong
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Responding firmly and effectively to actual attacks may preserve status and discourage others from abusing or taking advantage of you. Being emotionally upset is not an important part of that response.
In fact, responding excessively or inappropriately to perceived but unintended attacks loses you some respect and can discourage others from involving you in social activities or cooperative tasks. We may respect a badass, but we don't like an arsehole.
Getting angry is easy because we have neural circuitry dedicated to it, whereas thinking clearly under stress is difficult. It's commonplace, however absurd, to rationalise a failure to think clearly under stress as a wise social signalling strategy :)
I endorse not responding excessively or inappropriately to attacks, and I endorse responding firmly and effectively to attacks.
I agree that if my emotions are preventing me from doing these things, that's worth correcting. And I agree that this is a common problem.
The solution is not necessarily (or typically, in my experience) to not have the emotion in the first place.
Agreed and voted up. Of course, you don't get a choice about whether to have an emotion, at the base level.
Not sure "offended" is a primary emotion though. It seems to me (by introspection) to be bundled together with a lot of culture-dependent and habitual behaviours, associations and memes, all of which are sub-optimal for any given situation, and could do with being brought under conscious control before being allowed to influence my actions.
I get a choice about whether and how I experience emotions, in the same sense as I get a choice as to whether and how I run marathons. That is, I can't decide right now to run a marathon, or to not feel anger, but I can make choices that will reliably eventually get me there. What I'm saying isn't that the latter is impossible, but rather that I don't endorse doing it.
I agree that offense is bundled together with and mediated by lots of culture-dependent and habitual stuff. I would say the same about a lot of emotional patterns. And yes, some (though not all) of that stuff is suboptimal for any given situation.
And yes, the ability to choose how I act even when emotional or otherwise experiencing influences on my behavior is valuable.
I agree that offense is not a primary emotion, if I understand what you mean by the term.