It's a Civil Offense:
The politics of being offended

by Jmotivator

President Trump has, once again, stepped in it.  He is the living meme:

Nobody:

Trump: We should bring back the Redskins and Indians names.

So Trump has decided to step in to the discussion of -- or resurrect it, as it were --  team mascots, namely the Washington "Redskins" and the Cleveland "Indians".  Many people on both sides have now thrown their hat in the ring to make their old opinions known on the subject, creating a situation that undercuts the meme. 

Trump appears to have opened an old wound that never really healed and, on reflection, after much discussion I realized the truth of it:

This culture's solution to offense is not meant to heal.  It only buries.

Let's talk about this, why it happens, how it persists, how it's fueled, and simple ways to fix the problem that will themselves be heavily resisted.

To start I should point out that there is really nothing new to the current cultural prescription to resolving offense, it is as old as the spoken word.  But I will argue that the system we currently use is anathema to the culture that Americans intend to have and, further, where the civil melting pot works, there is a different method of resolving offense than the one that the country and politicians promote.

The current practice of resolving offense puts the onus on the person speaking to resolve an offense, and places the person taking offense as a wronged party in need of restitution, be it an apology or pistols at dawn.

What this does is escalate a misunderstanding into an argument, rather than a system of more understanding.  A person who meant no offense shouldn't really just accept that they offended unless what they said was a mistake on their part.  Using the wrong word should be corrected, but whether or not the word used was actually wrong is up for debate.

What happens when two people of disparate cultures both use a word in very different ways?  Who should concede ground?  Everyone has an opinion on this and think, vainly, that there is a solution.  It seems clear at this point that the old way of doing things isn't working.

Forcing a one size fits all solution, where the speaker by default is in the wrong, makes a pre-emptive value judgement without the facts and, rather than fixing a misunderstanding, it simply seeks to efficiently quash a disagreement.  This resolves nothing, and simply seeks to invalidate one point of view.  That point of view never really goes away, it just sits in the back of people's minds  as it's own source of offense.

Unfortunately, the solution is probably more complicated than most people have the time for.  The solution is to put the onus for resolution on the shoulders of the offended, not the assumed offender.

The reason a solution won't be easy is that there is too much political cache in demanding cultural change.  Sewing division in groups along easy demographic lines works great in the ever more gerrymandered political landscape.  A member of congress increasingly only answers to one majority political position or demographic, so appealing to that constituency at the expense of all else is good for their political careers.

There is no compromise, no middle ground, no mutual understanding, just perceived offenders and those who demand restitution, and the power always points towards those perceived to need restitution.  Government, for all it's assumed purposes, is centrally the tool for peaceful resolutions... through force.

If everyone got along and treated everyone else amiably then there would really be no need for government... but people suck, in general, so there is no real way to get away from Government power as it will always be needed to bring to bear against the people who suck in order to force them to suck less.

So the general philosophical proof would go like this: 

People suck --> government is needed to make people suck less --> To stop people from sucking less you need power --> Power is put in the hands of people --> The more people that suck, the more power that government needs --> Power corrupts because people Suck --> People in Government need people to suck --> Government finds new ways for people to suck

This is the history of mankind.  It sucks.

And so it brings us back to the original topic:  The politics of taking offense.

When you put the burden on the speaker to provide restitution you create a paradigm that all but demands government intervention.  Trump stepping in on behalf of the various offended Redskins and Indian fans (who take offense to being called racist when there was no racial animus in their fandom) is no more warranted than the political movement that doomed the team names in the first place.

There is another way, though.  People generally won't like it though because, as previously stated, people suck.

The solution:  Take no offense when no offense was intended.  Wherein the perceived offense was due to a mistaken use of language, the speaker can learn and not make the same mistake.  But where the speaker used the proper word in their own  culture or vernacular, and that word in their group is not intended to offend or more specifically, has complimentary connotations for them, then the word should be taken as the compliment it was meant to be.

Choosing to learn from other people their language and culture without forcing them to abide by yours is the essence of civility.

Accept compliments as they are intended, even if your first instinct is to take offense.  It involves communication and learning, but that's how understanding and acceptance are built.

A society where people laugh and remember when "that word" used to be offensive is healthier one than a society where people have to always try and remember what words are now offensive in fear of offending other people.