What is it, really? "I feel offended!" No, really, what does that actually mean? You feel angered? Hurt? Undervalued? Challenged? Denied respect? Fearful of being berated or physically attacked?
Google's interpretation is:
- annoyance or resentment brought about by a perceived insult to or disregard for oneself or one's standards or principles.
- "he went out, making it clear he'd taken offense"
| annoyance, anger, resentment, indignation, irritation, exasperation, wrath, displeasure, hard/bad/ill feelings, disgruntlement, pique, vexation, animosity, antipathy |
Look at that list of synonyms. All emotions, no point of rationale or logic.
At no point did everyone's willfully ignorant opinions become equal to the scientific process and facts.
I can read an ancient old book that tells me that the world is flat, but I can look at an image from a satellite today and see that accepting the reality will make human life better as we can use the reality to fly us from point A to point B more effectively. Similarly 1.6 billion humans can read a book that tells them that women should be raped and beaten with impunity, but in our modern existence we can see that this is a crock of shit and that we should be working very hard to turn this ridiculous adherence to the proclamations of a narcissistic psychopath who just wanted to have everything go his way.
At some point in the recent past, "Respect other's right to believe whatever they've been indoctrinated with" mutated into "Not only can other's beliefs not be questioned out of 'respect,' if your beliefs contradict theirs you cannot utter your views in public, not even in a country in which 'free speech' is the rule of law, because your views might spark 'offense' (see synonyms above, ALL of which are FEELINGS, not rational points of logic)." Now in that last bit lies the gravest problem to the entire 'Free World'.
If countries in which free speech is enshrined welcome immigrants who hold beliefs in which free speech is fundamentally banned, such as followers of an ancient cult leader who demanded that only his imaginings and self-manufactured 'holy mandates' be adhered to (i.e. "imprisoned speech"), then, by their own nation's laws, they have ended free speech (the ultimate end will come when the newcomers procreate more successfully and eventually out-number the original citizens). You see, if we give the folks for whom free speech means they are licensed to preach "imprisoned speech" and nothing else, AND we assure them that is 100% okay, then we have created a Catch-22, a tautological conundrum. They are 'free' to ghettoize their community and protect their children and all members from hearing anything that is free speech, especially if it 'hurts their feelings' in some vague way.
The moment that you have set this situation up (and it began with the Mennonites and other cults many years ago), you have created a trap in which free speech gets subverted --
UNLESS you go one step further in defense of free speech and ban any consideration being given to hurt feelings.
Indeed. As Ricky Gervais has pointed out repeatedly, "Hurt feelings" are impossible to objectively quantify and cannot be a consideration, EVER, in banning free speech online, in the news, or especially on school campuses.
What is happening across the 'Developed World' (the "Welfare World") is that a tradition of freedom is being highjacked by followers of a cult that preaches primitive, obsolete "imprisoned speech". The tool that is being leveraged, first in grade schools and now in universities and places of work is 'hurt feelings' (read: offense) and an entire generation of young people who grew up facing unimaginably emotionally traumatizing attacks on social media (now that they have a voice and can exert power), are eagerly rushing to the defense of the 'innocent followers of a cult who live among us' to defend them from what they imagine is the same kind of emotional trauma that they have witnessed on social media. It is not.
Yes, being ostracized and belittled online by schoolmates is hurtful and permanently damaging to one's self-esteem. To equate that reality to being the same as having one's indoctrination in an ancient cult challenged with modern scientific facts and the societal norms of free societies in the 21st century is deeply and dangerously wrong. As citizens who enjoy all the freedoms of the free and modern world, it is our duty, our obligation, to chip away at the barbaric musings of a murderous, megalomaniac warlord from the Iron Age.
It is time to ban "I feel offended" and stand up for free thought, open inquiry, rational debate based not upon 'opinions,' but upon well-thought-through points of argument. It is time to hold up really bad ideas to the full light of intellectual analysis and point out their failings in the public forum, 'hurt feelings' be damned.
