"After all, what's offensive to one person may not be so to another, and they may end up offending you by mistake."
Including that sentence doesn't make the fact that it is undisputably a two-ways street go away.
If it's an honest mistake, sure, don't get offended. But if the person does it on purpose, then we're talking about something else altogether and there's no reason to simply "don't get offended". In the later case I'm not offended by what I'm hearing (the person who's going to make me feel inferior ain't born yet) but I'm offended by the fact that the person is trying to be offending on purpose.
There's a very easy way to be sure, you simply gently ask something like: "Are you trying to be offending?"
You can only control yourself. As such, you will never be able to control whether somebody else gets offended by something you say. You certainly can (and ought) to try not to offend, but, ultimately, you have no control over it.
On the other hand, you always have control over whether you will be offended by what somebody else say, even if they are trolling to an extreme, trying to get a rise out of you. You can decide to let it roll off your shoulders or you can rise to the bait. And the other person may not even be intentionally baiting you.
So, my remote is broken, and occasionally turns off the TV when I try to change the channel, but usually the channel changes. Also, the volume goes up or down by a kind of random amount, but usually in the direction I poke.
I'm sorry. I read it a couple times, but I'm really not understanding your analogy. Perhaps you can tell me how you would actually control somebody getting offended. Let's take an example:
Hypothetical you[1] are in a group at a party, talking about current events. Naturally, same-sex marriage comes up. Not wanting to offend people you don't know, you simply say you hope the Supreme Court makes an intelligent decision.
If a member of your group is a member of Westboro Baptist Church, I believe there is a good chance they will get offended, even though you didn't say anything offensive. How could you control that?
1. By hypothetical you, obviously I have no idea what your real beliefs are.
In the same way that when I push "volume up" it doesn't always go up, when you adjust your language to minimize offense it doesn't always lead to no offense. Sloppy control is still some control - I fully agree that you don't have perfect control; the comment I replied to said "no control", with the "no" italicized. I don't mean to just be pedantic; it seems central to the larger discussion. If I genuinely have no control over a system, it makes no sense to judge my actions in light of its effect on the system. If I have some control over a system, it makes sense to judge my actions in light of its effect (or expected effect) on the system.
There is certainly a symbiotic effect. And I agree, I need to be empathetic to the person I am interacting with, and, as a result of that empathy, change how I present myself. But these are all things I need to do.
I'm not sure we are actually saying anything different. I just don't think that, in the end, I have any control over somebody else. I can influence. I can change my behavior. But the way they are ultimately going to react is, effectively, completely out of my control.
Hm, how would you differentiate qualitatively between control and influence? I think we're likely just disagreeing about words here, but I'm curious as to how you're using them.
1. You as a human have the ability to control your reaction to anything.
2. Any person you deal with is also a human and has the same ability to control their reaction to anything.
Therefore, someone's reaction is 100% their choice, just as it is yours. We all have this ability, few of us exercise it. However, it is not my own fault that someone else doesn't exercise this control.
> "Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things. [...] When therefore we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never attribute it to others, but to ourselves; that is, to our own principles. An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others."
There are a few paradigms I can think of off the top of my head that support it:
-The idea of 'temporary insanity' or 'diminished capacity' in our legal system. When invoked, it normally asserts that a situation was so overwhelming that the subject couldn't react as they normally would. The 'heat of passion' and all that. This implies that generally, we can control our reactions to most things, and uncontrollable reactions are the exception.
-The field of cognitive behavioral therapy, which does has scientific evidence of effectiveness [0], see cites. Perhaps 'control your reaction to anything' is less-than-supported in the case of CBT, but combined with point 1 that should be more than enough to get you started.
I don't think the law can be submitted as scientific evidence. (One generally hopes the law is informed by scientific evidence, but even that isn't a given.)
Fundamentally, my point was that there's no scientific basis I can imagine for the idea of free-will, in humans or anywhere else. There's simply no physical law that enables it. (It is, of course, an immensely useful fiction, but that's not my point, which was rather that the entire question of "how to behave rationally" seems to rest on an irrational basis.)
I can't control having my feelings hurt when people go out of their way to do so. I can't rationalize my way out of it. Sometimes I just have to feel emotions I don't want to feel.
Sure, but the fact that you don't break down crying (or go on a killing spree) when someone goes out of their way to hurt your feelings shows a level of control already.
I think there's a level of practice and analysis that has to happen: someone goes out of their way to make a cutting remark and you can recognize, with practice, that they're manipulating your emotions, or projecting their own feelings, or whatever. And of course some people are more naturally resilient than others.
Leaving aside the conscious choice question, we can certainly say that a person makes a choice about their reaction to stimuli (within the range we're talking about) because the reaction is determined by their makeup - that's not at issue.
However, it is obviously the case that the reaction is based in part on the stimuli, in a fashion that can be somewhat predicted for the individual. The choice of what stimuli to apply, therefore, can give you some measure of control over the reaction even as the ultimate reaction is determined ultimately by the individual.
> if the person does it on purpose, then we're talking about something else altogether and there's no reason to simply "don't get offended".
You run the risk of becoming a source of cheap entertainment to them, like small children who poke a dog with sticks through a fence. If they do this to you in front of others — especially if they do it subtly — they can cause other people to see believe that you are unreasonable, unreliable, or overemotional. And, if you are in a competitive situation where your loss is their gain, they may be able to cloud your judgment with anger so that you make mistakes, making them better off.
So even when people are trying to offend you on purpose, it isn't always beneficial to let them.
Ah yes, I struggle with this every day. Day in and day out I am surrounded by people who have formed their ideals and opinions by constantly being fed those opinions via media. People who are quick to release their tongue on an issue, but far from directly doing anything to influence that issue.
It's a funny situation. You get people who are so vehemently for their cause, but when challenged are the first to act like victims.
I've found this type of advice is easily misunderstood. Most people don't know how to not get offended. So either they try suppress their feelings (and feel depressed) or they defend themselves by lashing out at you. It takes an incredible amount of maturity and experience to learn how to let go. If you find it difficult living with people who can't let go, you're caught in the same trap they are.
This article very early makes the statement that "while getting offended by something sometimes feels good and can help you assert moral superiority, in most cases it doesn't help you figure out what the world looks like." Implicit in this statement is that "figur[ing] out what the world looks like" -- and then accepting that status quo -- is, or ought to be, the goal of all people.
However, assuming one has an understanding of the status quo, and a desire to change it, "getting offended" can be a useful, and rational, response. (I include the quotes because there is an amount of subjectivity in what various people label as "getting offended".) In particular, such responses can serve to educate other people about behaviors which perpetuate the aspects of the status quo which the expresser desires to change.
So, while this article presents itself as a highly rational and neutral argument, embedded within it is actually a deeply conservative point of view.
"figur[ing] out what the world looks like" -- and then accepting that status quo -- is, or ought to be, the goal of all people
I don't see where the article says that you have to accept what the world looks like once you figure it out. Figuring out that the world is f--ked up and deciding to try and change it based on that knowledge is, it seems to me, perfectly consistent with what the article is saying.
such responses can serve to educate other people about behaviors which perpetuate the aspects of the status quo which the expresser desires to change
The article talks about this, under the heading of using "getting offended" to manipulate people. It's different because you are choosing to act offended to accomplish a goal, rather than involuntarily responding to something by being offended, even if it hinders you from accomplishing a goal.
It is somewhat difficult to divine the precise intent of the author of the article, or of the submitter of the article to HN; but I think it's important to acknowledge that some people are going to use this article to criticize and dismiss anyone who "gets offended" as someone who hasn't reached a certain ideal of detachment. Your very statement that you think it's okay to "act offended", as opposed to "getting offended", gets to my point of the subjective nature of the issue.
That's an important point to raise. There's another post (came across it reading the lesswrong.com comments to the submitted article) on how teaching about biases in the wrong order can lead to negative effects. http://lesswrong.com/lw/he/knowing_about_biases_can_hurt_peo....
As I let the words roll of my tongue, "acting offended" sounds just awful doesn't it? Only a Machiavelli would admit to acting offended to achieve their aims! "Getting offended" needs to be seen to be from the heart - as if you really had been torn kicking and screaming from the womb of rational detachment. Effecting this obviously requires extremely good acting.
Being offended is a good tool. It is much better tool when used logically and by choice. Don't think of it as acting in a performer sense, think of it as acting in a sense of taking actions.
There doesn't need to be any disingenuity there, it can be an honest response even though it is a logical choice to display that response.
Agreed. 'Accepting' doesn't even mean you have to like it. It's aligning your perceptions with reality. To get more mileage out of this horse, if you accept (especially if you are initially offended at the notion) that the world is unjust in its treatment of women, minorities, the poor, the rich, etc., then you can rationally determine if or how you can work to correct it.
> Implicit in this statement is that "figur[ing] out what the world looks like" -- and then accepting that status quo -- is, or ought to be, the goal of all people.
The article is from lesswrong.com, where everyone focuses very much on figuring out facts, and less so on most of the other things that matter in life. In addition, by "facts" or "what the world looks like" they mean scientifically verifiable facts first and foremost. I don't think a lot of people would have a problem with the "status quo" if by that phrase you meant F=ma or E=mc^2.
In fact, I would say that the article (and the lesswrong.com community as a whole) subscribes to a radically progressive point of view, where any and every social institution (and our emotional attachments to them) should be subjected to rigorous scrutiny based on facts. The author will probably take issue with your assumption -- "assuming one has an understanding of the status quo" -- since, in his/her opinion, whether or not you actually have an understanding of facts is exactly what we're trying to figure out in the first place.
I'm not sure whether having such a hyper-critical point of view is actually better than having a conservative bias -- after all, there are other things that matter in life -- but in any case I think you missed the context.
Implicit in this statement is that "figur[ing] out what the world looks like" -- and then accepting that status quo -- is, or ought to be, the goal of all people.
At least the first part seems like a perfectly fine goal. You can't know what needs fixing if you don't know what's broken. Even if you know what you want something to look like, you can't know how to get there if you don't know where we are.
To change the status quo, you must find out what it is first. The idea that is deeply conservative is the opposite: that people are better off in ignorance of what the world looks like.
Less Wrong is a place where folks try to discuss things with a high degree of technical accuracy. For example, if a respondent were to disagree with the linked article, they would try to avoid making an outrageously stupid claim such as "Implicit in this statement...[is] accepting the status quo"--which is in NO WAY implied by the article--and then smugly toppling the argument that no one made. Derailing conversations like that is a waste of everyone's time.
I imagine a world, the world I would like to live in, where people didn't attempt to manipulate disagreements or indeed policy discussions by appeals to emotion. I want to live in a world where it's taken for granted that you can advocate for a position through a calm meeting of minds. I'm an extremely emotional person and can reconcile the search for unbiased truth--which includes my actions and the polices of my communities coming to reflect that truth--with living an emotional life just fine, since emotion is not the opposite of reason that many people try to claim it is. Mainly the people I see making this claim are those who would like to substitute emotional manipulation for making a rational case.
Bullshit. You have to understand things, and particularly understand how things work, if you want to change them without making a hash of everything. Any programmer should know that by now.
There's a very important distinction between "ought" statements and "is" statements. Getting offended is a fallacy if it causes you to miss that distinction.
In practice, if you're blinded by outrage, you won't even be able to judge what to be outraged at, and then you'll be played for a fool.
There's very little advantage to responding to something with true emotional offence. Displaying offence to others can be a useful tool in pushing for change, but discussing something rationally is almost always a better choice.
If someone appears to be irrationally offended by something you said or did, you make a mental note not to say or do that to them again. If the offense appears to me to be irrational and no discussion of why it's offensive takes place, it doesn't change my overall behaviour. It doesn't change my belief that my action wasn't offensive. It makes me think that person is irrational.
To change someone's attitude to something you need to discuss it with them. You need to demonstrate to them why the attitude they hold might be harmful. Taking offence doesn't do that.
Being a non-American person in the United States (and a 'person of colour', as I believe the term is), I have sometimes had to deal with people ridiculing my culture in a mostly unintended way. At first, I used to be just angry at them, and most of my day would be ruined. Alternately, I would react in an angry or indignant manner (and my day would still be ruined.)
Occasionally, even now, my "useful habits are shut down", like the article says, for an entire day when someone makes an insensitive or rude comment.
But by logically evaluating the words of the offender, I have often seen that they are the result of ignorance, or plain thoughtlessness rather than an innate lack of respect.
Hence, now, when sometimes people say things that I perceive as being culturally insensitive or even mildly racist, I have learned to either let go, or calmly but firmly point out the bias involved in their wording, which has led to a better understanding and rapport between me and the people I interact with here.
A case for purposefully trying to offend someone, or just playing devil's advocate for something that might cause offense: getting to know people's level for what they are offended by, and thereby measuring their rationality and whether or not they're worth talking to seriously. If someone blows up over one thing, odds are they'll blow up over other things too. Jonathon Swift's "A Modest Proposal" could probably have been used as a litmus test many years ago--nowadays it's just too easy to dismiss it as "trolling", or treat it as nothing more than the satire and social commentary it is, rather than having an emotional reaction to it or attempting at least a somewhat serious analysis of whether or not his solution would be feasible in different dimensions and whether or not it would likely help the problem.
I like to ask if people operate by (or will operate by having seen the link) Crocker's Rules[0], which tells me whether or not they take responsibility for their own mind. (Looks like it's mentioned in the comments on LW too.)
This reminds me of esr's recent commentary about a controversial piece of advice.[1] Can you see past preconceptions, and either engage reality as reality, or even hypotheticals as hypotheticals, and not respond on a purely emotional level? Emotions are fine; I like my emotions, I just try not to be ruled by them as much as I can, especially the less productive ones. ("Speak the truth even if your voice shakes.")
> If someone blows up over one thing, odds are they'll blow up over other things too.
Not necessarily true. There is one -- and only one -- "hot button" issue that absolutely makes me fume. And my position on it comes after a lot of careful, introspective thought.
For all other issues, nothing would really upset me.
> getting to know people's level for what they are offended by, and thereby measuring their rationality and whether or not they're worth talking to seriously.
So you're saying you disagree with (IMO) the central assumption in the article?
> People who would be level-headed about evenhandedly weighing all sides of an issue in their professional life as scientists, can suddenly turn into slogan-chanting zombies when there's a Blue or Green position on an issue.
Most people have such a Blue vs. Green issue. I'd wager that if you wanted to commit social suicide you could easily manage to offend over 95% of your friends by simply choosing your trolling topics carefully (without name-calling). But that hardly means you should dismiss your friends.
> nowadays it's just too easy to dismiss it as "trolling",
I suggest Gulliver's Travels, if you haven't read it. It's still very current.
As for esr, he's saying much more than that. He's claiming that, after you have read Derbyshire's article, you're supposed to answer "no" to those 5 questions. There are a lot of implicit assumptions in there.
I answered "yes" to the 5th question, i.e. I concluded the author is probably racist, but that doesn't imply my answer is result of my emotions clouding my judgement. It could simply be that my definition of "racist" is different from esr's. Interestingly, someone mentioned in the comments that Derbyshire admitted elsewhere being a "racist and homophobe, but a tolerant one".
Can you clarify what you think the central assumption in the article is? After typing the rest of this I think I may have misunderstood you. I think the central assumption is stated in the first sentence: "One oft-underestimated threat to epistemic rationality is getting offended." I don't think it's much of a leap to generalize that to "noticing others getting offended is an indicator that their epistemic rationality isn't up to snuff." But it is inconsistent with a common theme around LW that learning about biases etc. should only be about improving yourself, not about noticing errors in other people. (I say why not both, while just being careful and not over-confident with the latter?)
I should clarify that I don't think someone's "I'm offended" level completely measures their rationality, it's just a useful indicator. (They may have a Blue v. Green issue that just hasn't come up yet, or they may fail hard in the many other ways humans can be irrational, or my "this person is offended" detectors might be screwy.) I agree with the assumption that many, and probably most, seemingly rational people can become quite seemingly irrational when prompted with the right subjects. Or as Tesla put it, "The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane." Blue v. Green dynamics, and generally group identification, are pretty embedded in our neurological makeup, and to me only seem connected to "being offended" in the way that such a mind state makes it easier to fall into those (and other usually undesirable) modes of thought.
I think all bridges can be burnt given enough time, but not all of them through trying to offend alone. With close friends who share your mental structure of finding it hard to be offended, let alone difficult to express it without a trace of irony, it takes other methods to destroy that friendship. The act of incessant trolling by itself could work depending on the person, regardless of if that person finds anything said offensive or not, simply because if I spend all my time trolling them, then I'm not worth their time.
I read Gulliver's Travels around the same time as "A Modest Proposal", I agree it's still relevant and insightful. I also think you're right about esr's post having a problem by not defining "racist", and leaving the reader to do it themselves. (There are many definitions out there.) But I do think people who define "racist" as including something similar to "citing statistics that don't paint a pretty picture of all the various races, where such a pretty picture would show that such a simple observable never correlates with anything negative, and giving reasonable advice assuming those statistics are accurate" are in error, regardless of the accuracy of the statistics.
Is there such a need to actively sort the people of the world?
Certainly a person will end up taking their experiences with another person into account over time, but I don't see that it is particularly problematic to usually give people the benefit of the doubt (sure, if you don't know a person and they are screaming "fire", maybe still take a second to look for smoke before jumping off the bridge, and so on).
I can't really sympathize with the view that we shouldn't sort people among any dimensions, or that there's no need. (I'm not even sure conscious effort is enough to stop all the unconscious sorting my brain is constantly doing anyway even if I did want to get rid of it all--though I certainly want to get rid of some, and I've more-or-less beaten the less biological things like sorting people based on fashion or vocal pleasingness.) In this particular case when you find a topic, or a set of topics, that you can't seriously discuss (even if you both disagree!) with a person because they immediately become offended, you've found a barrier to forming a deeper relationship that is in essence just the same barrier that's formed in any situation when one party stops listening. I'll agree they still may be worth your time due to their ranking on other dimensions, but there will continue to be at least that one barrier. Perhaps over time that barrier might even break down--I really believe the purpose of argument isn't to convince the other person right away, but to plant the seeds of differing thought for them to think about when they reflect on their own beliefs later. (Which brings me to a problem with people who don't seem to reflect on their state of mind and their world view very often, but that's another issue, and in any case such an observation can be hard to measure from the outside so it probably shouldn't be used as a dominant sorting key.)
The part where I talk about taking experience into account isn't very sympathetic to that viewpoint either. But you indicated that you say things simply to evaluate the response. I find this manipulative and don't see a need for it.
I see some potential for me just reading your comment too narrowly.
Without going into the detail of the article I think in general this is just great advice for life.
One of the best decisions I ever made was to try to take people at face value, and not second guess them or discern imagined motivations (which is usually where we get our sense of offense from in the first place). Not naively, but as a conscious and knowing choice.
Recognizing that good people sometimes say and do bad things. That none of us were born with an instruction manual to life - we're all just trying to figure it out in our own way, and figure out how to extract a bit of happiness out of it. It leads you to a compassionate view of people.
But that doesn't mean you have to like everyone. Nor agree with the disagreeable. Far from it. And I certainly don't bat 1.000 when it comes to practicing it. But it's a sound approach that I think has made me happier.
As a side-effect I also find I am more effective, particularly as there are many people who try to put you off kilter by deliberately causing offense as a tactic in negotiation or just everyday interaction. Where it's an inadvertent style of theirs it means I find it easier to defuse things, and when it's (unpleasantly) deliberate it removes that tactic from their playbook and resets things.
An essential part of "figur[ing] out what the world looks like" is recognizing that humans are hard-wired for emotion, and that we all have a responsibility to understand the emotional impact our words and actions will have on other people.
"Don't get offended" may be an important message for you to assert to yourself to avoid losing your cool; but if you find yourself telling someone else not to get offended after saying or doing something offensive to that person, there's a good chance you are using this argument in a self-serving manner rather than the spirit of enlightened rationalism.
In other words, don't use "don't get offended" as an excuse to be a douchebag.
Could not agree more. While rational thought is encouraged in most situations, there are bound to be some issues on which we all have a personal connection and are bound to get offended. "Don't get offended" is certainly not universal there.
Being a douchebag varies by culture and context. What you're really saying is, let your current society tell you what is acceptable to say and what isn't. How does that work in a society where PC is in overdrive and almost anything you say can and will be taken in an offensive light? Being an east coast boy, I see this taken to the extreme in California. It reduces most conversations to talking about the weather or beating up on a socially acceptable strawman, like copyright law.
Quite relevant after the Adria Richards debacle. That said, if you consider the amount of abuse she got from her post, "don't get offended" as a matter of principle asks for more moral fortitude than most people possess.
This reminds me of the brilliant quote by Stephen Fry:
"It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."
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[ 222 ms ] story [ 1056 ms ] threadIncluding that sentence doesn't make the fact that it is undisputably a two-ways street go away.
If it's an honest mistake, sure, don't get offended. But if the person does it on purpose, then we're talking about something else altogether and there's no reason to simply "don't get offended". In the later case I'm not offended by what I'm hearing (the person who's going to make me feel inferior ain't born yet) but I'm offended by the fact that the person is trying to be offending on purpose.
There's a very easy way to be sure, you simply gently ask something like: "Are you trying to be offending?"
On the other hand, you always have control over whether you will be offended by what somebody else say, even if they are trolling to an extreme, trying to get a rise out of you. You can decide to let it roll off your shoulders or you can rise to the bait. And the other person may not even be intentionally baiting you.
I have no control over my TV?
Hypothetical you[1] are in a group at a party, talking about current events. Naturally, same-sex marriage comes up. Not wanting to offend people you don't know, you simply say you hope the Supreme Court makes an intelligent decision.
If a member of your group is a member of Westboro Baptist Church, I believe there is a good chance they will get offended, even though you didn't say anything offensive. How could you control that?
1. By hypothetical you, obviously I have no idea what your real beliefs are.
I'm not sure we are actually saying anything different. I just don't think that, in the end, I have any control over somebody else. I can influence. I can change my behavior. But the way they are ultimately going to react is, effectively, completely out of my control.
2. Any person you deal with is also a human and has the same ability to control their reaction to anything.
Therefore, someone's reaction is 100% their choice, just as it is yours. We all have this ability, few of us exercise it. However, it is not my own fault that someone else doesn't exercise this control.
> "Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things. [...] When therefore we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never attribute it to others, but to ourselves; that is, to our own principles. An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others."
- Epictetus
Do you actually have any support for that statement, other than as an article of faith? I am honestly not aware of any scientific evidence for it.
-The idea of 'temporary insanity' or 'diminished capacity' in our legal system. When invoked, it normally asserts that a situation was so overwhelming that the subject couldn't react as they normally would. The 'heat of passion' and all that. This implies that generally, we can control our reactions to most things, and uncontrollable reactions are the exception.
-The field of cognitive behavioral therapy, which does has scientific evidence of effectiveness [0], see cites. Perhaps 'control your reaction to anything' is less-than-supported in the case of CBT, but combined with point 1 that should be more than enough to get you started.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy#Ev...
Fundamentally, my point was that there's no scientific basis I can imagine for the idea of free-will, in humans or anywhere else. There's simply no physical law that enables it. (It is, of course, an immensely useful fiction, but that's not my point, which was rather that the entire question of "how to behave rationally" seems to rest on an irrational basis.)
I think there's a level of practice and analysis that has to happen: someone goes out of their way to make a cutting remark and you can recognize, with practice, that they're manipulating your emotions, or projecting their own feelings, or whatever. And of course some people are more naturally resilient than others.
However, it is obviously the case that the reaction is based in part on the stimuli, in a fashion that can be somewhat predicted for the individual. The choice of what stimuli to apply, therefore, can give you some measure of control over the reaction even as the ultimate reaction is determined ultimately by the individual.
You run the risk of becoming a source of cheap entertainment to them, like small children who poke a dog with sticks through a fence. If they do this to you in front of others — especially if they do it subtly — they can cause other people to see believe that you are unreasonable, unreliable, or overemotional. And, if you are in a competitive situation where your loss is their gain, they may be able to cloud your judgment with anger so that you make mistakes, making them better off.
So even when people are trying to offend you on purpose, it isn't always beneficial to let them.
It's a funny situation. You get people who are so vehemently for their cause, but when challenged are the first to act like victims.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/gwx/how_to_not_get_offended/
Not sure whether this addition will be any help to people who are seriously determined not to "let go", though.
However, assuming one has an understanding of the status quo, and a desire to change it, "getting offended" can be a useful, and rational, response. (I include the quotes because there is an amount of subjectivity in what various people label as "getting offended".) In particular, such responses can serve to educate other people about behaviors which perpetuate the aspects of the status quo which the expresser desires to change.
So, while this article presents itself as a highly rational and neutral argument, embedded within it is actually a deeply conservative point of view.
I don't see where the article says that you have to accept what the world looks like once you figure it out. Figuring out that the world is f--ked up and deciding to try and change it based on that knowledge is, it seems to me, perfectly consistent with what the article is saying.
such responses can serve to educate other people about behaviors which perpetuate the aspects of the status quo which the expresser desires to change
The article talks about this, under the heading of using "getting offended" to manipulate people. It's different because you are choosing to act offended to accomplish a goal, rather than involuntarily responding to something by being offended, even if it hinders you from accomplishing a goal.
There doesn't need to be any disingenuity there, it can be an honest response even though it is a logical choice to display that response.
Exactly.
The article is from lesswrong.com, where everyone focuses very much on figuring out facts, and less so on most of the other things that matter in life. In addition, by "facts" or "what the world looks like" they mean scientifically verifiable facts first and foremost. I don't think a lot of people would have a problem with the "status quo" if by that phrase you meant F=ma or E=mc^2.
In fact, I would say that the article (and the lesswrong.com community as a whole) subscribes to a radically progressive point of view, where any and every social institution (and our emotional attachments to them) should be subjected to rigorous scrutiny based on facts. The author will probably take issue with your assumption -- "assuming one has an understanding of the status quo" -- since, in his/her opinion, whether or not you actually have an understanding of facts is exactly what we're trying to figure out in the first place.
I'm not sure whether having such a hyper-critical point of view is actually better than having a conservative bias -- after all, there are other things that matter in life -- but in any case I think you missed the context.
At least the first part seems like a perfectly fine goal. You can't know what needs fixing if you don't know what's broken. Even if you know what you want something to look like, you can't know how to get there if you don't know where we are.
Less Wrong is a place where folks try to discuss things with a high degree of technical accuracy. For example, if a respondent were to disagree with the linked article, they would try to avoid making an outrageously stupid claim such as "Implicit in this statement...[is] accepting the status quo"--which is in NO WAY implied by the article--and then smugly toppling the argument that no one made. Derailing conversations like that is a waste of everyone's time.
I imagine a world, the world I would like to live in, where people didn't attempt to manipulate disagreements or indeed policy discussions by appeals to emotion. I want to live in a world where it's taken for granted that you can advocate for a position through a calm meeting of minds. I'm an extremely emotional person and can reconcile the search for unbiased truth--which includes my actions and the polices of my communities coming to reflect that truth--with living an emotional life just fine, since emotion is not the opposite of reason that many people try to claim it is. Mainly the people I see making this claim are those who would like to substitute emotional manipulation for making a rational case.
There's a very important distinction between "ought" statements and "is" statements. Getting offended is a fallacy if it causes you to miss that distinction.
In practice, if you're blinded by outrage, you won't even be able to judge what to be outraged at, and then you'll be played for a fool.
If someone appears to be irrationally offended by something you said or did, you make a mental note not to say or do that to them again. If the offense appears to me to be irrational and no discussion of why it's offensive takes place, it doesn't change my overall behaviour. It doesn't change my belief that my action wasn't offensive. It makes me think that person is irrational.
To change someone's attitude to something you need to discuss it with them. You need to demonstrate to them why the attitude they hold might be harmful. Taking offence doesn't do that.
LessWrong has another great post on this topic, which makes a point similar to yours and explains exactly why getting offended is useful: http://lesswrong.com/lw/13s/the_nature_of_offense/ .
Occasionally, even now, my "useful habits are shut down", like the article says, for an entire day when someone makes an insensitive or rude comment.
But by logically evaluating the words of the offender, I have often seen that they are the result of ignorance, or plain thoughtlessness rather than an innate lack of respect. Hence, now, when sometimes people say things that I perceive as being culturally insensitive or even mildly racist, I have learned to either let go, or calmly but firmly point out the bias involved in their wording, which has led to a better understanding and rapport between me and the people I interact with here.
I like to ask if people operate by (or will operate by having seen the link) Crocker's Rules[0], which tells me whether or not they take responsibility for their own mind. (Looks like it's mentioned in the comments on LW too.)
This reminds me of esr's recent commentary about a controversial piece of advice.[1] Can you see past preconceptions, and either engage reality as reality, or even hypotheticals as hypotheticals, and not respond on a purely emotional level? Emotions are fine; I like my emotions, I just try not to be ruled by them as much as I can, especially the less productive ones. ("Speak the truth even if your voice shakes.")
[0] http://www.sl4.org/crocker.html
[1] http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4270
Not necessarily true. There is one -- and only one -- "hot button" issue that absolutely makes me fume. And my position on it comes after a lot of careful, introspective thought.
For all other issues, nothing would really upset me.
So you're saying you disagree with (IMO) the central assumption in the article?
> People who would be level-headed about evenhandedly weighing all sides of an issue in their professional life as scientists, can suddenly turn into slogan-chanting zombies when there's a Blue or Green position on an issue.
Most people have such a Blue vs. Green issue. I'd wager that if you wanted to commit social suicide you could easily manage to offend over 95% of your friends by simply choosing your trolling topics carefully (without name-calling). But that hardly means you should dismiss your friends.
> nowadays it's just too easy to dismiss it as "trolling",
I suggest Gulliver's Travels, if you haven't read it. It's still very current.
As for esr, he's saying much more than that. He's claiming that, after you have read Derbyshire's article, you're supposed to answer "no" to those 5 questions. There are a lot of implicit assumptions in there.
I answered "yes" to the 5th question, i.e. I concluded the author is probably racist, but that doesn't imply my answer is result of my emotions clouding my judgement. It could simply be that my definition of "racist" is different from esr's. Interestingly, someone mentioned in the comments that Derbyshire admitted elsewhere being a "racist and homophobe, but a tolerant one".
I should clarify that I don't think someone's "I'm offended" level completely measures their rationality, it's just a useful indicator. (They may have a Blue v. Green issue that just hasn't come up yet, or they may fail hard in the many other ways humans can be irrational, or my "this person is offended" detectors might be screwy.) I agree with the assumption that many, and probably most, seemingly rational people can become quite seemingly irrational when prompted with the right subjects. Or as Tesla put it, "The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane." Blue v. Green dynamics, and generally group identification, are pretty embedded in our neurological makeup, and to me only seem connected to "being offended" in the way that such a mind state makes it easier to fall into those (and other usually undesirable) modes of thought.
I think all bridges can be burnt given enough time, but not all of them through trying to offend alone. With close friends who share your mental structure of finding it hard to be offended, let alone difficult to express it without a trace of irony, it takes other methods to destroy that friendship. The act of incessant trolling by itself could work depending on the person, regardless of if that person finds anything said offensive or not, simply because if I spend all my time trolling them, then I'm not worth their time.
I read Gulliver's Travels around the same time as "A Modest Proposal", I agree it's still relevant and insightful. I also think you're right about esr's post having a problem by not defining "racist", and leaving the reader to do it themselves. (There are many definitions out there.) But I do think people who define "racist" as including something similar to "citing statistics that don't paint a pretty picture of all the various races, where such a pretty picture would show that such a simple observable never correlates with anything negative, and giving reasonable advice assuming those statistics are accurate" are in error, regardless of the accuracy of the statistics.
Certainly a person will end up taking their experiences with another person into account over time, but I don't see that it is particularly problematic to usually give people the benefit of the doubt (sure, if you don't know a person and they are screaming "fire", maybe still take a second to look for smoke before jumping off the bridge, and so on).
I see some potential for me just reading your comment too narrowly.
Getting offended only works to win an argument if a large enough group of people already agrees with you.
One of the best decisions I ever made was to try to take people at face value, and not second guess them or discern imagined motivations (which is usually where we get our sense of offense from in the first place). Not naively, but as a conscious and knowing choice.
Recognizing that good people sometimes say and do bad things. That none of us were born with an instruction manual to life - we're all just trying to figure it out in our own way, and figure out how to extract a bit of happiness out of it. It leads you to a compassionate view of people.
But that doesn't mean you have to like everyone. Nor agree with the disagreeable. Far from it. And I certainly don't bat 1.000 when it comes to practicing it. But it's a sound approach that I think has made me happier.
As a side-effect I also find I am more effective, particularly as there are many people who try to put you off kilter by deliberately causing offense as a tactic in negotiation or just everyday interaction. Where it's an inadvertent style of theirs it means I find it easier to defuse things, and when it's (unpleasantly) deliberate it removes that tactic from their playbook and resets things.
"Don't get offended" may be an important message for you to assert to yourself to avoid losing your cool; but if you find yourself telling someone else not to get offended after saying or doing something offensive to that person, there's a good chance you are using this argument in a self-serving manner rather than the spirit of enlightened rationalism.
In other words, don't use "don't get offended" as an excuse to be a douchebag.
"It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."