People need to realize that being offended is not an argument, itâs just a feeling, and moreover sometimes their feelings can be and are wrong, not every feelings are valid. Offense is never given, it is taken.Â
The issue I have with people who argue that as soon as someone takes offense then it is reason enough to shut down a conversation is that, by that logic, where does it end? I assure you that everything is going to offend someone somewhere, and therefore we will end up in a world where we canât and wonât speak about anything at all.Â
It is important for people to understand that sometimes, just because something makes them uncomfortable doesnât mean it doesnât deserve to be discussed, and humor? Well⊠same as satire (though the two arenât synonymous and satire doesnât need to be humorous), humor is a fantastic tool to poke holes at any given society failures by making fun of it. Sometimes humor will be offensive and uncomfortable, but it doesnât necessarily makes it wrong or bigoted, because sometimes your feelings arenât right and moreover no one appointed you the great decider of what is offensive and what is not, and your boundaries are not shared by everyone else.Â
People have mistakenly taken to believe that offense is always bad, that offending someone can never bring anything positive and is the worst thing you can do to someone, and it is wrong. Offense is not always negative, offense is sometimes needed to force people to take a good hard look at themselves and the flaws of the societies they live in. Once upon a time it was offensive to imply that the earth revolved around the sun, it was offensive to say that god didnât exist, it was offensive to be gay, it was offensive to be a woman and wanting the same rights as men. A lot of social and scientific progresses we have reached were once (often religiously) âoffensiveâ; if you truly think that establishing censorship and sheltering people from offense is more important that allowing conversation from occurring and that it wonât somehow stiff progress in the long run, then boy do you need to take a long hard look at history and then wonder again. Conservative ideas are rarely if ever the first to go, the free thinkers are.Â
Moreover, people need to realize that context is important, sometimes people will laugh at something because it is their way to deal with trauma, sometimes people will speak about something in a way that you will find offensive but which will make sense in their context. No matter what Tumblr loves to pretend in order to push US-centric norms as universal, context and intent do matter, they always do. A great example of that is the way a huge chunk of the western left tries to shut down any and every criticism of Islam as an ideology for no other reason than because it makes them feel icky, not realizing that in the process, theyâre shutting down a conversation that plenty of moderate Muslims and progressives living in Islamic theocracies are desperately trying to have in order to seek progress from themselves.Â
None of this is about excusing racism or bigotry (those things are wrong and should obviously be called out), instead itâs about saying that the world isnât your safe space, people donât exist to cater to your every whim, and since your feelings arenât the be all end all of morality and righteousness then you are no one to decide what people should and shouldnât talk about, what they should and shouldnât be allowed to learn or indeed to laugh about -Â and especially not if their circumstances greatly differ from yours.Â
jbbartram-illu
jacobvanloon
annaxmalina
theartofmadeline
turnnoffyourmind
discoholicmusic
