
Don't Get Offended - zacharypinter
http://lesswrong.com/lw/gux/dont_get_offended/
======
RyanMcGreal
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.

~~~
__--__
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.

------
kscaldef
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.

~~~
pdonis
_"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.

~~~
kscaldef
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.

~~~
dtf
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.

~~~
jib
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.

~~~
pdonis
_Don't think of it as acting in a performer sense, think of it as acting in a
sense of taking actions._

Exactly.

------
Jach
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.")

[0] <http://www.sl4.org/crocker.html>

[1] <http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4270>

~~~
nandemo
> 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".

~~~
Jach
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.

------
richardjordan
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.

------
pfarrell
We have a mantra in the engineering dept at my current gig. We should all have
"strong opinions; loosely held".

------
Herring
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.

~~~
kijin
The author follows up with an article titled "How to Not Get Offended".

<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.

------
jacoblyles
If you support a minority or unpopular viewpoint you should never, ever get
offended. It's counter-productive and convinces nobody.

Getting offended only works to win an argument if a large enough group of
people already agrees with you.

------
dreen
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."

------
maqr
This article seems likely to offend anyone that is easily offended.

------
mercurial
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.

------
parennoob
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.

~~~
kragen
I think this is a good strategy. Balpreet Kaur's response to such an incident
could be an example to us all:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/oct/02/s...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/oct/02/sikh-
protests-jk-rowling-misplaced) [http://jezebel.com/5946643/reddit-users-
attempt-to-shame-sik...](http://jezebel.com/5946643/reddit-users-attempt-to-
shame-sikh-woman-get-righteously-schooled)

------
martinced
_"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?"_

~~~
SoftwareMaven
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.

~~~
dllthomas
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 have _no_ control over my TV?

~~~
firefoxman1
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."

\- Epictetus_

~~~
kscaldef
> 1\. You as a human have the ability to control your reaction to anything.

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.

~~~
Domenic_S
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.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy#Ev...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy#Evaluation_of_effectiveness)

~~~
kscaldef
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.)

~~~
dllthomas
That depends greatly on what you mean by free-will.

------
rfnslyr
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.

