On Thu, Jan 16, 2020 at 15:04 ToddAndMargo via perl6-users < perl6-us...@perl.org> wrote:
> On 2020-01-16 11:00, Trey Harris wrote: > and your apparent misapprehension that > merely explaining away a statement that some took offense to, without > any outward sign of contrition, inoculates you from any further offense. > [...] Offense can not be given, only taken. That is an execrable meme forwarded, I think, only by people who either haven’t examined the notion closely, or else who feel they are immune from offensive statements (they believe, by choice rather than circumstance) and assume everyone else has that same luxury. It’s basically a perversion of “sticks and stones”, which was never meant to be weaponized into victim-blaming by the sources of offense—as in “but words will never hurt *you*”—but as a comfort to the targets of offense. In the context of online discussion words are all there is, so this meme is essentially tantamount to a declaration that no statement made online can have *any* emotional impact unless willingly chosen by the reader, which is absurd. (Unless offense is somehow thought to be a singular emotional reaction with the magical property of being entirely voluntarily to experience.) Some folks take offense out of anything. But your prior statement of that meme should make this statement equivalent to “there exist things which some folks take offense from”—which would be an oddly meaningless position to take. As I assume you weren’t stating a tautology for no reason, I take it you mean some folks are especially prone to taking offense from things that reasonable people would find inoffensive. But you can’t say on the one hand that offense can’t be given, only taken, but on the other hand suggest that there are both validly offensive and purely inoffensive statements. A spectrum of offensiveness can’t coexist with the notion that offense is solely determined by the tetchiness of the target. On 2020-01-16 11:00, Trey Harris wrote: > and your apparent misapprehension that > merely explaining away a statement that some took offense to, without > any outward sign of contrition, inoculates you from any further offense. Contrition if I do something wrong first. [...] After endless explaining > what I meant, those still taking offense AFTER the explanation are the ones > that need to be apologizing. And your steadfast refusal—as Richard began this thread by observing—to accept any admission of wrong is the reason people continue to take offense. Wrong can exist absent intention. I could very sincerely mean it when I say “the square root of 20 is 5”, and my error could have been totally unintentional, but it’s still wrong. I don’t need to beat myself up about it or flagellate myself in front of everyone who heard my mistake, but I do still need to do at least the minimum of saying “oops, sorry” if I made the statement in a context that required the response of others in some way. And that’s in a context where offensiveness and other emotional concerns are nearly absent. > > The thing about /true/ contrition (and I haven’t read anything from you > > on this that seems to amount even to lip-service of contrition) is that > > you have to put up with a certain amount of what you may perceive as > > sour grapes before complaining about it. You can welcome magnanimity, > > but you can’t demand it. And until you do show true contrition, the > > timer on when those grapes sour can’t even start. > > > > “What, I already apologized, won’t you just drop it?!” would already be > > a bad look; “I have told you and others ENDLESSLY [that my behavior > > wasn’t something I ever needed to apologize for in the first place]” is > > quite a bit worse. > > My, my is not the sky a pretty shade of blue today? You appear to be trying your damnedest to force a context in which you can really make that become an offensive statement.
