Offence
I went to see Russell Brand do stand up last week.
In between miming receiving oral sex from Hitler and explaining that Malcolm X used to be a rent boy he said something I really liked. He was talking about people getting offended and his take on it (said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world) was, ‘just don’t’.
Offence is in the mind of the offendee, not the offender. Of course some people set out deliberately to offend, but whether their intention is realised or not depends entirely on the person who experiences it; nothing is intrinsically offensive.
But by golly, offence is a massive industry. It gives us entire newspapers and TV shows (even channels, thank you, Fox News), religious murderers and censors and along with millions of disgruntled and unhappy people who arm themselves with the phrase ‘that’s offensive’ as if it’s the last word in any argument.
Yes, it’s offensive, but only because you’re offended. You could literally say it about anything, and people do: imaginary friends, vaginas, the word ‘shitwhistle’, the way people hold their knives and forks, smells, people from other countries, an ‘ugly’ view, unusual clothes etc…
And as Russell says, it’s all your choice and all in your head, and the more you find offensive the more unhappy you’ll be.
You cunt.
It’s easy to say that offence is all in the mind of the offended when you’re a wealthy, middle-aged white man like Russell Brand.
It’s easy to tell people not to get offended when you don’t face discrimination due to your colour, sexuality or religion.
And why is it that the people who say ‘being offended is a choice’ use it as a defence for offending people who are usually a minority of some kind? Black, disabled, gay etc.
Whenever people say ‘being offended is a choice’, they usually say it to disguise their lazy humour that relies on poking fun at easy targets.
Cunt.
Some wise sausage said this very thing in a comment on your blog a while ago. If memory serves, and it so seldom does these days, it was a post about a racist VW ad.
The gist of which (and I do remember this bit because I thought it wise) was “Offence is taken not given.”
Ta-ra ya shitter.
So, according to Russell’s theory…it’s not offensive to paint ‘Islam’ on the RAF Bomber Command tribute in Green Park then?
@ Joke: that doesn’t offend me.
I think that’s the point: there’s no intrinsic thing called ‘offence’. You have to fabricate it, and that’s your choice.
Oriel: If you’re black or gay or whatever, why be offended when someone calls out who or what you are, or makes fun of it? I’m not using ‘offence is a choice’ to defend anything.
And I don’t want to offend, but your comment does rely a great deal on lazy generalisations. Or maybe they’re not lazy. Maybe they took a lot of effort.
Offence has taken on a whole new dimension since web 2.0.
It used to be civilised not to cause people offence, and quite rightly. There was no excuse for it and you were deliberately hurting someone’s feelings.
But with the internet as it is now, you can’t help but offend people. You don’t know who is ‘in the room’ at any given moment. So I think the onus is, as Russell suggests, on the offendee to turn their eyes elsewhere.
I think on broadscale channels, the original values still remain. Yes, It’s easy not to be offended if not much is really sacred to you – you might even think offence is a bit prissy. But many people do hold strong beliefs/feelings – and winding them up in their own homes with their own license fee, etc, is just rotten.
There are so many other, cleverer ways of being entertaining/getting attention than offence.
But if people are choosing offensive company, then they have nobody to blame for the offence but themselves. You can’t expect three men in a pub to be PC any more than you can expect people not to think insulting thoughts. The thing is to let them do it in private, don’t listen in – and social media has more in common with that than it does a broadscale channel.
I noticed that many people get offended on other people’s behalf.
Look how busy the ASA is for example. 33 people took offense at the Thomas Cook ad of a man letting down a coaches tyres to disrupt it’s departure. And the judgement was upheld.
its
I like the way Ricky Gervais put it: “You can be offended, but that doesn’t mean you’re right.
Isn’t it a cop-out to say ‘No offence was intended’? Should an open society allow those freedoms to be hijacked by people with machiavellian intent or is it just a case of anything goes? Do we stand by the bedrock of what society survives on, knowing the fundamental difference between what is right and wrong or do we shape a new society on the shifting sands of opinion?
Can you choose not be offended any more than you can choose not to be scared, or excited, or completely underwhelmed by the cod-psychology of an egomanical comedian?
Yes.
“I see they put windows in them now.”
Right. So to clarify then Ben, there is no situaton, action or occurance possible on this earth that would offend your sensibilities?
@Butterbean. It’s called Stoicism. I’m a big fan. People allowing their emotions to force them to punch the air and shout “Get in” obliges me to fight the emotion of anger very strenuously.
I agree that people can and should choose to get away from situations they find offensive, or to turn off the TV.
But that is different from choosing how you feel.
I think humans are capable of influencing their own emotional reactions in certain ways but it’s a difficult skill that you make sound easy. Acquiring it might be a life’s work.
Moreover, although people often take offence too easily, that doesn’t mean offence has no role at all.
When we are collectively offended by people acting unkindly or cruelly, it can help create a climate where unkindness and cruelty are suppressed.
That can sometimes be a good thing in my opinion, it just depends on the examples you pick.
Ben.
Some statements and actions are made with the deliberate intent to offend you.
It’s an understandable emotional reaction that when someone tries to insult you, it’s hard not to be offended.
It’s a very fine line.
Going to a show where a comedian can offend you or your beliefs is a choice you made. So if you are offended then that is your problem, not the comedians.
But in a social context, when someone’s intent is to deliberately offend you, then the same cannot be said. You have not chosen for that to happen.
The scrawling of ‘Islam’ over a RAF tribute was intended to cause upset and undermine the fabric of society.
Like you, I also don’t find this ‘act’ offensive.
I just dislike the behaviour behind the ‘act’.
It’s a great post Ben!…you tosser!
Butterbean: being offended is very different from being horrified or wanting things to be a different way.
Name some things that might offend me and I’ll tell you if they worked.
@Joke: disliking the behaviour behind an act is very different to being offended by something.
The more I write it, the more I think being offended is a total load of old bollocks.
“You fish faced enemy of the people.”
I agree Ben it is. And yes Stoicism is a good way to approach controlling the way you re-act to an event.
Albert Ellis discover RET, rational emotionally therapy which in short taught his (crazy) patients to be more rational about their emotions, employing the philosophical ideas of the Stoics. By getting them to challenge their irrational beliefs about a certain event.
He believed people got offended for example not because of the action itself but because of a persons irrational beliefs about that action.
He believed what was going on in people’s heads was that they were ‘musturbating’ i.e. they ‘must’ not do that, they must not talk to me like that, they must not think differently to me.
Ellis would say “why mustn’t they?”, “they can do what ever they want, you can prefer they didn’t and dislike them for it.” You get out of control and distressed when you ‘musturbate’.
@Ben. I would, but the thing is, I don’t want to offend you.
Ben.
I know disliking the behaviour behind an act is very different to being offended by something…that was my point…obviously put very badly.
So I agree.
It’s still a great post, and you’re still a tosser!