When did we get so sensitive? Did we lose our collective sense of humour while I was napping? I nap almost every day, so that’s entirely possible. What’s with the popular hobby of being offended and outraged where those things don’t exist?
I learned this lesson years ago. In an act of desperation to come up with a talk show topic on my midday radio show in Hamilton, I developed outrage about a cigar store Indian that occupied the corner of a local shop. This was around the time of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry was trying to get a date with a native American woman but kept unintentionally offending her. His many faux pas included the aforementioned tall, wooden Indian carving.
The topic flopped on the air. No one cared because, frankly, it didn’t affect them. The idea completely fizzled once a native Canadian man called up and said he didn’t care so why should I?
Sidebar: This topic sits in my memory alongside, “should dogs be allowed to testify in criminal court?”, as one of my greatest talk show failures.
The lesson was that outrage belongs to the outraged. It wasn’t mine to interpret and my reaction made me seem like a hard-core member of the PC police, which I’m not. Had Indigenous people made an issue out of cigar store Indians, I could have offered support. But they didn’t. I looked silly.
Then there are those who confuse discrimination with simply being an idiot. Remember the admittedly “overweight” woman who was enraged because of ads on Toronto Transit Commission vehicles? In them, ballet dancers posed on subway cars. This woman felt insulted because the subjects of the ads “don’t look like me”. They’re not supposed to. They’re special. They’re ballet dancers whose lives are built around fitness and strength and grace. Where did this woman ever get the idea that all ads have to depict her experience of being in this life?
Some people are on alert for any sign that someone might consider them less than perfect. They’ll pounce on the tiniest thing and put you on the defensive about virtually nothing. They shut down meaningful discussion and claim offense at the most benign comments. It seems to me that job number one is to not assume that anyone else is doing anything more than just trying to get through the day as best they can. Rarely do people deliberately set out to offend. Oh, sometimes they do, but more often than not, they don’t. And it serves us well to determine the difference before getting all huffy about it.
Having given this topic some thought recently, I would agree that people have become to hyper sensitive and easily offended and outraged at the smallest of things and I think I might have a partial reason as to why. Social media offers a platform which is highly conducive to the heard mentality and with the anonymous nature of the environment people who lean towards speaking out lack any fear and thus control over what they will say. Then there is the “me” culture who only see the world as how it effects them.
My approach, I can’t say or do anything to offend someone, since offence is an emotional response to an event and only you are in control of your emotions, not me. so choose to be offended, but look in a mirror to see who to blame.
… but if I set out to offend you, there will be no need to guess.