Jan 31, 2018
The inherent nature of being offended, and a little deviance.
Epilogue:
( I hope you guys have done Chinese essays before, it would provide some context, to this first part, there are some intentional direct translations)
Hypothetical Scenario
It was a bright and sunny day, the sun was highly hung in the sky and shone brightly greeting the earth with its warmth. Balls of cotton candy levitated over Xiao Mings head.
He walks to school with an air of confidence, knowing that the world loves him very much. He is certain that all of his peers are jealous of his achievements, and that makes him a very big shit in school.
He had sadly inherited an odd condition from birth, and his eyes were located in his nose. Every time he wanted to see what was in front of him, he had to bend his head backwards. But it was a blessing in disguise, he could do homework on the table with little to no neck strain. He also wore his glasses on his nose.
Xiao Ming was clearly a very different boy.
He was walking to school and walked two steps in one step, whilst on the other side, he was using his phone.
He whilst facing straight ahead, he was able to browse his Instagram feed when suddenly, he received a comment on his post.
An anonymous user named bigshaqtheoneandonlysg commented the following in his topless photo: “ gay faggot.”
In a state of shock and confusion, Xiao Ming was confronted with very strong emotions. He was so angry that he had a hat on his head which created a fire of three meters above him.
He was strongly offended by the harsh and insensitive comment of the stranger troll online.
But why was he so angry? That is the question that we are going to answer today, enough of my direct translations, I think I have had my fair share of fun.
back to being serious
Today we will explore the reasons why we feel offended, angry and butthurt. We will examine the significance and the roles of these emotions in our lives. The story was a deviant little experiment.
Taking offence, and the emotions that come from it, are very strong and reactive. Undoubtedly they serve a purpose, that is to drive us into retaliation, into action and into the fray. It galvanises us to fight, to resist and take action.
If we ask ourselves this question, what truly offends us?
What kind of answers will we get?
Here is a short list of things that may or may not offend us:
people
ideas
habits
behaviours
criticism
confidence
insecurity
arrogance
intelligence
stupidity
accent
racism
cannibalism
murder
I think these things pose a certain threat to the way of life that we cherish and hold dear, therefore they become offensive.
On a side note:
I do observe that as people grow older and more mature, they tend to be offended less. I’m not sure if this is because they have come to terms with the way things are, or whether there is some inherent quality of maturity that allows them to see past their initial reaction.
The origin of offence
How will we find the root cause of offence?
Well first we need to have a few case studies and look and what the dynamics are for each scenario if we truly want to get to the bottom of this.
Let us take the case of Xiao Ming and his lovely follower. What are the dynamics of this relationship that we have here?
The dynamics and the basic grounds of the relationship:
- We can safely presume that Xiao Ming has some idea of what a gay faggot is. Generally, from his reaction, we can infer that it is used in a derogatory manner to ridicule Xiao Ming, at least in his cultural context of Singapore.
- We can also observe that in this hypothetical cultural context of Singapore, there is a negative view of people who are gay and that they are presumably things that we do not want to be as a male.
- This presumably, is because of the feminine traits which may be associated with the gay community, which is generally not accepted by society.
- Therefore, since both Xiao Ming and his lovely follower are living in the same cultural setting, the phrase was effective at making him feel offended.
And now we come across another interesting observation, that is, all of this is neither the opinions of Xiao Ming, nor his follower, but rather they were both enculturated to use these concepts of language.
Now we will look at the intent of the comment, and examine if the intent of the message was what caused xiao ming to feel offended.
Plausible intents of the follower with the message “gay faggot”
- social justice warrior:
He feels that Xiao Ming is actually gay and therefore worthy of being chastised. - troll:
He wants to send something that is comical and reactionary to his post. - insecurity:
He feels jealous of Xiao Ming’s photos and wishes to degrade him to make himself feel better.
If the intent is malicious and he wishes to harm and attack Xiao Ming personally, Xiao Ming’s mind may perceive this as a threat to our personal well being. Hence, as a result, it causes Xiao Ming to be offended, so that he takes immediate action to mitigate any further damage that may be inflicted in the future.
Because of the culture that he lives in, Xiao Ming may feel that it is unacceptable to be gay thus, feels that he will be chastised and rejected if there is an image of him being gay. Therefore, he also wishes to prevent this image from being proliferated, and thus he gets offended, so he can take swifter and more effective action.
Generally, the trend is that we get offended to defend ourselves, and this idea of the self extends to the beliefs that others have about us, essentially, our image. And also the public image that we strive for is generally dictated by our cultural context.
I think these are the two main things that I have gotten out of this whole exposition.
Personal take and concluding thoughts
When we do get offended I think it would be rather interesting to observe the values or ideas that we are trying to hold on to.
I think the least we could do is to know what we are standing for and trying to defend.
Then maybe, if we are up for it, examine the things that we are trying to defend and really question the pragmatic objectives of these values that we are trying to hold on to.
At least at the end of this questioning process, we might be able to understand ourselves better.
But eventually, the decision if for us to make, pick your poison;
ignorance or understanding; neither is inherently right or wrong.
Essentially I wrote a really long article about how we try to protect our self-interests, oh well I hope you have enjoyed it.
To those who have been reading this blog, I appreciate your presence.
It means the world to me :)
Alright,
Till next time.
-Z
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