Leaders also need to realize that FEELINGS change on a weekly and sometimes DAILY basis. In every sexual harassment law in the United States, the language is the same:
“Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision”
Phrases like “…that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment…” are absolutely relative to the person who is on the receiving end. Therefore, anything that offends or creates negative feelings has the POTENTIAL to become illegal, merely dependent on the mood of the person claiming abuse or harassment.
FEELINGS can’t be regulated. Only ACTIONS.
We’ve crossed a threshold in this country where offense has become the benchmark for anyone wishing to legally silence or shame the opposition. It is not hard to see how OFFENSE and FEELINGS have regulated us down to a society of people who are scared to hold anyone to any standard, lest the subject of the matter claim racist, sexist, or hostile attention of any sort, resulting in the “moody mob” taking up their pitchforks to march on Frankenstein’s laboratory.
The problem is that Frankenstein’s monster never hurt anyone before it was chased out of the lab, by the very unhurt people who were frightened enough by having to think about something they didn’t like.
