Kindly be offended
Let’s discuss offense. It’s one of those things we get uncontrollably greedy about. We take it all the time. Even when it’s not directed at us. Especially when it’s not directed at us. Taking offense has reached a point where it’s becoming increasingly difficult to say something without offending at least one section of the society. And we’re supposed to be living in the most modern era of all.
So, how exactly did we reach this point of ridicule? It didn’t happen overnight. We humans are always looking for a change. We get fed up with everything after a while. The weather. The place. The food. The people. The rituals. The government. The list goes on and on till the point that somebody has hurt his sentiments beyond repair. This desire for change has been forcing us to look for things that can be changed.
So, you make a list of stuff that needs to go.
Plastic is right at the top but then, it’s very difficult to fight the Industrial Giants who have systematically made us dependent on plastic. You scroll down a bit and you see there is over-dependency on fossil fuels but then, you can’t bicycle to Paris. So you suck it up and scroll down a bit and you see that there are other issues like mass accumulation of wealth by the one-percenters that gets your goat but then, you know it you can’t fight them. Although they might be in the minority, the stakes are pretty high in favour of them. So, what do you do? Oh, you shut the fuck up and keep scrolling down the list. You notice that our species can benefit a lot by divesting foodgrains from fat livestock to those who die of starvation but — don’t you hate this word by now? — you assume you can’t really make a difference there. Nonetheless, your privileged status doesn’t prescribe to the notion of giving up on your comfort and moving to a third world country to set up camps. That job is best left to the selfless humans and proselytizing nuns. So, there goes another strike on stuff you can’t change.
You don’t give up though and you keep scrolling down like a pro.
After hundreds of striking offs, you settle on changing the language. You appoint yourself as the crusader of sentiments. You are going to make sure nobody hurts nobody with weapons of mass destruction anymore: words. To make the most of this choice, your selected cause is so much in line with your luxurious existence. No prerequisite to alter anything about your sorry life. All you need is an invisible flag. Henceforth, you point out others’ verbal transgressions: “You shouldn’t have said that. It offends so and so…” The beauty of this crusade is the sheer embodiment of pain. You feel it on others’ behalf. Others denote the ones you are supposed to be protecting from the vile nexus of sentences that can ruin their self-esteem. Many a times, others don’t even care about those who said something nasty about them. Many a times, they don’t understand your crusade. But you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, right? So you thrive on the abstract concept of offense. As if the concept of God wasn’t enough.
We don’t talk about what makes us uncomfortable. We prefer to sweep that under the rug before burning the house down. For example, in 2015, Louis CK cracked a joke on child molesters resulting in thousands of mainstream responses on how insensitive he was towards the young victims of sexual exploitation. Now, here’s the thing: his joke wasn’t on the kids who were violated; it was more of an attempt at understanding what makes pedophiles do what they do. A scientific explanation would be that a pedophile is stuck in a time warp. A 9-year-old boy likes a 7-year-old boy/girl. The boy turns 15 but he’s still in like with the 7-year-old boy/girl in his mind. The boy turns into a man but he’s still in like with the 7-year-old boy/girl. It’s complicated, no doubt, but at the same time, it’s also something we don’t discuss and thus, don’t know much about. What Louis did that night was he brought the conversation to our dinner tables. He tempted the worms out of the forgotten can in a humourous way. Something the aforementioned crusaders didn’t appreciate because laughter is offensive in their thesaurus. They took offense for the same reason we wear tie. We do it but we don’t know why.
