Were Humans Always This Easily Offended?
Periodically the choices of interesting things to watch on TV runs dry, and my wife and I pass our downtime either rewatching some old classic we haven’t seen in years, or checking out some pop-culture staple that slipped through the cracks when it first aired. It happens, especially if real life occupies much of your time. I’m an old movie buff, but somehow still have never seen Gone With the Wind. We didn’t watch Mad Men until last year, or Twin Peaks until the year before.
The past few weeks it’s been The Sopranos, which we’re about halfway through. I remember when it first aired, and thinking it was just the film studios hanging onto the coattails of Scorcese’s recent mob masterpieces, returning to the trough to milk the popular mafia genre dry before its audience got tired of it, so I avoided it at the time.
Well, now that I’m watching it with its proliferation of Italian stereotypes (I’m half Italian, on my mother’s side), I can understand some of the outrage against it back then. Damn it, I’m offended!
Okay, I’m not actually offended; frankly, not much offends me. I’ve never really understood the concept of being easily offended, to be honest. What anyone thinks about me or “my people”, whether based in ignorance or in some semblance of truth, has no bearing on my actual life. Who has the time for it?
Maybe I’m an advanced specimen of humanity, who sees through all the nonsense that is taking offense to bullshit that you know isn’t real. Or maybe it’s the opposite, that I’m a caveman who’s too focused on my own quality of life to be distracted by the opinions of someone I don’t even know. I’m leaning toward the latter.
During simpler times, everything was survival-based. Males defended females to protect the sources of their progeny. Conflict with other tribes was not incited by their appearance, but by concerns they would control your living spaces, food, or people.
I’ve mostly lived my life this way, despite being in a modern, social world. I try not to concern myself with what others are doing, instead focusing on what’s best for my family. I ask for virtually nothing and have trouble comprehending how so many feel so free to ask so much from others. I’m no hermit, but I can empathize with a hermit’s mentality.
I wonder what someone could possibly say to me which would truly get under my skin. As someone of Irish, Italian, and Ukrainian ancestry, they could try to stereotype my heritage - “Micks (Irish) love their alcohol” (well, we kind of do); “Guineas (Italians) are dramatic and overzealous about family” (we kind of are); “Eastern Europeans (Ukrainians) are cold and detached” (plenty of examples of that too). So maybe I’m not bothered because many stereotypes have some basis in facts, at least as they apply to many in their target groups.
But what about those which are inapplicable (contemporarily, anyway), which seek only to denigrate for the sake of bigotry? “Irish are lazy and violent” - the history of their societal growth in the last century, at least in this country, would call the lie to that claim. “Italians are all mob-connected goombahs” - I have never personally known any fellow Italians who were connected, even growing up in New York. And on and on…
Perhaps oddly, these transgressions don’t offend me either. I grew up in a world in which everybody busted each other’s balls relentlessly, usually for laughs, and we all developed thick skin. Sometimes the comments were extreme hyperbole or total nonsense, and we’d join in the laughter at the misrepresented characterizations of ourselves. Sometimes they were based on some truth about a personal shortcoming, which drove us to better ourselves. Nobody wallowed in self-pity about being marginalized or spent their remaining days being triggered by any slight they deemed offensive.
Again, who has the time?
We often forget how limited our time in this life actually is. On a cosmic scale, our lives are but a drop of water in a vast ocean. The inability to shut out perceived offenders and live our lives just seems self-defeating and senseless to me.
Is that easier said than done? Maybe it is, but isn’t it worth a try? Spend five minutes on X (formerly known as Twitter) and you’ll be blown away at the sheer number of people who dither away significant chunks of their limited lifespans being offended and responding with outrage, often about matters that don’t even pertain to them personally.
This exposes the majority to the whims of the more intelligent minority at the controls. While most of us focus our energies on bickering back and forth about the slight of the day, less attention is paid to policies and events that will actually shape our future world.
We ignore Iranian hegemony, and its future ramifications to America, to focus on defending the human rights of a people who voted a terrorist organization into their leadership. We ignore Chinese totalitarianism, and its future ramifications to America, to focus on cheaper goods. We ignore our crumbling economic infrastructure to focus on the plights of those who failed to straighten out their own countries. We ignore the proper education of the next generation of our children to focus on indoctrinating activism in the cause du jour.
I simply can’t focus my energies on being offended because my neighbor on the left is blowing his leaves onto my property while ignoring my neighbor on the right as he sets my house on fire. Feel free to call me a caveman, thank you very much.
Zephareth Ledbetter’s latest book, “A White Man’s Perspectives on Race and Racism - Rational Thoughts on an Irrational World”, is available cheap at smashwords.com/books/view/1184004
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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I do think there's a balance between "getting offended by everything" and "nothing is offensive" because some people will actually be nasty and then say "oh! You're so sensitive! Why can't I tell you that you look horrible and you're a worthless piece of shit? It was a joke! 🙄" . In my country we have something called "chalequeo" which is friendly bullying. I love it! However, some people use it as an excuse to be assholes. I learned that we can have empathy and at the same time have emotional intelligence and resilience to avoid taking EVERYTHING as an offense.
Loved reading this!
What you said.