What sort of person do you find more offensive?

[jollyreaper2112]

1) Someone who says something offensive

or

2) Someone who takes offense and then applies their standards to censoring others

I have my own opinions on this but I'm curious how others see it.

[Wait Wut]

1. 2

I can censor the first type all by myself, I don't need anyone else doing it 'for my own good'.

[In_The_Wind]

2. person number two

[Populist_Prole]

3. Surely #2

My world seems to be full of them.

[kudzu22]

4. Gotta go with 2

#1 I can just ignore. #2 is forcing me to alter my behavior.

[Duer 157099]

5. Gotta go with 2

Interesting.

[jollyreaper2112]

6. that's the way I feel

This is why I hate the whole alert thing. In all the juries I've served on, there's only been one I actually agreed with hiding because he was clearly a nazi troll and he was banned before I even completed the jury duty.

I don't respect trolls or trolling, even if I don't respect the target of the troll. I see no need to go over to rapture ready and mock religious nutters anymore than I feel like going over to free republic to mock conservative nutters.

With about half the alerts the poster is being an ass but we're all big boys and girls and can put up with it; the other half the time the mechanic is being abused, a way of saying "I don't agree with what you're saying and lack a cogent way of expressing myself so go away."

This mechanic is abused on sites with mod points like Slashdot. You'll see dowmods used in lieu of counter-arguments all the time.

Meta is gone but most of the jury threads I read on there suffered from similar shitfits.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

12. Well said...

I think you've expressed the views of most of us!

[Iggo]

7. Both.

2 does not excuse 1.

[jollyreaper2112]

8. what's offensive?

There's no real metric for offensiveness, is there? It's like defining obscenity. We could all agree that a video of two people having sex is pornographic. But someone might say ankles showing is just as much an incitement to impure thought.

We're all used to people finding atheists offensive. Well, what about what the atheist finds offensive? If he suffers a loss in the family and someone says "Don't feel bad, they're in a better place now," does he have a right to feel offended?

I mean, what's the essential injury with someone doing something offensive? Because they are prioritizing their freedom of expression over the rights of others. We can obviously see this in the case of a flasher.

But what are the censors doing? They're prioritizing their freedom from offense over the rights of others.

There's a kind of inoffensive common ground for public behavior, a politeness we should strive for. I don't walk around town without any pants on and you don't beat women for not covering their hair, right? But we seem to have trouble being sensible about these things. It goes from "I don't want to see people doing that in the street" to "I don't want them doing it in perfect privacy."

[pipi_k]

9. Interesting question, and I wish

there had been a third choice, because I would have picked it...

the type of person I find most offensive is someone who takes offense and then uses their offended feelings to be even MORE offensive in return.

Sort of like what my sisters and I used to do when we were kids...

"Well SHE started it!!!!"

[LeftishBrit]

10. It depends on what the 'offensive' thing is; and on whether the person is offensive on purpose.

There are people who go around saying nasty or bigoted things on purpose, to hurt others or get a rise out of them. There are also people who go around spoiling for a fight, and can claim that anything is 'offensive'; or those so obsessed with obscenity that for them, in the words of Tom Lehrer, 'when correctly viewed, anything is lewd!'. So I don't think one can generalize

[jollyreaper2112]

14. it's tough to define offensive

But I'll give it a shot.

1. Tone
2. Content
3. Effect

With tone, it's not what you said but the way you said it. "Your shoelace is untied, you idiot." Factually correct, useful information, but still likely to earn you a scowl rather than a thank you.

With content, the message is the problem. "There is no god and all religions are equally false" could be seen as incredibly offensive. "Black people aren't human but a degenerate offshoot of humanity" would get the outrage meters just as pegged. A religious person could be equally offended by both while an atheist could only be offended at the second one. And this brings us on to the third question, effect.

Why was it said? If we're having a reasonable debate, we can bring facts into it. You can't do science with religious claims but a falsifiable claim is made with the second statement. We can prove the claim is wrong drawing upon anthropology, genetics, etc. But are we trying to have a discussion or a flamewar? Maybe the person who said it is a racist who genuinely has the beliefs, maybe he's just a troll.

There's not really any polite venue where the racist idea can be discussed as a serious question because it's as settled as flat earth theory. It's not a question of opinion, it's no longer a subject of debate, it's done. But hell, within living memory intelligent people believed such things.

As for the religious statement, there are places where it would be trolling. I find it offensive for religious people to bring their beliefs into a secular setting. But it would be just as offensive for me to go into a bible study and tell everyone they're dumb for believing in fairy tales. The offense is imposition.

I used the racism issue because I'm sure we're pretty much 100% on the same page on this site. But consider the kerfuffle with Muslim female dress codes. I'm in the camp of "Let women dress however they want." I find telling women they have to coverup offensive and men trying to be in control. But the Muslim critique is that western styles of dress are forcing women to be immodest for male pleasure. Wow, male gaze invoked by both sides of the argument.

Generally speaking, I find developing a thicker skin to be preferable to censorship. But there will always be fringe cases that test my resolve. Probably the most obscene film I've ever heard of is a Serbian Film. There's no justification for it. The people involved in making it should be shunned by polite society. But there's no scientific test for offensiveness, is there? A Christian who agrees with me about a Serbian Film might then go on to say "I haven't been so offended since I saw Religulous. They should both be banned." I just don't like making arguments that, by extension, I would have to turn against and be hypocritical about.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

11. Not even close... #2...always

[geardaddy]

13. #2

[TreasonousBastard]

15. Could be more nuanced, but I see where you're going...

and some of the other replies picked up on the nuance.

We're all going to slam neo-Nazis and other such scum, but a big problem is when someone has a bug up his or her ass about some small point abuses the alert system to swat that bug and/or carry on with a grudge with a particular poster.

Much of this comes from simple misreadings of what someone said and can be fixed, but not often enough. We've all been fascinated by two posters essentially agreeing but still fighting because at least one of them just doesn't get it. Other times someone just misses context while kneejerking to a word or phrase and the fight is on.

But, in the end, it's all just electrons floating around and if someone says something a little nasty it could be ignored and will slip off into oblivion. But, if someone takes great umbrage and starts a flamewar with a dozen other outraged threads, it just makes it miserable for everyone.

Meta could have been a good thing but it ended up encouraging that crap, so good riddance.

[MrScorpio]

16. #2

People who say offensive shit on their own rarely bother me

[olddots]

17. I'm offended by people who find me offensive

I can't tolerate intolerance .
#2

[CosmicDustBunny]

18. Door number two.