Sometimes I look at myself and wonder... do I get offended too much? For instance, as a Muslim, do I need to fly into an internal rage at every ignorant remark I hear or read about? (when does one NOT hear or read ignorant things about Muslims?) If I don't get offended, am I being too compliant? A sellout? At what point does my righteous indignation become pretentious and too politically correct? And just plain exhausting?
I just read the following article (with a shout-out to the Muslims! Woo hoo! See below), which gives some really great insights into why we get offended, as a social tool, and how we can better handle our offense in social situations.
It's often the pettiest-seeming things that drive people mad. Or worse. Jostling our way through the world can have violent consequences. A significant percentage of murders occur between acquaintances with the flash point being a trivial insult. Sometimes it seems we live in a culture devoted to retribution on behalf of the thin-skinned.
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Feeling affronted has global implications: Islamic organizations and countries seek to ban speech anywhere they decide is insulting to Islam, asserting that a perceived insult can justify a deadly response.
Study the topic of "taking offense" and you realize people are like tuning forks, ready to vibrate with indignation. So why do humans seem equipped with a thrumming tabulator, incessantly calculating whether we are getting proper due and deference?
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Humans have superb abilities to evaluate the defects of everyone else. The glitch, Haidt says, is that we're blind to our own flaws.
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"Once we're angry, irritated, we become prosecutors, and our reasoning gets hijacked by our need to build our own case," he says. So he suggests we can stop the prosecution by making even a small gesture of conciliation. We don't have to acknowledge we are wholly in the wrong, but changing our tone, conceding we shouldn't have said something, or said it in such a way, can trigger the reciprocity impulse in our opponent.
