“The first Amendment is
designed to protect speech from people not to protect people from
speech.”
That is a quote of my own
that I often use to help those who do not fully understand the basic
nature of free speech. The modern idea of “hate speech” obviously
flies in the face of this basic principle. The fundamental problem
with the concept of hate speech is this, “Who gets to decide what
actually is hate speech?”
In modern America, the
“offended” get to make that decision and therein lies true crux
of the problem. It is nearly impossible these days to find someone
who is not offended by something. What I hope to do in this missive
is to make clear what offended truly means and how to combat the ever
increasing numbers of people who can no longer handle the idea of
truly free speech.
Those of you reading this
probably already know that the first Amendment was really designed to
allow unpopular or uncomfortable speech a place in society free of
recrimination.
This is no longer the case
in modern America due primarily to a growing sensitivity to unpopular
or uncomfortable speech. This sensitivity is most apparent on college
campuses where “free speech zones” had to be created because it
narrowed an area where truth might be present thus offending those
who were unused to it or found it frightening. One can easily avoid a
small area where truth may exist. Instead of college being a place
where those attending could have their beliefs and ideology
challenged by opposing viewpoints, the college campus became a place
where nearly monolithic group-think became the norm. With each
passing year, the concept of independent thought becomes less and
less desirable in favor of falling in line with the “ideology du
jour”. It's arguable that peer pressure is worse in college than it
is in primary and secondary schools. The old adage, “Go along to
get along” is a way of life in college. This is, of course, not
something that happened recently to be sure. It's been growing worse
for nearly 2 decades and what we are left with as a result is a
generation of young adults who can no longer distinguish between
something they may not like and something that truly is offensive. By
this point, everything they don't like is offensive simply because
they have not been sufficiently challenged enough intellectually to
know the difference. These young people have spent their college
years immersed in an environment that teaches them that to be
“offended” is the most egregious thing that can happen to them.
What these young people
have never been taught is that being offended is a personal choice,
not an action that has been done to them. What they often say is,
“What you are doing/saying is offending me.” while never
realizing they have made a personal choice to be offended.
Personally, I don't get
offended any more in my life. I get angry or frustrated about certain
things but learning either to deal with those things by either
removing myself from a situation that angers or frustrates me or by
simply ignoring it altogether. Getting pissed off is something that
happens to me occasionally from either external sources or decisions
I have made. Being pissed off does not surrender my own personal
power in any way. Being offended surrenders all my power to an
external force that may or may not acknowledge or even apologize for
the offense. Without acknowledgment or an apology, one cannot get the
closure to an offense that is required by the person who is offended.
The very real problem with acknowledgment or apology is the
subjective nature of what is considered offensive. One man's joke is
another man's offense such is the flimsy nature of offense.
If I tell a joke that some
find funny and others do not, who is to say the joke is offensive?
Usually, the person who finds the joke not funny renders a judgment
that not only is it not funny, it is offensive. The person who laughs
at the joke does not consider it offensive at all. The line between offensive and not funny is so fine as to be nearly invisible to some.
What we are currently
experiencing is the rise of the “some things just aren't funny”
army. Valiant warriors are they, determined to decide for the rest of
us who may not be aware or enlightened enough to know what's funny
and what isn't. They have determined for the rest of us that anything
that is not funny is also offensive in some way. A joke that wasn't
funny in the old days was met with complete silence. These days it's
met with howls of derision and the wailing and gnashing of teeth of
the offended. A-list comedians are beginning to be a scarce commodity
on college campuses because the idea that some things aren't funny is
blossoming into the belief that nothing is funny. Humor, by its
very nature, most often comes at the expense of someone else to truly
be funny whether that be a personality type or a group of people. I
make jokes about my own OCD tendencies constantly because while they
can be a slight burden at times, they are still quite funny when
viewed in the big picture. People who are also OCD to any degree do
not find those jokes offensive, at least not that I've been made
aware of. I make jokes about being Italian, bald and other physical
and personality quirks but those are excused because I am talking
about myself.
This is the root of the
subjectivity problem. If a joke about my own OCD is funny because I'm
talking about myself, one must draw the conclusion that it is funny
regardless who I'm speaking of. Such is not the case today though. It
is perfectly acceptable for me to make light of my own quirks but the
instant I step outside the line and speak of someone else's quirks I
am branded offensive. A joke is either funny or it is not. Offense
comes from inside the listener but not from the joke.
Thus also is truth branded
offensive when used at the expense of a person or group of people.
Simply saying, “Radical Islam is a serious problem both in the U.S.
and the wider world.” will bring shouts of racism, an entirely
inaccurate statement on it's surface, xenophobia and worse on the
average college campus. Simple truth has no place in college any
longer. One must instead be so nuanced as to be completely
incomprehensible in the end. This is evident by the less than warm
reception that speakers like Milo Yiannopolous and Steven Crowder
receive when they speak at a college campus. They both speak often of
the dangers of radical Islam and it's effects on our culture, our way
of life and their brutal treatment of women. As a result, they are
often met with protests, harsh treatment and in one recent instance,
a violent mob burned and looted parts of the Berkely campus in
reaction to a scheduled appearance by Milo. Disagreement with a point
of view is also thought of as offensive by those with no faculty to
either accept it or understand it. Once again, they chose to be
offended when cold indifference would have been a much harsher
criticism of Milo and his beliefs.
Offense comes from within
not from without. Being offended requires you to surrender your power
of self control and that too is an underlying problem with this
generation. They possess no self control to allow a point of view or
an uncomfortable truth they may not agree with be allowed to cross
their paths. It must be emotionally exhausting to spend every day
finding and pointing out all the things that are offensive in life.
The easier path for them
is to become offended simply because they are no longer required to
think rationally or logically when offended. Thinking rationally and
logically requires a modicum of self control and intellectual
discipline that they just don't have. Their immersion into the waters
of “everything I don't like is offensive” is the baptism by which
they have been saved. Much like religion, their belief is unshakable
and immutable but also requires no hard evidence to be considered
fact.
You just have to believe
you are offended and that is all that is needed to change the world.
If one wished to remove
everything offensive from the world there would be almost nothing
left. No art, no truth, no beauty and no humor.
Ultimately, who would want
to live in a world like that?
NBC News
