Unintended Offense Catch-All

Stemming off a discussion in the most recent Abortion thread: Begin!

First up: the line between "you caused me offense even though it was not intentional" and "I'm not saying you ARE something, but I'm saying what you DID is something, and that is contributing to a culture that is hurting me." Discuss.

As far as I can tell, this is all about different lines being drawn as far as what is considered respectful.

Virtually everyone here would consider that the use of gendered slurs is offensive, but you don't have to go far to find people who will roll their eyes at the notion that they shouldn't do so.

The key things I would say:

1. We wouldn't argue that it was okay for someone to hit another person in the face as long as they didn't mean anything by it. We recognize that there's harm there no matter what the intent is behind the action. That doesn't mean there aren't reasons that we recognize as making violence justified, but we do generally demand that there be such an explanation, and that the violence employed is close to the minimum necessary. For example: while some people may argue that shooting an attacker with a gun is justifiable, almost all would agree that firing a gun in such a way that it recklessly endangers innocent bystanders is unacceptable.

And to take that back to a fist or a slap: these aren't as serious as a gunshot, but we still do not consider them to be at all acceptable, especially when they wind up hitting someone who's not involved.

2. Words can be just as violent and hurtful as fists. This can be hard to see when you haven't been the target of abuse this way, but it's true. If I hear someone call me a "tr---y" or a "fa---t", that's like being struck with a blow. (Freyja and I recently had a guy walk past us in Cambridge and shout "f*cking fa----ts" at us, for example.) Yes, I can shrug it off, but it still hurts. When somebody uses those words near me in reference to somebody else, it's no less hurtful, because it continues to cast aspersions on people like me "trans people aren't worth respect", "normal people hate trans people", "people who are attracted to others of the same gender are unnatural".

3. If we put those two things together, we can see that it's very reasonable to argue that harming someone with words without animosity is no better than harming someone with a slap without animosity. Or to put it a way that has been widely shared in SJ circles: "Intent is not magic." Just because you have no ill intent does not mean that your useful of hurtful words does not hurt people.

4. Finally: not knowing that certain language is harmful is an excuse for messing up, but only once or twice. Once you know that something is hurtful, doing it is a conscious act intended to hurt. Further: it can take a little time and effort to mend bad habits if you learn they are hurtful--but if you take a really long time about it, it suggests that you do not consider it important not to hurt the people harmed by that act, and that in itself is a choice to prioritize other things over not hurting others. (And you'd better expect to have people demand a justification for that choice.)

Or, as I put it another time, and got sigged by wordsmythe: "Words... are important."


Edited to add: For a more physical parallel to learning about words causing harm: imagine someone teasing people by slipping things that they don't like in their food. One day, they do this with someone who has a food allergy (which the actor didn't know about or take seriously). The target of teasing becomes seriously ill. In this case, we would look askance at the first person if they continued the practice of teasing people that way despite the likelihood of it happening again.

Even more: if we're aware of food allergies and how serious they can be, we would be likely to tell the person who was engaged in that practice that they shouldn't do it because it's harmful, even if they haven't hurt anyone so far.

And likewise, if someone did the "slip something" thing with a common pot of food shared by everybody with only the person they know about who dislikes the something as a target, we would hold them accountable for harm they did to others exposed to the same food. (Parallel to speaking slurs when you "know there's nobody like that around". I've heard a lot of jokes about trans people and gay people in my life—and they hurt even more sometimes when the speaker didn't know that about me, because when I was hiding those things I felt like I couldn't speak up without outing myself.)

From the other thread:

Valmorian wrote:

There's nothing that CAN be done about this. Just the understanding that if you have personal ethical problems with a thing, people who don't and are perfectly ok with it are going to often feel judged and there's nothing that can be done about that.

To me, this is the end of the conversation, and I don't see a point in continuing it. It's a case of not being able to please everyone all the time. That's just how life is.

If someone says that they don't personally approve of something but won't stop others from doing it, what else can be asked of them? Unless someone is arguing that these people need to be forced to fully approve of the action in question, not just support others' right to perform that action...what else can be done?

Mormech wrote:

If someone says that they don't personally approve of something but won't stop others from doing it, what else can be asked of them?

For me, it's not so much "what can be asked of them?" as it is pointing this out to them when they're baffled that others are upset with them.

Is the point of this thread just to make vague commentary about other posters in other threads? If so, I don't know that it's going to accomplish all that much besides hurt feelings.

KaterinLHC wrote:

Is the point of this thread just to make vague commentary about other posters in other threads? If so, I don't know that it's going to accomplish all that much besides hurt feelings.

I have no idea whether to agree or disagree but this thread could use a defining opening statement that is more helpful/informative. No offense (or unintended offence, badoom-cha ) to the OP Tangle, but without a clear statement of intent, this seems to be just a "take the argument outside" thread.

This entire thread is offensive. Every sentence has too many syllables. APOLOGIZE!!!!

Really though I don't really know what the main point is. Are you talking about what to do when you offend someone? Are you talking about what to do when offended? A little from column A, a little from column B.

RooksGambit wrote:
KaterinLHC wrote:

Is the point of this thread just to make vague commentary about other posters in other threads? If so, I don't know that it's going to accomplish all that much besides hurt feelings.

I have no idea whether to agree or disagree but this thread could use a defining opening statement that is more helpful/informative. No offense (or unintended offence, badoom-cha ) to the OP Tangle, but without a clear statement of intent, this seems to be just a "take the argument outside" thread.

I forgot to bring a coat.

RooksGambit wrote:
KaterinLHC wrote:

Is the point of this thread just to make vague commentary about other posters in other threads? If so, I don't know that it's going to accomplish all that much besides hurt feelings.

I have no idea whether to agree or disagree but this thread could use a defining opening statement that is more helpful/informative. No offense (or unintended offence, badoom-cha ) to the OP Tangle, but without a clear statement of intent, this seems to be just a "take the argument outside" thread.

That's basically my intent - the abortion thread hadn't talked about abortion for about two pages. Whatever conversation you all were trying to have clearly belonged somewhere else.

So a co-worker whom I hadn't seen for a few months came back to clinic. My clueless self asked where she had been. She replied that she was on maternity leave. I said Congrats! I didn't know you were pregnant.

It wasn't until later that day that I realized how offensive that was. The opposite (but similar) to asking someone if they are pregnant when they aren't.

God I'm an idiot.

Tanglebones wrote:
RooksGambit wrote:
KaterinLHC wrote:

Is the point of this thread just to make vague commentary about other posters in other threads? If so, I don't know that it's going to accomplish all that much besides hurt feelings.

I have no idea whether to agree or disagree but this thread could use a defining opening statement that is more helpful/informative. No offense (or unintended offence, badoom-cha ) to the OP Tangle, but without a clear statement of intent, this seems to be just a "take the argument outside" thread.

That's basically my intent - the abortion thread hadn't talked about abortion for about two pages. Whatever conversation you all were trying to have clearly belonged somewhere else.

I don't think that's a good reason for a spin-off thread. We're working on the "new" P&C that's going to make this process a bit more straight forward, but for now I'm going to have to lock this one up. Too vague and the potential for navel gazing and sniping is yuge.