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February 23, 2006
Offensive Speech and How We Ought to React To It
I'm all for sensitivity when people interact with one another, and I doubt I've seriously offended many people in my personal life, if anyone.
Good manners. however, ought to be outside the realm of public policy. David Berstein articulates several sensible reasons why:
One price of living in a free society is having to tolerate those who intentionally or unintentionally offend others. The current trend, however, is to give offended parties a legal remedy, so long as the offense can be construed as "discrimination." Yet the more the American legal system offers people remedies for offense, the more they are likely to feel offended. This is true for two reasons. First, as economists point out, when you subsidize something, you get more of it. Therefore, if the legal remedies of antidiscrimination law, particularly monetary remedies, subsidize feelings of outrage and insult, we will get more feelings of outrage and insult, a net social loss. Second, economists have also noted the psychological endowment effect, which, in effect, means that people tend to consider something they own to be more valuable than it would be if they did not own it. Similarly, once people are endowed with a right, they tend to overvalue it and react passionately when it is interfered with.I noticed this phenomenon as an undergraduate--on campus these days hypersensitivity seems the norm.Unfortunately, Americans increasingly coddle and even reward the hypersensitive, perversely encouraging ever more hypersensitivity.
After much reflection I decided that often there's a good case for eschewing offense--or at least overblown offense--even to objectively offensive actions.
I remember, for example, a time when an unknown vandal scrawled the word "fag" in a shower stall. I find that epithet quite offensive, and I'd let anyone I heard using it know as much. My alma mater, however, reacted to the grafitti with three all campus e-mails, several meetings for students to air their hurt feelings, calls for mandatory sessions on tolerance and a general outcry.
My contention is that reacting to offensive speech in that way does too much to empower those who use it. A lone bigot shouldn't have the ability to upset large groups of people, to interrupt their lives, etc.
Thus the proper reaction to morally offensive speech is to forcefully articulate it's wrongheadedness, ignore the speaker and move on.
The opposite approach plays into the hands of bigots and provacateurs everywhere, people who deserve to be deprived of the attention they seek.
Posted by Conor at February 23, 2006 12:29 AM
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Comments
I completely agree that routine and life cannot be stopped anytime something offensive appears as in the case of the word "fag" written in a shower stall. I feel that by making something like this turn into a "release your feelings" session is something to be done in middle school or even preschool, but college individuals are hopefully intelligent enough to decipher what is offensive and know in their head that it is wrong. Obviously, this action was inappropriate and wrong, however the person who completed the task will achieve what he wanted if this small grafitti turns into what it did. There are messed up and corrupt people in our world today. We can't stop and talk about their actions each time. It is enough to know how to present yourself and make the most out of your life by displaying respect.
Posted by: clawrence at February 23, 2006 08:25 PM
I agree with clawrence but also would like to add another point. When a friend refers to a gay person as a fag, i don't criticize him directly, but rather just not use the word that they used. It seems that when people are in a bad mood, they like to release it by using bad words like these. However, if they notice that they are the only ones using these words, then they will feel uncomfortable and eventually stop. Since I have been doing this, I have noticed a decreased usage of these offensive words.
Posted by: beefpizza at February 23, 2006 08:37 PM
People who make offenses at certain ideas and group usually do it to gain attention or just try to start something. The supersensitive should only worry about the content and not the person. There is not enough time in one day to comment on every single offensive comment said. If you want to retaliate on the offensive speeches, then fine, but I feel getting legal approval for small offensives is not necessary and wastes people's times.
Posted by: Njivrajka at February 23, 2006 08:42 PM
David Berstein's idea that our society is becoming hypersensitive is right on. I'd take it a step further and say that we're trying to be too politically correct all the time. I'd say that more than half the time we use derrogatory terms such as "nigga", "bitch", or "fag", that it is completly habitual or playful. Why is it that we are required to be so uptight about our language? People just need to chill and realize that not every cuss word is a direct personal attack on them.
Posted by: Sean Kim at February 23, 2006 09:23 PM