Yes, indeed, I see. I could go on actually, some of the great historical debates, Eramus vs. Luther or Mahayana/Varjrayana are actually still be played out on the world stage and the winner will yet be determined.
Really, it's a feature of human behavior which has bewildered me for a while now.
My best guess at a solution is to create an atmosphere where people take more responsability for their own emotions. Really what's going on here is that people consciously choose to be offended for some reason, but project the responsability for that action onto someone else so they don't have to deal with it. There's a whole language here: "you have offended me." Now, sometimes someone really will be active in causing offense, but that's a different issue. When we pretend that our feelings are someone else's responsability, it's easy to avoid difficult but constructive questions like "Why have I chosen to feel this way?", "What purpose is this serving?", "Do I want to feel this way?", "How can I stop feeling this way?", and so on. So it's bad enough that this psychological manoeuvre creates and propagates malice, it also makes us ignore the very things we have to heed if we want to develop our personal and social character
( ... )
I really enjoy your persepctive from the study of psychological thought. I'm such a history nerd at heart that sometimes I don't know how to think about the way our behavior works from teh perspective.
Sometimes offense is the first in a series of reactions that must be taken in self-defense. But the stakes must be weighed over whether the issue is important or not (and it rarely ever is). The time I should have been most offended, I was too shocked to react accordingly. My last undergraduate year I was assaulted for statin my socio-political publically and in print. I was much too shocked as I collected my belongings and self off the ground to react accordingly. I probably could have handled the event a bit better if a little passion had been kindled in me.
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Yes, indeed, I see. I could go on actually, some of the great historical debates, Eramus vs. Luther or Mahayana/Varjrayana are actually still be played out on the world stage and the winner will yet be determined.
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That is the best part. :)
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Oh -- how very well stated!
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My best guess at a solution is to create an atmosphere where people take more responsability for their own emotions. Really what's going on here is that people consciously choose to be offended for some reason, but project the responsability for that action onto someone else so they don't have to deal with it. There's a whole language here: "you have offended me." Now, sometimes someone really will be active in causing offense, but that's a different issue. When we pretend that our feelings are someone else's responsability, it's easy to avoid difficult but constructive questions like "Why have I chosen to feel this way?", "What purpose is this serving?", "Do I want to feel this way?", "How can I stop feeling this way?", and so on. So it's bad enough that this psychological manoeuvre creates and propagates malice, it also makes us ignore the very things we have to heed if we want to develop our personal and social character ( ... )
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Sometimes offense is the first in a series of reactions that must be taken in self-defense. But the stakes must be weighed over whether the issue is important or not (and it rarely ever is).
The time I should have been most offended, I was too shocked to react accordingly. My last undergraduate year I was assaulted for statin my socio-political publically and in print. I was much too shocked as I collected my belongings and self off the ground to react accordingly. I probably could have handled the event a bit better if a little passion had been kindled in me.
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