For me it was just that I had a bunch of experiences where I hurt people and had no idea, only much later finding out, by essentially hearing from a third party about a fourth party doing exactly the same thing I did.
And it was clear that I wouldn't have heard those stories unless I had gone out of my way to understand what the "angry" people were mad about, and waded through quite a lot of background material. It was clear that no one would've trusted me with that kind of story until after I demonstrated that I had done some work to learn the basics of "offensiveness". Which, I had honestly only really done because I was in love with this girl who was into it. Kind of ironic really. I think that's how a lot of how this stuff grows though, you're a homophobe until someone you love turns out to be gay and then all of the sudden you figure it out.
Anyway after hearing enough stories about people like me carelessly, unknowingly fucking up other peoples' days, it clicked that I could never really know how many people I was hurting. And that knowledge just bugs me. I don't just want the illusion I'm being good to the people around me, I really want to feel secure that I'm doing a good job of that. It's how my Dad felt, not that he (or I) are necessarily the best at it. It's just my personality. And that provides the motivation to slow down and try to understand train wrecks that I could easily scoot on right by.
> Can you elaborate on why spending time and effort to find offensiveness in things makes sense to you?
Offensive things exist, it's simply a matter of whether you want to be aware of things that offend others or not. You can not put in the effort and walk around ignorant of behavior that offends people, or you can put in the effort because getting along with others generally requires not offending them.
For example, if you don't see sexism all around you, you aren't paying attention. If you don't see racism all around you, you aren't paying attention; our society is littered with both and women and minorities don't have the luxury of ignoring them.
> For example, if you don't see sexism all around you, you aren't paying attention. If you don't see racism all around you, you aren't paying attention; our society is littered with both and women and minorities don't have the luxury of ignoring them.
Please do keep in mind that this is an international forum, and the people you talk to mind come from wildly dissimilar societies than you.
For example where i grew up there was relatively little sexism, instead women were often the stronger people who more commonly fed the family. Similarly there was very little racism, though primarily due to a lack of people from foreign countries.
> Please do keep in mind that this is an international forum, and the people you talk to mind come from wildly dissimilar societies than you.
It may be, but largely the people here are from the United States. The international audience is by far a minority. Beyond that sexism and racism run rampant throughout the entire world, that you might be from a place you don't think it's very evident doesn't negate that reality.
> instead women were often the stronger people who more commonly fed the family
That's still sexist, just against men. Sexism doesn't mean putting down women. Not treating the sexes equally is sexist.
In a strict game-theory sense: if you're aware of what might cause offense to others, you'll inadvertently offend others less frequently, and your conversations/negotiations/etc. will have higher average outcomes.
Of course, I wouldn't usually phrase it in such a coldly logical way, so here's a practical example: when I meet someone in a professional context, I usually ask about background/expertise early on. This way, I avoid making unconscious assumptions like "she probably isn't an engineer" or "these people will all grok the super-technical explanation I'm about to launch into".
Another example: some of my relatives are more religious/traditional, so I avoid topics and words that wouldn't go over well when around them. Or: I'm in Greece, so I don't ask for Turkish coffee. And so on.
It's not about "spending time and effort." It does not require "time and effort" to see injustice, if you have an understanding of what it looks like and (this is important) the causes of it. It's about coming to grips the world as it treats people who are not like you--and a side effect of that is seeing that the deck is stacked and the dice are loaded and that things are much more grim than they appear to people like--well--you or me.
Instead of looking for wrongs, they become apparent to you, and there's a moral duty to not look away.
There's something weird about the way you phrased this. You're aware that what you said was impolite, but you can't think of a way to be more polite. I think this might be related to the fact that you find the idea of seeing how things that you don't find offensive might be offensive to other people 'outlandish'.
What it suggests is a lack of empathy, which extends to your assuming that other people are also incapable of empathy. Sorry, I'm also not sure how to word that more politely.
Imagine, for a moment, that other people are honest in their assertion that they are offended (for example that women find some common, everyday behavior offensive and sexist).
Imagine, for a moment that other people are capable of feeling empathy for those people (for example, that they have learned, through empathy, to notice the same sexist behavior and find it offensive, even though they are not women).
Then you might realize that they are not 'spending time and effort to find offensiveness', but just capable of empathy. Sorry if that seems outlandish, but.. it's the truth, sorry.
I feel this is just begging the question. It's not about being "capable of empathy" but directing that empathy toward very specific groups of people. To illustrate: how much would you modify your behavior to accommodate someone who is offended by gay marriage?
So now we're left with: why this set of people?
And while I'm sure there is a complex framework of narratives and rationalizations and models of power structures, etc. in support of who gets to be in the in-group and who doesn't, to me it seems mostly like a case of mindless tribalism.
Presenting/accepting horrifyingly bad arguments like "you don't share my viewpoint because you're incapable of empathy" is not done because people actually believe in them, but as a signal of tribal membership.
> To illustrate: how much would you modify your behavior to accommodate someone who is offended by gay marriage?
Not a whit, because after considering the situation I have concluded that same-sex marriage, while it may offend them, does not harm them. There's a world of difference between offended and harmed. My thought process goes, "hey, I can see people being harmed by not being able to get married to the person they love, while these people over there who are offended are going to be just fine not-gay-marrying each other."
I think those who prioritize their offense over others' harm really do lack empathy. (This is why, despite a personal dislike of a number of rather loud social justice activists, I'll go to bat for the causes that they support, while I can be offended by their conduct, they are right and others are being harmed. I am an adult and can put up with being offended to help others not be harmed.)
There's probably not a good way to succinctly prove my capacity for empathy to you, but I think trying to link social grace and empathy is also incorrect in general.
Assume for the sake of argument that, as you suggested, you've identified a statement in the course of conversation that someone else might find offensive. What's your recourse and how does it benefit society?
If you've simply misinterpreted the person's meaning (which I'd argue is more often than not the case), you probably force them to spend time clarifying and maybe they endeavor to spend more time and effort to avoid similar misunderstanding in the future - all to avoid the hypothetical situation where they might have actually offended someone (who could have just asked for similar clarification).
Perhaps instead you've actually identified some unintentionally disclosed socially unacceptable bias that the person holds. The offense you've taken is still imaginary (I guess you'd argue it's actually empathetic) so chances are you're not in a good position to reshape that person's belief system - especially since hiding the belief in the first place suggests they know it's socially unacceptable. Rather, you're more likely just teaching the person to hide their bias more convincingly. I think most people find hidden bias much more insidious.
The best case, I suppose, is shaming some intentionally offensive statement. This one seems reasonable to me. However, if the statement was intentionally offensive, you probably didn't need the mental gymnastics to identify it in the first place.
I'm open to any counter-arguments you might have; I just thought I'd clarify my own stance since your accusation seemed a little harsh.
> You're aware that what you said was impolite, but you can't think of a way to be more polite.
Wrong point of view in my opinion. I had the same question on my mind and it needs a qualifier not because it's impolite, but because you might be offended by it. Those are two entirely separate things.
That said, nothing of what you said makes it any easier to accept your answers, for me personally, because i still have no idea what things you're seeing as offensive that you might've missed earlier and i still can't compare whether i would've missed the same things, or whether those things weren't present in my environments.
Would you care to bring up some concrete examples?
> i still have no idea what things you're seeing as offensive that you might've missed earlier and i still can't compare whether i would've missed the same things, or whether those things weren't present in my environments.
That's not what the GP asked. They asked
> Can you elaborate on why spending time and effort to find offensiveness in things makes sense to you?
which is an entirely different question (with a very obvious subtext to boot).
People seem more sensitive now than before. Or maybe they always were, but now it just isn't taboo to admit it? In any case, just using myself as an example -- I've found that I become more and more sensitive and easily offended the more I involve myself and try to find disagreeable things (see: online echo chambers centred around a common identity of "the other side is bad/laughable/hurtful!"). And in the modern Information Age, that isn't hard at all.
Personally I don't spend time and effort to find offensiveness in things - but I'm interested in being informed about the world around me.
For example, I've always found it easy to hail a taxi; it wasn't until a few months ago I learned it can be hard to get a taxi when you're black.
That's information that can be useful if I'm travelling with a black friend or colleague; or discussing the merits of electronic taxi hailing, or the place of taxis in a public transport system.
Why would you bother to learn how to identify security flaws in code? Because you think a system without security flaws would be better and you can't prevent or fix them without seeing them.
The concept seems so outlandish to me that I'm not sure how to word the question more politely, sorry.