Being Offended

What offends you? What is offensive in general? What should we do about offensive comments? Offensive people? What is the balance between free speech and calling out offensive speech? How do we define offensive speech? Do we even know ahead of time what we will find offensive?

I have found that there are extremes in the world of offensiveness. There are those who are offended at what seems like everything. These are the people around whom you cannot tell a joke or express a political opinion lest it offend them. And their offense does not take the form of mild disapproval, eye rolling or head shaking; no, their disapproval takes the form of a crusade! A quest to eliminate the offensive! The other extreme is those who believe that anyone who is offended at something that they say is making a big deal out of nothing, should just shut up, is trying to take away their freedom of speech or is a pansy who gets "butthurt" at hearing things that they don't like.

So what is the balance and where do you find it?

Well, for starters, not at either extreme. C'mon, you can't be offended at everything, or expect everyone to share your outrage, nor can you reasonably expect that every stupid thought that bubbles up out of your subconscious is fit to be uttered aloud. But, as I said, those are the extremes, and most people don't live at the extremities. Every culture has things that are widely considered acceptable or offensive and within cultures every individual has things that differ from the larger culture. Things that may be perfectly innocuous in one setting may be "fightin' words" in another.

In the United States, like it or not, we live in a multi-cultural society. We are a combination of, not only many immigrant cultures, but differing cultures in different regions of the country. Can the Deep South be considered identical to the Northeast? Are urban dwellers likely to act the same as people who live in rural settings? We are a nation of many religions. Even within the dominant faith, Christianity, there are definite differences between a Catholic, raised in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood, and a member of a fundamentalist or evangelical denomination. And then of course there is "race". Immigrants and descendants of immigrants from all over the world (including the far-from-monolithic group called "white"), Native groups, including the many North American nations and tribes, Alaska natives, Hawaiian islanders...and the list goes on. How can we keep track of all the things that could possibly be offensive to all of these groups, subgroups, overlapping groups and groups speaking for other groups?

The easy answer is that no one can.

The answer that requires a bit more thought, a bit more work and a bit more dialogue is mutual respect, paired with listening. 

A good way to start is by not assuming the worst about someone when you hear something that rubs you the wrong way. Ask for clarification, give the offender a chance to explain. It's possible that you just misunderstood what was being said. Explain why you find what the other person said to be offensive. It could be that they are being offensive and didn't realize that what they were saying could be seen as such. If you are being called out for saying something deemed offensive, don't get defensive. Find out why the other person is offended and take their views into consideration. Explain what you meant and, if you still feel that what you said was not inherently offensive, at least try to empathize with the other person's feelings. At least agree to refrain from making those kind of statements around your friend. And if you must, apologize. And by the way, "I'm sorry that you were offended", or "I'm sorry if I offended you" are not real apologies. "I'm sorry (or better yet I apologize) for making that statement" or "I apologize for offending you".

Sometimes we are offended, not at something that a personal friend or acquaintance says or does, but at a societal trend, or even at something that a celebrity or politician does or says. These kinds of things often get a lot of coverage in media, both mainstream and social. then you are dealing with masses of people who have no incentive to act civilly, since there is no personal interaction to soften the words. Anyone who has commented on a newspaper article or blog post has encountered the rabid incivility that characterizes these exchanges. You're going to get muddy if you enter into these mudpits!

This doesn't mean that one shouldn't ever get involved in these extra-personal discussions. If a politician, who was elected to represent all of a district's inhabitants, makes insulting remarks about a group that he represents, that's cause for concern. If governing bodies base policies on stereotypes, or favor one group over another, that's a reason to speak up.

Personally I find that many people that I know hold views that I find objectionable, even repugnant. Depending on the person, sometimes I engage them as I describe a few paragraphs up. Sometimes I ask a few pointed questions or ask for clarification, like "Are you saying that all black people are on welfare?" or "Exactly why do you believe that atheists have no morals?" Sometimes this gets the other person to reexamine their beliefs. Sometimes it just shuts them up.

I do not believe that it is always a bad thing to discuss religion or politics, two realms in which it is a virtual certainty that your beliefs and positions will be offensive to someone. But it is possible to keep it civil...if you want to. I find it offensive that some people with whom I interact on a regular basis think that I am consiged to Hell for my beliefs or lack of the same, but I would find it fun and interesting to have a civil conversation with them about the basis of their opinion.

Of course, there's always the option of being the offensiveness extremist. You can be "that guy" who is forever pointing out something is racist, or sexist, or misogynistic, or some other -ist. If that's you, you've condemned yourself to being ignored and mocked, because if everything is offensive to you, then pretty soon your outrage becomes just another part of the background noise. Or you can be the guy who truly doesn't care what anyone thinks or feels. Perhaps you will find plenty of fellow assholes to vaidate your worldview.

Myths and Misconceptions: Dust Down a Country Road

Yesterday I saw a post on Facebook that linked to a Catholic blog regarding misconceptions and common myths about Catholicism. One of the supposed misconceptions was that Catholics are not Christians. Before I go on, let me make clear that this isn't a pro- or anti-Catholic piece, but the blog put me in mind of what I have blogged recently about differing interpretations of different faith traditions from within those traditions.

I grew up in a Catholic family, but changed to a more fundamentalist brand of Christianity as a young adult and have since changed to a non-Christian brand of faith. I continue to be fascinated by religious belief and the "why" of faith. Where do these various beliefs come from?

It is not a misconception that some people do not view Catholics as Christians, it is an opinion. This opinion is based on an interpretation of what makes a Christian a Christian that excludes Catholic doctrine. There are many overlapping and interlocking definitions of what makes a Christian a Christian. Some of these definitions hinge on behavior, while other are based on belief. I have heard on several occasions people who have been raised in a Christian church talk about when they "became a Christian", referring to some decision or life changing event that set them apart even from their fellow church-goers. Of course there is no objective, unchanging set of qualifications defining who is a Christians and what denominations can be referred to as Christian. Some of you may have read this last sentence and said to yourself: "Of course there is - it's The Bible!" The problem with this assertion is that there are many, many interpretations of the bible by innumerable people and groups which cast doubt upon its reliability as an objective measurement of "Christian-ness", without even getting into the contradictions, additions and scribal errors that make up the many versions of the bible.

On the other hand, the blog gives the Catholic refutation, which in short is that the Catholics are the original followers of Jesus, while everybody else is an offshoot of some kind. This true as far as it goes. Various denominations and doctrinal families of Christianity can be traced back eventually to the Catholic Church, in fact, the ones that you are likely to have heard of can be traced quite easily to some split with either the Catholic Church or some other church that had split from the Catholic Church. However there is ample evidence that there was much disagreement about who Jesus was, what he accomplished and what he said during his lifetime. Competing groups had their own scriptures, congregations and hierarchies and fought for supremacy - to become the established church. All of them claimed to be the true successors to Jesus and his teachings. Eventually, for a variety of reasons, one group emerged as the true church and labelled its rivals as heretics. Even then, outposts of some the unofficial sects survived in areas not under the control of Rome.

As a side note, one thing that many Protestants criticize the Catholics for is the reliance on tradition and apostolic succession to frame what is true doctrine and what is not. In the early days of Christianity when the competing groups each sought ascendancy, here was no "Bible" that could be referred to to settle arguments. In fact, each group produced its own literature to bolster its own position. Most of these gospels or letters carried the name of an apostle or some other big name in the early church. Even the books that are now included in the bible have the names of authors affixed to them with little or no evidence to support that authorship. Modern scholarship suggests that several books of the New Testament were not written by the putative author. With so many epistles and gospels flying around with contradictory information, a way had to be found to determine which were authentic and which were not. Apostolic succession, whereby a leader could trace his lineage all the way back to the apostles and thence to Jesus. The reasoning being that an uninterupted chain of teachers were more likely to maintain the true, correct teachings of Jesus than writing that could have come from anywhere.

So, is it a myth that Catholics are not Christians? Well, from a Catholic point of view it is certainly incorrect, but from the point of view of some other Christians they're not. It's a difference of opinion, plain and simple. (Well, maybe not plain and simple - nothing ever is truly plain and simple; but it's the way I see it anyway!)

Religion of Peace Part Two

This essay isn't about Islam, it's about religion in general.

Viewed objectively, no religion can believably claim to be a religion of peace. No matter that some religious "holy" books are filled with "love thy neighbor" and others about duty and good works, the truth is that religions are more than just a collection of scriptures or a list of rules, but are also the people who claim to follow those scriptures and rules. Every religion has multiple, competing versions: there are Sunni and Shi'a Muslims, Protestant and Catholic Christians, Theravada and Mahayana Buddhists, Hindus that honor Krishna as the supreme god and Hindus that give that honor to Shiva. And within those major divisions there are countless subdivisions. So why would we think that we could label any of these world religions as either peaceful on one hand or terroristic on the other? The reason that there are divisions among those who claim to follow the same faith, the same holy book, the same founder, is that the founding documents, the scriptures are far from unambiguous and in order to make sense of them you need interpreters.

And there lies the problem - the interpreters all disagree! While many subdivisions of the major religions claim the right to define membership and the power to decide who gets kicked out, in reality, if someone claims that they are a Christian, then they're a Christian; if someone claims to be a Muslim, that person is a Muslim. Often we get the "he's not a true Muslim" or "she's not a real Christian" line in order to disassociate the violent or the crazy from their professed faith, to excuse the tenets of the professed religion from culpability. But what prevents any group, no matter how small, from having their own unique interpretation? Nothing really.

Every individual is responsible to make moral choices. When immoral choices are made in the name of religion, individual responsibility is abdicated.

Morality Part Two

So what is morality? One definition is that morality is a system, the aim of which is to distinguish between what is good or right and what is bad or wrong. Many religions and philosophies have attempted to define a universal morality, one that would apply to everyone throughout all times. The problem with a universal, timeless moral framework is that times change, as well as the people living in those times. Situations differ from one part of the world to another and across cultural groups and traditions. One way to look at morality is as a codification of behaviors that will ensure the survival of a group as well as to promote minimal friction among the individuals in a group.

 As the circumstances of a group changes, the view of what is good and what is bad in the context of the group may change. In tribal societies in an environment of scarcity, it might be eminently moral to massacre a neighboring tribe that is encroaching on its territory and competing for its resources. In this situation, the survival of the tribe is of paramount importance, while "living in harmony" with a neighboring tribe is not. In fact, "living in harmony" might in this context be considered immoral, in that "being nice" could result in starvation and even the extinction of the tribe. Eventually innovations like farming, division of labor, specialization, domestication of animals etc, might lead to a change in circumstances whereby a treaty with the neighboring tribe might make more sense than risking lives by waging war. Trade with the neighboring competitor and both are richer. Another example might be in the category of marriage. In a small isolated society, men with multiple wives would help propagate the numbers of the tribe. One man could impregnate several women simultaneously, while if it was the reverse, one woman could only be pregnant with one man's child at a time, no matter how many husbands that she had. As time passes, and the tribal numbers become more stable, it might be more advantageous for the continued stability of the tribe for one man to commit to one woman only.

 The point is that as circumstances changed in these examples, what would be considered right or wrong changed and evolved. In most societies religions emerged to codify and enforce the group morality. Sometimes the moral codes were written down and remained in force even as the circumstances changed. Sometimes the religious adherents abandoned the old morality, which remained as a mere curiosity in the holy books, or they tenaciously held onto it with no clear idea why it was "bad" other than it was the edict of their god. Few religious people these days would defend slavery, despite the clear endorsement of it in several holy books, while many hold on to a view of gay people for no other reason than "God says so".

It is my view that rather than morality being handed down from on high and then accepted by the masses, morality developed and evolved according to local needs and was only later written down or ascribed to the divine, mainly as a method to coerce uniformity. Human beings are very good at figuring out what they need to do to ensure their own survival and the survival of the group. They might not always agree and morality is far from universal, but it is clearly something that arises from human socity, and not from the heavens.

Morality Part One

Many (most) people hold the view that morality and the desire to lead moral, ethical lives, comes from religion, in particular, religious writings supposedly inspired or dictated by supernatural being, i.e. gods. The argument is that people will naturally act in their own self-interest without regard for others and that is only religion which ameliorates this tendency. This line of thought assumes several things:

• That there is, indeed, a god or gods
• That these gods (or god) are morally superior to humans
• That humans are incapable of reaching moral conclusions without these gods

One difficulty in subscribing to the god-derived view of morality is the variety of god-based systems in the world, some of which offer moral codes that are mutually exclusive. How then do we decide which one is the correct one? Religious believers often resort to Pascal's Wager or some variant of it, where the choice is simply between God (and his religion - assumed by Pascal to be Christianity) and irreligion or atheism. The wager suggests that it's a good bet to believe, since if there is no god, believing won't harm you, but if you don't believe and the hypothesized god (and the eternal punishment that he has in store for non-believers) exists then you are in big trouble. This view is of course a false dilemma. There are more than two choices, which version of "god" do you want to wager on? The Christian? The Muslim? The Hindu? The choices are not simply between god and not-god, but among a multitude of gods, religions and philosophies. So how do you choose? Most people take the approach that they were lucky (or blessed) enough to have been born into a family and culture that believed the "true" religion. 

Another difficulty is that much of what is "god's will" in various scriptures is at variance with what most people would describe as ethical or moral thought or behavior. Would most modern people agree that it is morally right to kill all the people in a town just because they worshipped the wrong god? That a rapist not be prosecuted, but required to marry his rape victim? That it's okay to kill off all the married and widowed women in a town but save the virgins as spoils of war? That's it's the duty of a husband to beat his wife if she is disobedient? That slavery is a good thing? Most religious people, unless they are fundamentalist extremists, would agree that these are not moral actions despite what their holy book says. They cherry-pick their scriptures, extolling what they agree with and ignoring or explaining away what they don't like. They say that their moral compass comes from their god via their holy writings, but only when they already agree with it, or find it easy to do. 

Then there's those who stick to the book no matter what. They follow the circular reasoning that their god cannot espouse immoral things because whatever he says by definition is moral. 

So, in effect, other than the ultra-literalists, most people, whatever their professed religion is, are following a morality that seems right to them, setting aside religious strictures that don't make sense - rationalizing them away or ignoring them and are acting in ways not all that different than the irreligious. These people then use their scriptures to justify actions that the general population might find immoral, like discrimination based on gender, sexual preference or skin color. For example, an American in the 21st Century might find it repugnant that 19th Century Americans used the bible to justify slavery or the extermination of the Indians/Native Americans, but be perfectly comfortable citing biblical passges to justify hating homosexuals. 

So, in reality, atheists or those who are theists but not affiliated with any specific religion, in defining for themselves what is moral or ethical, are doing the same thing that the religiously affiliated are doing, but without the confusing layer of "divine inspiration" to muddy the waters. Everybody is writing their own moral code, its just that the religiously oriented use an ancient book to justify the more unpalatable portions of their morality. 

Why Do Some People Believe Everything That They Read?

Once upon a time, if you wanted to check the accuracy of something that you read or heard about, you would have to go to the library and search (manually) through the encyclopedia, or the microfiche of old newspapers, or even hunt down an expert in the field who could set you straight. It was hard work, but many of us did the work because we didn't want to get suckered by every idiotic statement that someone made in a bar, or (if you were a kid) in the schoolyard. But it seems like, now that we have almost unlimited access to information via the Internet, people refuse to utilize this virtually bottomless source of information and believe the first stupid meme that appears on Facebook. Research is easier than it ever was, although many, if not most, people, use this huge resource to find the first thing that backs up their preconceived notion. What's worse, is that even lazy people have a shortcut to check the accuracy of the crap they read. The best known fact-checking site is snopes.com, but there are others out there who will do the work for you if you are too busy posting cat videos. But even without resorting to a fact checking site it is so easy to do the research yourself that it makes no sense not to.