Valorizing language is silly. I remember in like 5th grade they moved the goal posts on us and made 'sucks' a 'bad word'. I was so thoroughly confused. How did a previously okay word become bad?
They're tools in a box. They aren't inherently good or bad - the intent and meaning created by them are what matters.
I similarly think it should be impossible for a word to offend someone. I think it's possible for meaning to offend and really only if you respect the person enough to provide some weight to that meaning.
> I similarly think it should be impossible for a word to offend someone. I think it's possible for meaning to offend and really only if you respect the person enough to provide some weight to that meaning.
This strikes me as curious, as offense is a feeling, and thus not much "thinking" must be involved. If by 'should be impossible' you mean everyone should not allow themselves to be offended, that is a very different thing (and certainly requires first finding oneself offended, and then thinking about it).
I think the feeling is more a result of the perception. I.e someone forcefully communicates an idea you find painful to think about thus causing you pain. Better to confront the idea - understand and heal the trauma - rather than fixating on the mechanism of how you were reminded of it. You might find that the idea can no longer harm you - much less by someone trying to force it upon you - because you, at that point, understand it far better than they do.
I say this seeing so much provocative and emotive language in a world where violence is needlessly celebrated and even elevated above accomplishments that further humanity, kindness, compassion, learning...
Being offended is a kind of feeling that you have to allow yourself to have. It's solely the responsibility of the person feeling offended, and frankly, I believe it's a sign of immaturity.
I agree; bad words are bad because they have a negative feeling or concept associated with them (fear, disgust, racism etc..). They work on an emotional level, so you must make a conscious decision not to become offended even if the intent behind the words weren't hostile towards you.
Exactly. If I called a mate a "daft c!!t" (censored mainly because people still put that word, strangely, on a pedestal - if you do, I'd suggest not going to a bar in London on a Friday night...), it has a totally different concept to it than if I called a stranger who said something silly a "daft c!!t". Fundamentally it boils down to an empathy with context - everyone has a right to be offended by anything, but realistically the only time that has any impact societally is if someone is directly trying to offend you (which is rarely the case).
However, words do not exist in a vacuum. They have context when spoken or written. I suppose someone who was offended by the occurrence of the word "nigger" in the dictionary would be a little odd, but it would be quite normal for someone to be offended when called a nigger, or if someone described the president of the USA as that. In fact, I would not be surprised to find that my use of the word, even simply in this meta-discussion of its hypothetical usage, might offend someone...
>I similarly think it should be impossible for a word to offend someone. I think it's possible for meaning to offend and really only if you respect the person enough to provide some weight to that meaning.
Sure, it's usually not the word, but the meaning ("intent").
But seriously, if some stranger comes and tells you "fuck off idiot", e.g. in the supermarket isle, then you wont be offended, because you don't "respect" them to begin with?
I'll probably be scared of that level of aggression without other interaction, but not offended?
Anyone is welcome to call me a "rancid sack of mould covered dick cheese" if they really want to - but unless i care about their opinion, it's unlikely to offend
>I'll probably be scared of that level of aggression without other interaction, but not offended?
Why focus on the "other interaction" part? It's totally orthogonal to the point I was making. There could have BEEN other interaction, e.g. you might have blocked his cart in the supermarket aisle, or whatever.
The question is not if it was justified or remotely provoked response or not, but whether the receiver would be offended.
>but unless i care about their opinion, it's unlikely to offend
I doubt that really works that way in practice.
E.g. you're out and someone starts swearing at you, for whatever reason, and calling you various things in public. Sure, you could ignore it if it was just some crazy homeless person or something like that, but I doubt you'd ignore it if it was some other normal looking person.
Of course you could always say "yeah, I got angry, but that's because in this particular instance I cared about their opinion".
And how about them publicly calling e.g. you daughter names or something? You still wouldn't mind because you "don't care about their opinion"?
that's actually pretty interesting, i wouldn't be offended by a friend saying it but a stranger saying would piss me off, but even then it's not so much the words as the intent, i'd be just as offended if they'd said "thanks" in a sarcastic way to some imagined slight.
I thought that's why they work, and why so many of them poke at religious topics. I need a way to offend someone I've only just met that's guaranteed to work.
> and why so many of them poke at religious topics
Religion based swearing is more conscious, certainly on the part of the offended, or are at least environmentally primed. Something built up through the conditioning of society.
Out "built in" expletives tend to hark back to a time when our language was far simpler, covering the essentials of survival so more keyed to out physical needs: they are based on reproduction, bodily functions, and fighting.
They're tools in a box. They aren't inherently good or bad - the intent and meaning created by them are what matters.
I similarly think it should be impossible for a word to offend someone. I think it's possible for meaning to offend and really only if you respect the person enough to provide some weight to that meaning.