SO YOU'RE OFFENDED...NOW WHAT???

Okay, so here's where my fellow conservative thinkers and I part ways: I think that sometime's it's okay - even justified - to be offended <cricket sounds>. Hear me out; I have thought a lot about this. Putting aside for the moment buzzwords like "cultural appropriation", "misogyny" and "ableism", sometimes things are just not funny.

Here are some instances where it makes sense to be offended:

1. The subject of the "joke" has touched your life personally. If you are watching a TV show that jokes about something that you or your family members have had to actually deal with, it makes perfect sense to be offended. There was an episode of Family Guy where Peter ate a huge amount of burgers and ended up having a stroke and was partially paralyzed for part of the episode. Of course Peter's condition was not handled seriously by the writers. I mean, when is the last time you heard "Tonight, on a very special Family Guy..."?? I thought it was kind of funny - I have never been exposed to a stroke patient. But had I known a close relative or friend that experienced a stroke, I would have been offended. And that would have been okay. It shouldn't be seen as comical anyway.

2. More specifically, you have experienced the very thing that is being joked about. So back to the example from number one, now you are the person who has had the stroke. You know how it feels to try and move around in a body that refuses to work properly anymore. You have worked hard to regain the mobility you do have. So Peter getting his left arm caught in the car door and he does not notice and speeds off just isn't as funny as it might be to someone who never experienced that struggle. 

3. You belong to the social or cultural group that is being made fun of. I think that everyone makes off-colour jokes from time to time privately to one or two others. I am not saying that is right, but sometimes people find the shocking or degrading stuff funny for some reason. Archie Bunker of the 1970s sitcom All In The Family was chock-full of these judgements and opinions and allowed them to shape his world view. His son-in-law, Michael Stivic was of Polish descent, a fact that Archie could never get over. He had other opinions too - if you want you can check out some of his opinions on YouTube where you can view entire episodes. So if you ever encounter someone who tells you that the idea of people being offended easily is some new cultural fad, feel free to bring up the example of Archie Bunker. He received a ton of hate back then. Probably does still to this day. And in many cases, it is perfectly justified.

4. The tone by which it is meant. If something is meant as a hateful slur or a put-down, of course it makes perfect sense to take offence to that. And each day the internet becomes more of a playground for trolls. They will try and get you where it hurts. They seem to get off on it. Which I don't understand, but it is what it is.

So what can you do when you are offended? Pretty much nothing. People saying hurtful and stupid things against groups of people just for a laugh is becoming more common than it even was in Archie Bunker's time. And if someone dares to express an issue with what has been said, they are "babies" or "snowflakes". It scares me that we are losing our humanity to such a degree that it is seen as "healthy" to be totally ignorant of another's pain or suffering in life. For those of us who can be "easily offended", let's try and hang on to our compassion for others. It might even be more rare in the future than it is now.