Public service announcement

[tim]

Dear world:

Please stop using the phrase "I'm sorry if I offended you."

If I'm calling you on your bullshit, your error wasn't to hurt my feelings. If I were actually hurt, I probably wouldn't have the energy to confront you about it, unless you were someone I knew well.

Rather, your error was to say something that made you look like an ignorant clown.

So why are you apologizing to me for that?

Love,
tim

---

Another way of saying it (in re discussion in comments here) is that there is something to learn from any criticism. If "Alice" thinks something you said makes you seem like an ignorant clown, then there's probably something in either what you said, or how you said it, or both, that's worth examining. Unless, that is, you have no respect for "Alice" whatsoever. If "I'm sorry if I offended you" connotes "I have no respect for you whatsoever", is it really a polite thing to say?

Comments

[hitchhiker]

> It's "I'm sorry that I offended you" that turns a general argument into a criticism of the other person's emotional responses to things.

surely not - i don't see getting "i'm sorry i offended you" as a reply unless i have introduced the "you" element into the conversation.

> Ignoring a comment reveals nothing about yourself or your thoughts or emotions and thus is often the right course of action.

i'm not talking about right and wrong; i'm talking about the psychology of the individual.

> If you're not prepared to defend what you have to say, don't say anything. I'm not sure why people have a hard time with this (other than confusion between moral virtue and omniscience).

simply because it's not the social convention they follow. theirs would be nearer "okay, if he says something that stupid, assume he's an ass and move on".

[tim]

surely not - i don't see getting "i'm sorry i offended you" as a reply unless i have introduced the "you" element into the conversation.

I've gotten it without having introduced the "you".

i'm not talking about right and wrong; i'm talking about the psychology of the individual.

Huh? Substitute "psychologically easiest course of action" for "right course of action" if you prefer.

simply because it's not the social convention they follow. theirs would be nearer "okay, if he says something that stupid, assume he's an ass and move on".

Assuming someone's an ass and moving on would seem to imply unasking the question by ignoring the comment, rather than going out of one's way to remind everyone present that one is morally superior by virtue of one's emotional detachment from the situation.

[hitchhiker]

> Assuming someone's an ass and moving on would seem to imply unasking the question by ignoring the comment, rather than going out of one's way to remind everyone present that one is morally superior by virtue of one's emotional detachment from the situation.

no, you're missing my point. projecting his worldview on you, the right thing for *you* to do would have been to assume he is an ass and move on. the fact that you have chosen to directly criticise him has elevated this from a discussion into a confrontation. to ignore you now would be backing down; it is imperative that he give *some* sort of response. but what response? he can't address your criticism, because that would be giving it an unwarranted validity (remember, you have no business criticising him in the first place). he can't just say "who died and made you god?" because those are fighting words, and he isn't really looking for a fight. he thinks *you* are, though, and therefore has to de-escalate without actually letting you win (both from a personal moral satisfaction pov, and being mindful of the audience). he can't call you on overstepping your bounds or being rude, because that's again picking a fight, and it might make *him* look like the belligerent one to the audience. all that's left are "well, let's agree to disagree" and "i'm sorry you were offended". take your pick; from where i stand, both are equally annoying.

[tim]

Er, there's nothing inconsistent about your account of the hypothetical person's psychological state, but I'm arguing that it's wrong and fucked-up to be in that psychological state (that is, the state in which any criticism of ideas is taken as a personal attack).

[hitchhiker]

do you really see "you don't have as much right to judge this matter" as a pure criticism of ideas? if you do, i speculate that you're in the minority here.

[tim]

Well, yes. It's criticizing the idea (implicitly put forth by "them" in my example) that members of a marginalized group and members of a non-marginalized group have equivalent moral standing to evaluate a situation affecting the marginalized group.