Offend

This somehow came across my internet today. It is a lecturer’s experience, as told by Paul Finlayson in the third person and in the first person in part two. If we believe it, it makes for sad reading. His crime? To say he stands with Israel against Hamas in a post to some anonymous guy in Pakistan. The weight of university wokery came crashing down on him. I thought I would check the veracity of Finlayson’s Substack submission. A National Post article confirmed what Finlayson was trying to say. I presume the National Post, a conservative newspaper, but a newspaper of record, had done some journalistic work on this article. I did a little more scratching on the internet and came up with this. So, the Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East claim that the National Post was defending a racist professor; consequently, they were appealing for evidence. This reminded me of the Claudine Gay debacle with her handling of Roland Fryer.

And all this reminded me of a comment I wrote on Why Evolution is True. I will flesh out the comment below.

This discussion revolves around the right not to be offended. Now, the reader might be aware that I am a little skeptical of processes like rights. Rights themselves can jump between moral, legal, social permissions, and institutional policies. Yuval Harari might describe rights as fictions. This might be a little over the top, but I get where he is coming from. Steven Pinker suggested that social constructs or coordination devices might be better terms. But I agree with Christopher Hitchens’ war cry, being offended is not an argument. Anyway, four aspects of offence:

The right to offend
Well, I think there are two broad aspects here:
    •   The first is where no offence is meant, ie like where Finlayson was simply saying he stands with Israel against Hamas. Here we have the right to risk offence. People, of course, are free to disagree and say such beliefs are on par with being a Nazi. Another touchy one is that there is a genetic component to intelligence. Here, expressing these types of opinions is usually not meant to be offensive. Well, the Nazi one might be.
    •   The second is intentionally being offensive, racial and political slurs come to mind. Calling or implying someone is an idiot would definitely be here.

Perhaps being overly blunt might get there, too. Calling someone’s cherished belief dumb won’t go down well. Many secular types might argue that criticisms of people are off limits, but their ideas are fair game. And of course, some might find a well-reasoned and documented argument against a belief to be an attack.

The right not to offend
This one is fairly straightforward. Generally, it does not make sense to force people to offend. I might be able to concoct bizarre cases that I might be reasonable, but … Generally, I don’t have the need to offend people; so, I routinely exercise my right not to intentionally offend.

The right to not be offended
Well, good luck with this one. I do not control whether I will have the feeling of being offended. If I become aware that I have become offended, then I might be able to have some control over that feeling. Similarly, if I get angry. The more I think about this, the dafter I think it is.

Then there is the cross sex offence. I am too far removed from the young today. But I can imagine that this is fraught with opportunity for offence. Wolf whistles were not uncommon in my youth. Luckily, I could not whistle a damn, so I never had the opportunity for that crime. I do wonder, though, back then, girls not deemed worthy of a whistle, would they have been disappointed? With the boot on the other foot, I can recall that during a summer job, I would have been twenty, going into a factory where there would have been thirty stamping machines manned by a diversity of women, providing a chorus of wolf whistles. My younger colleague was blushing with embarrassment. I thought it was funny and appreciated the attention. At university, I never made advances, but I did end up having two girlfriends, the second of whom is still my wife today.

There is also perhaps the more direct insult. At my second university, I overheard a professor telling a Turkish master’s student not to be an [expletive]. I wondered if there would be repercussions. About a week later, the professor was explaining that the student had gone to his supervisor and complained. And that he had to apologize to the student. The professor had explained that the term wanker can be used collegially as an endearment. I pointed out to the professor that he had told the student not to be an arse-hole. To be fair, the student was not well-liked, especially with his Turkish cohort, and behind his back, his nickname was arse-itch.

The right to be offended
And then we have:

“A famous bon mot asserts that opinions are like arse‑holes, in that everyone has one. There is great wisdom in this… but I would add that opinions differ significantly from arse‑holes, in that yours should be constantly and thoroughly examined.” Tim Minchin

The student never availed himself of the opportunity for self-examination. Bearing in mind that these students would be in their mid-twenties. Today, if I had elicited such a response from a professor or any intelligent person, I like to think, it would produce a moment of self-reflection and perhaps an opportunity to learn.

As coordinated devices go, I will fight for our right to be offended.