"I'm offended!"

The ill intent behind pretentious advertising of faux moral outrage

The unsolicited announcement that one is somehow “offended” is seldom an innocent one. Its intent is your humiliation, ostracisation, and submission through smear, shame, and guilt. Yet no one is entitled to your concern about their alleged “offence” — you are under no obligation to care if someone claims to have “taken offence”. Nobody asked them if they felt triggered because nobody cared enough to enquire as to their mental state.

The “offended” offensive

When civilised people have a problem with something you say or stand for, they have the humility to accept that yours is but one possibly valid perspective, just like theirs is. They have the humility to accept that they could be wrong, even though they are welcome to stand by their beliefs and challenge your position from a respectful standpoint.

However, when they lazily characterise something you say as “offensive”, it is not a logical argument or counterargument to anything. It’s just manipulation through implied emotional blackmail: “Either you censor yourself and kowtow to me, or I draw negative attention to you, vaguely portraying you as a villain for everyone to see”.

Notice how the perpetually offended never use this victimhood tactic when others aren’t present or remotely witnessing your interaction. And if they claim to be offended when it’s just the two of you, they’ll find that it doesn’t work without peer pressure, without your instinctive need to appear socially congruent.

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The “I’m offended!” claim infers that there is only one valid viewpoint — theirs — and that you’re allegedly being inappropriate for crossing their line: what they presume to be “universally accepted” mainstream dogmatic beliefs.

Announcing their being “offended” is an aggressive attempt to silence you, to dominate you, to shame you, to blackmail you. It’s psychological abuse that is way more effective in controlling human behaviour than physical violence. This is why religions and governments alike use shaming and guilt-tripping much more frequently than overt violence: the guilt of supposed “original sin” for simply existing, or the shame of “indifference” for not casting your vote to arbitrary authority structures that aim to violently impose the will of one group on the other.

Victimhood privilege

‘Victimhood economics’ is the system of performing self-righteous indignation, and as a consequence, receiving the privilege of being treated as “unprivileged”, babied and coddled and overindulged. This is why everyone loves being portrayed as a victim — it sells because most people buy it: most people being needy, moralistic advertisers of imagined moral “superiority”.

Victimhood privilege is real, especially in societies that are more guilt-based — Christianity instils early in a child’s psyche a sense of self-destructive pathological guilt (your inner voices telling you you’re no good) more than shame (the voices of others telling you you’re no good).

The gall of victimhood

The most infuriating thing about the “I’m offended!” cry of moral faux outrage is that it’s usually initiated by people who don’t even have that close of a relationship with you, or none at all, yet they presume that their emotional instability should somehow merit your concern, or matter to you in the slightest.

Imagine the audacity: They never invested emotionally in a relationship with you, yet they demand your concern for their emotions, as if you are responsible for their feelings, as if you have any control over their emotional instability.

No, I don’t give a fuck if you’re offended. For me to give a fuck about your mentally unstable state, you need to earn it. Haven’t earned it? Then shut the fuck up. I don’t care how you feel, just like you’ve proven you don’t care how I feel with your attempts to shame me with your pretentious triggering. I only take notes of your evil intent to manipulate me with your nonsense claim that you’re allegedly offended.

Nobody gives a fuck if you’re offended, nobody that matters, at least.

Taking offence versus setting boundaries

The claiming of being “offended” is an attempt to submit and dominate you through shaming, through putting you in the spotlight of interrogation, through establishing a power dynamic where you are scared and apologetic, and thus subservient, desperately trying to explain and justify yourself, begging for their deliberately withheld approval (as if it matters).

This is not the same as simply setting boundaries. ‘Setting boundaries’ is respectful and unemotional, and it gives people the benefit of the doubt to clarify in case you misunderstood — this takes humility, which the self-righteously offended lack.

If they were just setting boundaries, they wouldn’t be reacting with outrage that serves as an attack on you, even if what you said might have inadvertently felt like an attack on them. If they have good intent towards you, they’ll naturally want to be wrong, and they’ll give you every chance to show them they misunderstood instead of pushing you in a corner, forcing you to get defensive.

When setting boundaries, respectful people understand that it could have been a misunderstanding, and even if it wasn’t, they still wish to give you the chance to rectify it because they value a healthy and equal relationship with you. But how can you do that when you turn defensive in response to their offence?

Setting boundaries is calmly informing people that what they said or did is off limits, and that’s that. The implied response if they keep disrespecting your boundaries is just the loss of association. You basically lose them as your friends.

But in the case of “I’m offended”, they are trying to enmesh you, to make you feel responsible, and thus guilty, for their emotions, not to mention to smear you publicly. When they display their outrage publicly, they attempt to shame you, to frame you like the aggressor, to smear and discredit you.

This is the difference: ‘Taking offence’ is a threat of emotional blackmail, of depriving you of what you are truly entitled to: your good social standing. ‘Setting boundaries’ is a warning of depriving a privilege that no one is entitled to: your association.

Setting boundaries grants the benefit of the doubt. On the other hand, faux “I’m offended” outrage already condemns you and demands, not that you clarify and reconnect on the same level, but instead to pay penance and keep yourself perpetually submitted to the perpetually offended, walking on eggshells around them, moderating and censoring yourself forever, afraid of their performative outrage. That’s no way to live.

So, to clarify…

Oftentimes, what you say might truly be disrespectful to someone, and it is within their right to call you out on it. But calling you out on your deliberate, intentful misconduct is not the same as joyfully claiming to be offended. Yes, they love to be offended, which is why they tirelessly seek offence, and when they don’t find it, they make it up.

When self-respecting people call you out on your disrespectful behaviour towards them, they have enough dignity to avoid playing the victim — claiming to be your victim is an admission of your control over them.

Dignified people just let you know that they’ve noted your undesirable behaviour, and that they’re not willing to take it — they’ll simply detach themselves from you, unless it was a misunderstanding. If you wish to keep disrespecting them, that’s fine, but then you forfeit your relationship with them. And that’s it. They don’t need to cry “victim” to smear your image in front of others, and to put you in an unfavourable spotlight to force your submission to them. This is a classic case of threat versus incentive.

Key takeaway

Psychological abuse is abuse, one that uses your empathy and compassion against you, no less. It is evil, that way.

Yes, words do matter; otherwise, people wouldn’t be so vehemently engaged in psychological tactics of manipulation.

Words do matter; otherwise, people wouldn’t be so obsessed with throwing the best comeback or the most humiliating “own” in a needy, desperate attempt at one-upmanship.

“Sticks and stones” is bullshit, and we know it. We lie to our kids about “words supposedly having no impact”, then we throw a fit over a coworker’s passive-aggressive comments at work. No wonder children are confused. We don’t practice what we preach; we just have the audacity to expect from children more emotional control than from ourselves.

Shaming is psychological violence and very effective, too; otherwise, people wouldn’t be using it. Sticks and stones? Yes, words shouldn’t have to bother you, but they do most of the time on some level, and I don’t care who you are.

For me, it’s not the words that bother me but the belligerent intent behind them, especially from people in whom you’ve emotionally invested. When anyone tries to manipulate me through psychological-verbal abuse, in this case, with implied shaming from claims of being offended, I take note of their disrespectful initiation of aggression. So, I respond in kind. I totally block them from my life, or I shame them back as defensive violence.

I am against shame and all other forms of violence when initiated, but they are reasonable and unavoidable when committed as a response in kind. Shamers need to be shamed. And shame is extremely effective on them, since, if they use shame as their manipulation tactic of choice, it means they understand firsthand how effective it is.

If you are virtuous and you know it through consistently adhering to your principles, then you have no reason to rush to prove it to anyone who has different criteria about what constitutes virtue.

A desperate need to prove virtue betrays a lack of it.

Therefore, if you rush to comply with those who shame you with whatever smear they come up with, you essentially prove them right.