The importance of offending people

It is very important to enjoy offending others, in certain situations. I don't mean we should enjoy always offending people, or offending over every context and situation, and I do not mean that we should not also enjoy and value being careful to not offend others... what I mean is, there is a sense in which it is very important and healthy to actually enjoy offending people, and I think this is related to the issues and values that are in play with regard to the situation of giving offense.

It is very hard to put this properly in philosophical language. But I know what happens when someone stops enjoying offending others: they become an entirely passive will to nothingness. An "NPR listener", a CNN viewer.

At a certain point a person needs to be able to say "fuck you" to someone who is so radically different than one's own values and ideals. This is an anti-Christian realization, of course... Jesus commands to turn the other cheek and to never say fuck you. Well, fuck you Jesus, then, for trying to take this away from us.

The desire to never offend anyone is very dangerous. I think it must be based in fear. But this desire can become confused with simple politeness. That is why so many people today think they like political correctness, because to them political correctness just means "being nice to each other". Yeah, well, it is fine to be nice to each other, but it is also fine to be an asshole sometimes.

So we can see that internet trolls and the god of Kek is basically the last line of defense of humanity against the abyss of the will to nothingness. We already live in a nearly 1984 world; seems like only the Pepe-spirit stands in our defense now.

Kek and Loki

I rarely intentionally offend anyone. And I don't enjoy it when I do. However, I am not going to take any shit from anyone.

If I respond to negativity and the person is offended, that is their problem, not mine.

Truth always offends idiots.

Thrasymachus wrote:

Truth always offends idiots.

Yeah, for too few on this planet are ready or willing to accept the truth. They must remain with their illusions and delusions.

Flying saucers and bigfoot have replaced the gods for many.

It is good to offend idiots. Because most people are. Idiots, that is.

Thrasymachus wrote:

It is good to offend idiots. Because most people are. Idiots, that is.

I would have a hard time agreeing with this any more. People are who/what they are because of cause and effect. Most have been unable to alter the causes for a variety of reasons. Best to just avoid them.

Yes there are always causes for everything. But that does not alter what I said.

In the extreme, not offending to the max and offending to the max converge, and become the exact same thing. In other words, in an environment where no one is ever able to offend anyone else, everyone is always offended but is unable to say so. Likewise on the other side, if everyone is always offending everyone else then “offending” becomes meaningless and people stop caring, become desensitized and literally unable to “be offended”, so that this too converges on its opposite.

The obvious solution is balance, which means rejecting either extreme since in the end the extremes are both the same anyway. There is utility and freedom in offending others, but only in a broader context of limits to how offensive people can be, so that most people will not offend in the way that you offend, making your offense actually offensive and meaningful; likewise, there is utility and freedom in not offending people but only so long as that takes place within a context where offense is actually really possible and is sometimes occurring.