OT: [CONLANG] The Need for Debate

John Cowan:
> It's not up to the offender to decide what is and what is not offensive,
> unfortunately.  Only the offended can forgive.
It's not really up to the offendee, either, to decide what is and
what is not offensive, if offensiveness is characterized by
reprehensibleness rather than merely the fact of someone having been
caused to feel offended. We all have a right to be treated kindly and
with consideration, and an obligation to treat others thus, but we
don't have a right to not be caused to feel offended. Hence if
someone causes us to feel offended, we cannot necessarily accuse
them of having culpably injured us. A failure to share this point
of view seems to underlie the ire of most flame exchanges.

(Although I have often caused offence (always unintentionally
but not always inadvertently), I cannot for the life of me
remember ever having been caused to feel offended [-- by way
of an experiment, anybody is welcome to try, by private email,
to deflower me of this particular virginity], and given that I
frequently encounter views that appal and disgust me, this
surely is an efficacious ingredient for a life that much the
happier and less wroth.)

--And.

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