First, I'm so happy I found this community. I have spent the past several years completely disoriented at a core level as the classical liberal rallying cry I still hold sacred of "I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Has somehow been replaced by "You can say anything that we agree with, but if you say something we don't agree with, or challenge our assertions in any way, you are a biggoted, priviledged tyrant who needs to be silenced" in "liberal" politics and "discourse." There is nothing liberal about this stance, and it can't be termed "discourse" because its sole purpose is to shut down discourse, which it does with frightening effeciency.

This is terrifying to me. Actually terrifying. I'm terrified when I see major university after major university cancel guest speakers because someone or other is offended by what the speakers have to say. Or when the universities hold their ground and allow the "controversial" speakers, but the protesters drown out the speakers, silencing them as effectively as if they had succeeded in bullying the universities into cancelling the speakers in the first place. Shoot, if they really disagreed with the speakers positions, it would serve their arguments better to attend the speech, pay attention, take notes, and deconstruct the shit out of their arguments, then publish this rational deconstruction as a response to the speaker. I can't understand why it's hard for so many people to grasp why this is better than censorship.

Isn't half the point of higher education to teach critical thinking skills, like how to use reason to make or challenge an argument? And why good ideas are the best medicine for bad ideas, NOT censorship? What are the implications if higher education stops teaching these as fundemental to academic scholarship and public discourse, or are prevented from doing so?

This brings me to why I'm posting. It seems people can no longer tolerate being offended. I have to confess, I get offended all the time, I'm human. The problem isn't that people get offended too easily, in my opinion. I think it's their reaction to the discomfort of being offended that is problematic. They seem to feel like they have the right to live their whole lives without ever having to confront anything that might possibly offend them.

I see things differently. I like being offended at what people say because it presents me with an intellectual challenge or two. The first is to observe my internal emotional response and to interrogate it (I'm a bit contrarian by nature, so I have no trouble arguing with myself; it's both fun and useful). I ask, why did that offend me? What was the person's intent? Were they really trying to offend, or simply trying to make a point I'm uncomfortable with? Why am I uncomfortable with it? Did it really offend me because it hits too close to home, or because it's so far off the mark? And so on. I need to defend my answers rationally. If it hits too close to home, then I need to re-evaluate my position and arguments. If I think it misses the mark, instead of lashing out, I use reason to argue why it misses the mark. I may do so heatedly, but without ad hominem attacks.

I like a good heated debate, after all. My late best friend Bobby and I founded our long friendship on having opposing political views across the board and a shared love of intense, yet rational and respectful debate--it gets the juices flowing, so to speak.

I don't see friendships like ours much anymore. Too many people can't disagree without becoming hateful. They get personal with ad hominem attacks instead, and once a person does that, the debate is over, and the abuse begins. You can't have a rational debate with someone you have declared evil, or moronic, or crazy. You can't dehumanize someone, then give their arguments a fair hearing. Why is this so hard for so many people to understand? It seems blatantly obvious. Even painfully obvious. Unfortunately, ad hominem attacks have become the basis of political "discourse" these days, and people with opposing political views are seen as evil enemies.

So my question: is the problem that 1. people really are too easily offended, 2. they have lost the ability to tolerate being offended, 3. have forgotten (or never learned) how to rationally argue a topic, 4. have become intellectually lazy, or 5. some combination of the above?

One of the reasons I'm writing this, is I'm also seeing a disturbing trend that has declared emotions as useless or worse. The spread of caullousness. I am afraid of what can happen when emotions are demonized (instead of being considered useful and enriching, adding depth and meaning, so long as reason holds the reigns), and free speech is simultaneously suppressed. That particular combination seems quite the dystopian nightmare. Demonize emotions and suppress free speech. That's a perfect recipe for mass control. Add in curtailing artistic freedom (example from music, which is what I teach--singing and performance skills-- and have been trained in since age 3: everyone is being accused of missappropriation if they perform music influenced by another group, usually another race/ethnicity, but are then--if white--accused of racism if they only perform music by their own race...what the ever living hell am I supposed to sing?!?!?! Mist I stop performing because, well, I'm white and therefore racist no matter what I do?)

Then again, I write fiction and poetry, and am a singer/songwriter by training, so I'm a bit biased in favor of emotion's importance, and have enough of an over-active imagination to imagine some pretty awful stuff. However, at 41, many of the awful things I, and many others, imagined 20 years ago are the norm now, like our near-total lack of privacy, so...

(Sorry this was a bit of a rant. This is the first time in a long time I have experienced a place where it is safe to express any of what I just expressed, so it all just sort of poured out.)