Why are people so easily offended?

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I didn't say you were. I said the "overreaction" claim is a perfect example of the kind of excuse people will use to justify being a jerk. I also described how such scenarios tend to occur in my experience. I don't know if you've ever done such things or not, nor did I attempt to say you had. But I will ask: How is it that you can determine whether someone else is overreacting? And why does the intensity of their reaction reflect on the merit of their complaint?

And from my perspective, I have been accused of being emotional and overreacting when the extent of my reaction was "Dude, that wasn't cool." Somehow it gets reinterpreted into a massively emotional overreaction and personal attack upon the person I say that to. So, how am I to take any statements about "overreaction" at face value when overreaction is one of many tools used to attempt to silence me (and others) when I object to people being jerks?

All that needs to be shown to validate that point is that people sometimes over react in those situations, not that I can correctly identify every such instance. Also I wasn't arguing whether what you said was right or otherwise. I was pointing out the two (or more) sided nature of the situation under discussion.

Sometimes people do overreact, but often the accusation is used to silence people, regardless of how they actually reacted.

And if someone does "overreact" to a racist comment or a homophobic comment or a sexist comment does it somehow make the comment more justified? Does it mean that it was okay because the response was not perfectly nice and polite and involved emotions? I am not saying that a response that is not nice or polite and does involve emotions is an overreaction, but these are often used to discredit the person responding.

You haven't shown the two-sided nature of the situation under discussion. You've barely scratched the surface. These situations do not occur in a vacuum. They occur in a social context where some people are viewed more charitably than others on the basis of entirely arbitrary criteria (such as skin color, gender, economic class, sexual orientation, etc). A white guy making a racist joke about Asians, for example, is not in a situation that has two or more even sides. He's in a situation where it is the cultural norm for white people to support and benefit from racism, whereas Asian people (and "Asian" is a huge huge generalization of people from numerous ethnicities) are on the receiving end of those racist cultural norms.

So when one is part of a group that is often denigrated, stereotyped, and treated poorly encounters a joke in which these behaviors are simply repeated as if that was in itself humorous, is it really overreacting to object to the joke?

I wasn't making excuses for any ones behaviour. I also wasn't providing an in depth analysis of both sides of the situation with my previous comment. Nor was that my intention. I was merely pointing it out, as I said, and hoping that would encourage others to look at both sides themselves. There is some distance between my suggesting that people sometimes over react and that it is right say that to excuse unpleasant behaviour. Which by the way I agree with you that it isn't.

People have a choice as to how they act, and if that if is in an offensive manner other people are likely to be offended. Whilst people may not choose how they feel about things they can have some control over how they choose to react to the actions of others. In the situation you describe it seems that others are acting objectionably and then not responding reasonably to your response. However, it is difficult to for me to form an objective opinion as I did not experience the situation firsthand. Thus I don't feel able reasonably to comment much further on that situation.

Many of the of the things you mention as regards the presence of social context I likely thought obvious enough to not require my mentioning of them. Their absence was not a sign of me being ignorant of them.

It took a while for me to relate to this idea properly (especially seeing as I've been guilty of being a jerk and making excuses for it before, and often felt annoyed at 'political correctness'), but I think you're absolutely right. And yeah, context does matter, a lot.

Europeans often like to make jokes about other European nationalities, especially neighbouring ones. Those neighbours usually pay back in kind. This is all in good fun and part of the general type of humour favoured around here, and a way of injecting some levity into the dark warlike past. If we make the same kind of joke about people from elsewhere on the planet, it's usually not well received, to put it mildly.

e.g.:

Q: How do you sink a Norwegian submarine?
A: Swim down and knock on the hatch.

Norwegians like to tell the same kind of jokes with the roles reversed. It's rare for Swedes and Norwegians (both frequently hard drinkers) even to get into bar fights with each other, though.

Funny, I think the same about others who are offended for no reason and there really are people who just over react and I realize I did nothing wrong and that person just has issues.

I have noticed two groups in aspies.

Group One thinks they are always in the wrong whenever people get offended or upset with them so they are always apologizing for their feelings and for their actions and always blaming themselves for other peoples behavior and actions and assume they deserved the bullying and the meanness which I see here

Group Two thinks they are never wrong and everyone else is wrong and they didn't do anything wrong so therefore they never apologize and move on and act like the victim which I probably see here a lot

And most people are in between while with ASD, it's either group one or group two. And some aspies think about it and over analyze it and realize they were not in the wrong. It's a matter of looking at how those people react to others and treat others and then realize it wasn't them, it was that person or they simply talk to other people about it because they are doubting themselves and then they see they were not in the wrong and sometimes it's so obvious it wasn't you. This is Group Three who tries to be in between like everyone else.

Nope, definitely not an aspie thing.


https://www.google.com/search?q=people+ ... 66&bih=643

Also google "people easily offended"

People also wonder why people get offended for no reason. From my experience, asking a simple question will make someone so offended they are not nice with their response and on Babycenter they start trolling or flaming you or making fun of you and spamming your thread, it's worse when they are pregnant. Then saying we must have done something to provoke it sounds like blaming the victim, the same thing as telling the bully victim they must have done something to provoke the behavior. I remember the time someone posted a question there asking something and she starts getting slammed bad and I sent her a private message telling her it's all common there and it happens to lot of people there when they post something and all those women are too darn sensitive so they turn into jerks. She replied back saying she thought she was crazy or something because she couldn't understand what she did wrong and she was happy to hear it wasn't her. I think she added me to her friends list on there.


Everyone is sensitive but some are too much it causes problems. I just avoid these people. Don't like it, move on and that is what I do. Don't be with that person, don't talk to them, don't deal with them. Avoid them and problem solved. From my experience saying sorry does nothing. They are still pissed about it and won't move on either while you were willing to just move on by saying your sorry and be done with it so they feel better but they don't feel better why a simple apology. So I gave up. I don't know if I should continue saying it and it's the thought that counts or don't say it at all if I don't think I am in the wrong because I am so sick of apologizing and then it's not better because the person still wants to be mad at me about it and not move on.

Great post! I am Group One definitely!