[INFJ] Easily offended

I don't think people are more easily offended. I believe people are just as sensitive as they've always been.. I think people have more ways to express thier offense and there is a culture of support growing that emboldens people to speak up.
 
ruji said:
Hello forum, how r u?
Click to expand...
giphy.gif
 
PeacefulPete said:
I don't think people are more easily offended. I believe people are just as sensitive as they've always been.. I think people have more ways to express thier offense and there is a culture of support growing that emboldens people to speak up.
Click to expand...

I don't know. I read somewhere that students self rapport higher levels of narcissism now than before. And we have the millennial phenomenon. I think there's higher levels of self-importance, and lower levels of self-worth among the majority today. The level of narcissism might be the same in total, but that there's been a shift in the distribution. Back in the days, people did what they were good at, it was meaningful to them and they were meaningful to society. Some people had a greater sense of self-importance and gravitated towards professions that would place them in a position of authority. Those people were not hard to offend, and they did nothing to hide it. This kind of overt narcissistic behavior is not acceptable today, and if you can't hide your inflated sense of self-importance, you are out of the game. So covert narcissism is the way to go, and it's spreading (creating a sort of false/secondary narcissism among the people). Most people can't see through most of it, and just see all of these amazing people everywhere, that are both successful and saint like (and some top that of with being beautiful as well). The result is low self-worth all over. The successful people have sold their souls, and the praise does nothing to increase their self-worth. Normal people feel like losers. The people on the bottom of the social hierarchy feel worthless. People are confused and scared they aren't good enough people. Parents think they are building their childrens self-worth by seeing them more and taking them more seriously (projecting their own feelings), but what they are doing is building a greater sense of self-importance.
 
lostinthisworld said:
Does anyone else here see major concern for how easily offended a lot of people are nowadays? Resilience and grit are being lost as is open discourse. As someone who was bullied as a kid, I have seen the pendulum swing all the way from one end to the other. I know social media has stoked the fire for sure. Instead of dismissing, as we probably should, some of our kids complaints because maybe they were exaggerated, a lot of people validate ALL of their kids problems without proper evaluation thereby leading their kids to believe that every little complaint they have is valid. It’s done with good intentions sure, but very short sighted. I see all of this as a huge problem because the easily offended are taking offense in situations where none should have been taken. Creating problems where none existed in the first place. How do we steer society back in the right direction (settle in the middle)? Will our culture naturally find the middle? I sure hope so.
Click to expand...

I don't see a problem with anyone feeling offended about anything and I don't see a problem with people's feeling of offense being validated. What I have a problem with is people using their offense to justify certain behaviours that can cause significant harm to other people because they believe they deserve to retaliate or destroy someone else's life via social media in the name of their feelings.

There are some situations where this would be the way to go if something very serious has transpired and it's been swept under the rug. I'm thinking Harvey Weinstein type shit. Otherwise, I think it's not being offended that's the problem. It's the fact that there are massive social campaigns now to ruin people's lives that is becoming normalized. What I have noticed, too, is that it's not just enough for there to be one campaign, people begin to concert into "social justice warriors" and it becomes a search and destroy mission.
 
People who have been bullied, especially as children, apart from having harsh inner monologues and perfectionistic tendencies, also seem to have particularly a strong dislike of weakness and lack of emotional strength. They were forced to tough it out, so why doesn't everybody? It's worth to consider that that could be a personal bias that shaped this opinion of yours, especially if it's ''of major concern'' for you.
 
niar said:
People who have been bullied, especially as children, apart from having harsh inner monologues and perfectionistic tendencies, also seem to have particularly a strong dislike of weakness and lack of emotional strength. They were forced to tough it out, so why doesn't everybody? It's worth to consider that that could be a personal bias that shaped this opinion of yours, especially if it's ''of major concern'' for you.
Click to expand...

Touché. That’s a very good point and something probably personally valid to me. I will keep this in mind, thank you
 
Infjente said:
I don't know. I read somewhere that students self rapport higher levels of narcissism now than before. And we have the millennial phenomenon. I think there's higher levels of self-importance, and lower levels of self-worth among the majority today. The level of narcissism might be the same in total, but that there's been a shift in the distribution. Back in the days, people did what they were good at, it was meaningful to them and they were meaningful to society. Some people had a greater sense of self-importance and gravitated towards professions that would place them in a position of authority. Those people were not hard to offend, and they did nothing to hide it. This kind of overt narcissistic behavior is not acceptable today, and if you can't hide your inflated sense of self-importance, you are out of the game. So covert narcissism is the way to go, and it's spreading (creating a sort of false/secondary narcissism among the people). Most people can't see through most of it, and just see all of these amazing people everywhere, that are both successful and saint like (and some top that of with being beautiful as well). The result is low self-worth all over. The successful people have sold their souls, and the praise does nothing to increase their self-worth. Normal people feel like losers. The people on the bottom of the social hierarchy feel worthless. People are confused and scared they aren't good enough people. Parents think they are building their childrens self-worth by seeing them more and taking them more seriously (projecting their own feelings), but what they are doing is building a greater sense of self-importance.
Click to expand...

This seems like a lot of bologna to me.
 
lostinthisworld said:
Touché. That’s a very good point and something probably personally valid to me. I will keep this in mind, thank you
Click to expand...

It's a personal thing I also struggle with, so I try not to project, but it is something to look out for because it can be very insidious and make me feel very bitter and misanthropic. Funny how even as I'm typing this, I'm thinking ''yeah but it's justified that I feel this way''. It's very dangerous to think like that. Sorry for derailing.
 
niar said:
It's a personal thing I also struggle with, so I try not to project, but it is something to look out for because it can be very insidious and make me feel very bitter and misanthropic. Funny how even as I'm typing this, I'm thinking ''yeah but it's justified that I feel this way''. It's very dangerous to think like that. Sorry for derailing.
Click to expand...
No worries, you're good. I appreciate you sharing this aspect of yourself and being so open about it. And it's related to the subject too.
It's not the case that everybody bullied ends up feeling this way, but it's not uncommon and I suspect it's what often happens. Conversely, some people who grow up without ever being hurt end up unsympathetic towards others, because they never struggled in life.
I wish neither of you had to grow up with that. *hugs*
 
niar said:
It's a personal thing I also struggle with, so I try not to project, but it is something to look out for because it can be very insidious and make me feel very bitter and misanthropic. Funny how even as I'm typing this, I'm thinking ''yeah but it's justified that I feel this way''. It's very dangerous to think like that. Sorry for derailing.
Click to expand...

Haha you’re good. Hard truthful input is what I’m looking for. I think your response hits it right on the head. I think it is a bias I’ve developed. Recognizing it as such helps to be less misanthropic for sure
 
Winterflowers said:
No worries, you're good. I appreciate you sharing this aspect of yourself and being so open about it. And it's related to the subject too.
It's not the case that everybody bullied ends up feeling this way, but it's not uncommon and I suspect it's what often happens. Conversely, some people who grow up without ever being hurt end up unsympathetic towards others, because they never struggled in life.
I wish neither of you had to grow up with that. *hugs*
Click to expand...

Thank you for your kind words
 
lostinthisworld said:
Haha you’re good. Hard truthful input is what I’m looking for. I think your response hits it right on the head. I think it is a bias I’ve developed. Recognizing it as such helps to be less misanthropic for sure
Click to expand...

That being said, I don't completely disagree with you either. It's just such a complicated matter, and one where you can't generalise much.
I'm sort of afraid of joining this discourse haha.

There are topics where people are offended easier and they should be, because it is offensive, and there's just straight up illogical, made up reasons to be offended. For example, women no longer tolerating the blatant misogyny of previous decades in the entertainment industry vs the absurdity of someone claiming we need to stop using the suffix ''bi'' to refer to only two things, because that reinforces the two gender structure and is transphobic. I'm all for gender inclusion, but people still use some word to communicate the concept of a pair of things.

It takes some basic yet solid reasoning to navigate these things, that a surprising amount of people, regardless of background or views, seem to lack. To me, at some point this level of inability to call upon such a basic level of common sense seems like insanity and yet again brings up the need for mental health awareness and accessibility.

Regardless, I'm not sure there's an increase of all this, maybe it's a matter of perspective; echo chamber social spaces will definitely make it appear so, but then again that might be a miscrocosm of 'real life' and I personally disagree with the distinction of online vs ofline life and personality. I feel like people who perpetuate this dichotomy are red flags with multiple internet identities, to put it simply.

This whole thing is a can of worms, for sure. Probably why we should be having this discussion.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top