Everyone's Offended by Linda S. Glaz

We’re all offended by something: flags, movies, religion, the government, quotes, books, attitudes. Something! And we all want the entire world to know about it. One man posted that he’s offended by everybody being offended. 

:( 

There’s no exit ramp for this mentality.

And there’s no reality in it, either.

We used to fight it out, debate it, talk it out, you name it. But we had our say and moved on. We returned to our lives, but today, we have this lovely tool at our disposal that dissects more accurately than a scalpel. It’s called social media. And like an octopus, it reaches out with its venomous tentacles and touches as many lives as it can, paralyzing and devouring as it crawls along.

It’s a new kind of hatred. A special kind of hatred because it comes with an attitude of entitlement. “I’m anonymous on the other end of this note and therefore I can say or do anything that I choose without consequences.” No need to gather opinions, truths of any kind, or even another person’s side of the story. Why? “Because I’m entitled to say anything that I choose. And you can’t stop me.”

Years ago, or what now seems to be centuries to old coots like me, we found out we were wrong, and rather than digging in deeper, we used two words: “I’m sorry.”

Not quite as sensational as taking a stronger stand and driving the scalpel in deeper, but it had value. It showed our humanness. Our ability to forgive and move on. To see the other person’s side of things. It stopped the offense and humbled both the offender and the offended. It gave us a starting and stopping point.

My kids laughed at me when I fought computers in our home what seems like forever ago. I said I felt as if it were the artificial creation of real life. Not sure that I’ve changed my mind all that much. I see its potential, but what was meant for good may not be all that good after all. It has become another tool to hurt each other. To have our “say” without consequences. To be offended as often as we like and to gather our chicks with similar opinions under our wings until we all peck and torture anyone with a differing opinion.

Social media has the ability to put out erroneous information, quotes, comments and call them all truth. Truth?

If you’re offended by this post, too bad. Take an aspirin and comment in the morning. But don’t change my words and assume that you know me by one blog post. You don’t. Only those who go past the internet and know me personally will ever understand my intentions and my truths.

Have wonderful day and try not to be offended! J
(first posted on Hartline blog 8/17/15)