My friend and I once had a conversation where he told me that when I say I’m going to call him and I wind up not calling, that he gets offended. I was confused by this, but I boastfully acknowledged that I never get offended. He, of course, told me that probably wasn’t true. That was about 3 or 4 years ago. I’ve had time since to think about what it means to be offended and what exactly constitutes offensiveness to me.
Flashback to 1998, I’m sitting in my Driver’s Ed course and my teacher points out that the first driver to arrive at a 4-way stopsign, has the right of way. Well, what happens when 2 drivers arrive from different directions at the same time, you ask? The driver to the right has the right of way. Interesting. For some reason, this little piece of information has stayed with me and every single time I find myself arriving at a 4-way intersection as somebody else, that person inevitably just goes when they’re to my left, or they wait for me to go when I am to their left. It drives me crazy and I would go so far as to say that it offends me.
But the question remains, why do we get offended and why do things as simple as words, offend us? I’ve always thought of mythology as stories about life that get passed down. There are things such as creation myths, Roman mythology, and Christian mythology. Many people believe these stories as true historical accounts. So, evidently, the word “myth” symbolizes something that is not true. So, even if something is not true, I guess it is unwritten in our culture that it is not okay to believe in something that is not true. Hence, someone must resort to being offended if something that they believe to be true is referred to as not true.
Why is it offensive to refer to a pre-historic Indian tribe as having “collapsed”? When I think collapse, I think that something or someone was taken over, died out, or merely ceased to exist. The Anasazi Indian tribe collapsed. I mean, I guess they weren’t taken over, died out, or ceased to exist. However, do any Anasazi Indians still exist today? No, so doesn’t that mean they collapsed? I think I’m going to stop now, the philosophical side of my brain is starting to hurt.
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3 comments:
I think I can sympathize with your frustation over avoiding certain words because they are offensive, but it is all about one's perspective I suppose.
I dont think it would be offensive to call the end of civilizations like the Hohokam and Anasazi collapses. I think the main offense in the statement would only come if it was made with a biased judgement based on preconcieved notions taken from other collapsing Western civilizations. And still in this case i dont think Native Americans should be offended as much as all intellectual people should.
Nicely put, Coverstreet. I couldn't agree more. It almost seems like we need to define words before we use them. And in our culture/language words are so 'alive' that they can start being used to mean something completely arbitruous. Missy Elliott just has to put it in a song. Words that used to mean one thing can completely change and wind up meaning something else entirely.
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