Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000
RAMANAM
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
Countrymen,
ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT
Dan Riehl of Riehl World View was hauled up by Cassandra of Villainous Company for offensive diction. I commented as follows:
Cassandra is headed down the slippery slope of tyranny on this one. Once “offended” becomes “unacceptable,” every action is potentially a crime, as you imply early in this post. Stick to that, it is the solid rock for standing on in this swirl of emotion and folkways.
Criminalization of ever wide and wider circles of activity is a salient feature of the modern world, remarked forebodingly by not a few. Once one thing is “unacceptably” offensive, there is no intrinsic standard for not making anything “unacceptably” offensive.
The presence of continuous offend-ability and offense taken is a constant and unavoidable condition of life, acceptable or not. Which one of us is not diminished in a constant stream of offensive situations as we go through our daily life? Everything from a speck of dust on the floor to a racist thug calling us racist for thinking him a thug.
Giving offense, intentionally or not, should not be acceptable or unacceptable, much less legal or illegal, it should be unthinkable — like abortion and homosexuality. But one is going to offend someone nonetheless and regardless of one’s intentions. This is a condition of existence. Also, one is going to be offended virtually every moment of every day from birth — a terribly offensive experience — to death — of which both the prospect and the actuality is unacceptably offensive for most and acceptable even desirable for a handful.
What is Cassandra’s standard for deciding when to get off the bus? What is the line between acceptable and unacceptable offense? Is it more than her own? Is the offense she feels external or internal to her creative spirit? A depth analysis of that question (Kant) reveals that there is no line between acceptable and unacceptable offense because the source of offense cannot be reliably identified as external or internal to the offender or the offend-ee. Life is unavoidably dialectical. The decision one way or another is personal and contextual, which is not to say the decision is right or wrong, just that it does not bear the weight of supporting a universal principle, an unimpeachable standard.
Cassandra is demanding a condition she cannot sustain and implying a counsel she can neither muster nor maintain: the counsel of perfection. Nor does throwing a tirade in lieu of facing facts carry her purpose. Her purpose in this and, IMO, other matters is both utopian and ungracious by way of attracting attention through edginess, aka ego.
When one is offended, three fundamental responses are available. Join it, ignore it or make the perp an offer they cannot refuse and be prepared to deal with the consequences, for there will be consequences.
I am offended that Cassandra would complain about being offended by Pepsi’s discriminatory iPhone app or your response to it. I am also offended by anyone who stuffs the flesh of an animal into their mouth. I have to live with both conditions of being offended. I have long avoided Cassandra’s blog because I find it bumptious and I accept some minimal tolerable (to me) company of people who stuff the flesh of animals in their mouths because I find them otherwise lovable or necessary to deal with. One copes. Emphasis on *one.* And overall one keeps one’s offended-ness to oneself. For why burden the world with one’s burdens? That is ego.
The one thing I condemn in this matter is using “I am offended” to imply to someone that they need to change their behavior or even their nature. That is egotistical and unrefined, which is the nature of egotistical. Moreover, it is spiritually destructive! But I condemn it and that’s that, unless I decide to eliminate a particular offending condition — recognizing withal that countless unavoidable others await.
I don’t say, “I am offended by [whatever it is]!”, and implicitly demand that the perp (who could be I) change their ways in consequence so as not to offend me. If I want to stop being offended by a particular source, I remove myself from its presence or remove it from mine — recognizing, again, that countless, unavoidable other offending conditions are always present and accepting that the source is still in the world remotely offending me because the world is a whole, fully inter-conditioned.
The value of a rose thorn is to remove a rose thorn stuck in one’s flesh. Once that one is removed, both thorns are cast away.
I do not demand, implicitly or explicitly, to be not offended. Down that slippery slope is tyranny of the worst sort — random and selective violence (i.e., offensiveness) driven by brutish impulse, what the White House’s occupiers encourage in their dealings and among their supports.
Cassandra’s sensibilities neither merit nor require accommodation in this matter. “Offensive” is a category of leftist/progressive/communist political polemic. That is, of criminals. What is it doing in Cassandra’s repertoire, her quiver of sharp retorts? She should speak with Pepsi and Apple. Both have avenues of approach for that purpose.
And don’t dl the app! I certainly do not intend to. “Conquests,” yet!
Βασιλεία του Θεού
Kingdom of God
AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
