Salyavin, I do not think I have heard before the phrase 'professionally offended', what a wonderful concept. I know people like this, where every other sentence is a complaint about this or that in their lives, almost invariably what someone else said or did. I tend to distinguish between real physical pain caused by what people do, and mental pain caused by a person's conditioning. One can have both compassion and empathy for the former, and up to a point compassion for the latter, but self-inflicted mental pain gets no empathy from me; I have had enough of my own in that department, and it was all on me, not someone else; it's something a person can do something about to correct unless they are totally incapable of listening and evaluating what other people say, in which case they are logically a lost cause, and one must let them remain in hell.
As for Share's comment, if you do something that is wilfully malicious directed at a person, apologies are in order if the other person has a real innocence about them, which is usually not the case here on FFL where at least somewhere in our lives we have been well seasoned ass-holes ourselves, and the case that came up today was certainly in the latter category. If a person is 50 years old and still a professional complainer, then they sure as hell have not been living on Earth all this time, but living in some isolated mental fantasy world. http://media.spokesman.com/photos/2011/09/08/signe_t470.gif?84974f3f373deb0dda0f75a22ddd9b7d3a332b26 http://media.spokesman.com/photos/2011/09/08/signe_t470.gif?84974f3f373deb0dda0f75a22ddd9b7d3a332b26 http://media.spokesman.com/photos/2011/09/08/signe_t470.gif?84974f3f373deb0dda0f75a22ddd9b7d3a332b26 http://media.spokesman.com/photos/2011/09/08/signe_t470.... http://media.spokesman.com/photos/2011/09/08/signe_t470.gif?84974f3f373deb0dda0f75a22ddd9b7d3a332b26 View on media.spokesman.com http://media.spokesman.com/photos/2011/09/08/signe_t470.gif?84974f3f373deb0dda0f75a22ddd9b7d3a332b26 Preview by Yahoo ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <sharelong60@...> wrote : Salyavin, if I apologize, what's included is an intention to avoid doing the hurtful behavior in the future. Heck we all do awful stuff sometimes. I think it's a valid part of relating to others that we acknowledge our part in their upset and then soldier on. Yes, the operative word here is IF. Trouble is these days a lot of people think that because they are offended by something it automatically follows that someone has done something wrong and should apologise. It seems like simply being offended gives them the right to control other's opinions. Beats me. From: salyavin808 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, November 28, 2014 12:40 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Apologies... "If I was the moderator of this group I'd put him on probation with a very strong warning and demand an apology to the entire group and until he does I'd limit his participation." I don't know who wrote the above but it's a familiar part of modern life that makes me scratch my head. Seems like every day some celebrity/sports star/politician says some generally inconsequential thing and immediately faces endless calls to apologise from the massed ranks of the professionally offended. Usually via Twitter. I don't know why they bother, because what good is an insincere apology? But it's not really about that, what it's about is control and humiliation. Everyone who complains knows that the apology is worth nothing and that people don't really see the error of their ways and swiftly adopt the morals of the herd, but if they can get someone to say what they want them to say it makes them happy because their will has been bent and it acts as a warning to others. Conform or we'll nag you endlessly. Is this the Internet as the great leveller, or a growing inability of people to accept that not everyone sees the world the same way they do? I knew this girl who was a right arrogant bitch, whenever I complained about her behaviour she'd just say "I'm sorry you're offended by what I said" which is marvellous because it put all the blame on me for her attitude problem. And she never understood why that drove me crazy, no empathy you see. I wonder what that's like? But all I know is she wouldn't even think to wonder. But if I ever annoy the world and the Twitteratti come banging on my cyber door for an apology that's what I'd say and see if any of the dumb fucks notice they've just been insulted further.