Mar 11, 2020. Updated: Aug 29, 2024.

Hyper Sensitivity

We are in a hyper sensitivity pandemic ravaging our societies so much so that soon, we will be living in a world of touch me nots¹. Through inferior parenting and education, we are creating minds that are weak, unable to accept themselves, have a toxic sense of victimhood and cannot live with being disagreed with. What we should create are minds that are tough and educated enough to be not offended by taunts and teases, or be ashamed to accept oneself, or be so victimised that any disagreement or disapproval with opinions is interpreted as an attack or hatred on the community.

I wish to invoke two examples of this epidemic of hyper sensitivity. The first one is the offensiveness given to the word "fat" and the second one is the offensiveness given to the word "black".

We are not to be so uneducated and weak to get hurt and offended if someone states something that we do not like or don't agree with. And if someone did say something truly rude, hateful[^hate] or abusive, we are not to be so uneducated to be hurt by someone else's stupidity, lack of maturity and education.

Right to not get offended

I hear the weaklings often talk about the right to not get offended. Such a right has no substance since what constitutes offensiveness is subjective. To establish such a right, society must first agree on what is offensive, which is highly unlikely because no movements or campaigns built on hyper-sensitivity can be reasoned with and therefore agreed upon. What is the logical line that deems something offensive or not? Unless we have such a line, these campaigns are mere snowballs that will label everything they don't like offensive.

To be honest, even the good changes have this nature of the camel in the tent. Therefore we must not ignore all requests and demands purely based on that ground. Instead, a logical ground should be used to decide what changes must be adopted and what changes should not be.

Some call an action a crime if the other party felt some degree of hurt. If someone gets hurt simply because he or she perceived something to be hurtful, then that person is living in an ocean of victimhood. Hurt is a dangerous criteria to decide crime and punishments because of its subjectivity. Even a help can be interpreted as a crime simply because some idiot got hurt by it.

Hate speech

Hate, now, is roughly anything that is disliked by a group or is not conducive to their socio-political goals. The most dangerous manifestation of this tendency is the censorship of opposing speech and thought within communities in the name of hate and turning them into echo chambers for a particular ideology.

The definition of hate speech must not be too hard. But the problem is not the definition, it is the consensus on the definition. What's hateful to one may not be hateful to the other. Even assuming that we reach consensus on what hate is, what must be done about hate speech?

Every true hate speech is uttered for a reason; a premise can be seen behind it. Cancelling or censoring such speech without investigating and addressing that premise is nothing short of ignoring an problem. They grow and consume you.

Non compliance

Out of nonsensical definitions of hate, the hyper sensitive souls demand certain compliances from society in the name not offending anyone. But giving in to such demands will essentially feed their ignorance, hyper-sensitivity and ego. Therefore, one should not. We can't solve a problem by aggravating the cause. We must instead stand firm on our position and educate them of our non-compliance. Their mindsets must be rehabilitated. It is not us but they who must bend; because they are wrong.

The apostles of hyper sensitivity will not welcome such rehabilitations; but the victims will. All they want to feel is peace and acceptance. Only those with vested interests in cultivating a hyper-sensitive mindset will not welcome our actions.

Ostracism

The twin sister of hyper-sensitivity is ostracism which, in our times, often manifests as demands for resignation from positions or boycotts. Ostracism cannot be categorically labelled as good or bad since it is one's choice and right to boycott something or someone, is also a form of protest and sometimes it can ensure safer environment to others as well. What makes ostracism good or bad is its context.

If ostracism is practised for safety, there is some substance to it. For instance, if a school bus driver is accused of paedophilia, because the stakes are high as children are pretty much defenceless and a school bus is essentially a mobile private space, it is sensible to keep him away as a school bus driver even though the accusation is yet to be proven.

On the other hand, if a CEO of an organisation is accused of sexual assault by a staff or by someone outside the organisation, since arrangements can be made to isolate him from anyone at risk at workplace, a resignation would be would simply mean punishing him or her, who is yet to be proven guilty. This makes sense because, if such resignation become a norm, then the organisation has an attack vector that disrupts its leadership, that can be exploited by the competition.

Therefore, resignation from posts upon mere allegations of a crime is justified only if:

• the alleged criminal actions are applicable at workplace too and creates a risk at workplace, as seen in the previous example of school driver.
• there is irrefutable evidence against the accused.
• the person, by virtue of the position held, can influence the investigation.

In every other case, resignations upon mere allegations without evidence would be a form of punishment to someone who is yet to be proven guilty. Such allegations only warrant a swift and unbiased investigation.

Some practice ostracism on a convict out of anger. If so, what is the system there for? And if the goal of conviction and jail time is to correct an individual, isn't further social ostracism on account of anger, dislike, punishment, etc., counter productive to the objective of correction?

Some others practise ostracism on previous generation with the standards of current generation. It must be noted that each society cultivates as a set of what is right and wrong, and their deeds are executed without any violation of this conscience. Therefore, judging the practices of previous generation based on the current moral standards is unfair to them, just as unfair as the future generation ostracising us for the many deeds that we consider good today.