Kevin DeYoung asks why are we always so offended all the time in this culture.
I think he gets to the heart of the answer in this paragraph.
For starters, being hurt is easier than being right. To prove you’re offended you just have to rustle up moral indignation and tell the world about it. To prove you’re right you actually have to make arguments and use logic and marshal evidence. Why debate theology or politics or economics if you can win your audience by making the other guys look like meanies?
this is part of what I call the white hat syndrome. Everybody wants to be the one in the story wearing the white hat and definitely not the one wearing the black hat. we all want to be part of the good guys and not the bad guys. we all want to sit on the moral high ground with our peeps.
victimization is a short cut to getting the white hat in an argument. And in this culture with its general lack of ability to think, general inability to make rational arguments, and its general inability to follow an argument with more than one premise, the victimization shortcut is an effective way to get the white hat on.
what do you think? are we easily offended? why?