(fraaan!.~ ♥ / Flikr)

In the past several years, words like “offended” and “triggered” have been getting increasingly more common in our society and one of the main reasons for these terms is to drive change. They’re used to recognize something that we think is wrong, off-base, deemed inappropriate and we believe something should be done about it. Some of the change that this, for lack of a better term, movement has created has been great in progressing our society. Its helped create more awareness in many aspects of our daily lives like racial divides, the LGBTQ+ communities, mental health struggles and more.

But, are we taking it too far at times? Does something have to change or be canceled just because some deem it offensive? Who’s the judge of what’s offensive and what’s not?

I started to ask myself these questions after seeing a video online of an event at an American university that I found appalling.

It was taking place at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the event was organized by the UMass College Republicans. It included three speakers in which case one of them was author, professor, philosopher, and self-proclaimed feminist, Christina Hoff Sommers.

Dr. Sommers has been an advocate for women’s rights and equality ever since she was a youth. She’s stood in protests and marches in the ’60s, ’70’s, ’80’s, she’s written books for the public, textbooks for schools, and she’s served on the advisory board for the Independent Women’s Forums. That being said, she holds strong views and somewhat disagrees with today’s feminism movement. I won’t explain why she disagrees because it’s irrelevant to the point. You can read her book about it called “Who Stole Feminism?”. Furthermore, whether I agree with her view or not is unimportant as well. I don’t know enough about earlier feminism in comparison to today’s to make an educated opinion on that subject. What I can make a judgment on though, is how the crowd reacted when she began speaking. Those who disagreed with her views while considering themselves feminists would constantly be shouting at her and over her. She was barely able to get through her speech. This, I found ironic: feminists trying to silence a female.

(Below: Dr.Sommers giving her speech at UMass)

(Daily Collegian / Flikr)

I could see and understand a little if they wanted her gone because she was spewing truly hateful and inappropriate things but if we’re being reasonable, she wasn’t. Her views aren’t radical at all; she’s been fighting for women’s rights for over 50 years. However, because some members of the crowd disagreed with her, they tried to silence her. They deemed her speech offensive, and it should have been labeled with a trigger warning. This is, in fact, actually regressive as opposed to progressive.

Does she have to put a trigger warning on a speech that she’s delivering at an event that she was invited to? With all due the most respect, if you don’t want to hear what she has to say, you don’t have to listen. Going to the event and trying to silence her is quite literally the opposite of free speech, which is the very backbone for a functioning democracy.

This is one small example but it’s a microcosm of today’s society. There are countless examples of this sort of thing happening all over, whether it be in the US, Canada or elsewhere. This is evident in the “cancel culture” where someone has to be removed from all platforms because a certain group of people have been offended.

In a lot of these instances, you’ll see the offended person wanting others to see their viewpoint, yet it’s completely unacceptable for them to see someone else’s view if it differs from theirs, so they’ll try to silence that person. How is this equality?

Take the Ms. Sommers case I mentioned above. She was trying to speak about how to improve women’s rights yet since it wasn’t the same as the new mainstream norm, she was attacked and silenced because some were offended. Her ideas and concepts weren’t even considered. They already knew she didn’t agree with them so they simply attacked her.

But what about Professor Sommers? Do we not think she was offended standing on a stage being yelled at while trying to deliver a speech to the people that came to hear her? A woman was being silenced by other women who consider themselves feminists. They were doing what they were fighting against. It just didn’t make any sense and the fact that they were offended superseded that logic. It seems that the most important part of these conversations is whether someone is being offended or not as opposed to the person’s intentions, ideas and what’s true.

One of the major problems is, is that this new sort of “culture” is so loud and gets pushed so hard by those who are offended that if you disagree with them, you can be called and labeled a racist, a bigot, a misogynist, a hater, or anything else derogatory. It can ruin people’s reputations and careers all because some have been offended or triggered. It’s as if people’s intentions mean nothing anymore. Christina Sommers was sharing her views on how to improve our society but people were acting as if she was calling for some terrible extreme action because she disagrees with them on how to get to that society.

(P.Luca / Flikr)

It appears like if you don’t agree with a certain group, then you’re not fighting for change and you should be discredited, ignored, and maybe even removed from civil discourse altogether.

This is the opposite of what a democracy is supposed to be.

Civil debate is going by the wayside because being offended is becoming more important than hearing someone else’s opinion or even the truth at times. Yes, sometimes another opinion or even the truth can be harsh, rude and yes, it can be offensive. You have the right to be offended. You do not have the right to silence other people. That’s not free speech. That’s not democracy.

And please, don’t get it twisted. My point here has nothing to do with rights and lefts; I don’t play team politics. Nor am I saying that being offended has zero relevance because it has helped create change when it’s used productively. But a lot of the time it’s not being used productively.

Being offended does not give us the right to attack someone or silence them nor should it override the importance of debates that can move us forward. True and open democracy is where every single idea and opinion should be included and debated. Even the bad ones because we can use conversation to filter them out.

Screaming over, insulting, attacking, diminishing, discrediting, and silencing those that disagree is regressive. This isn’t how we built our society. We haven’t made progress by silencing people. We’ve made progress by listening to all ideas and opinions and throwing out the trash ones. Trying to hush everything that may be offensive to someone, does nothing to move us forward, it’ll only bring us backward. How do we not see that this completely goes against what we believe or what we’re fighting for? We believe we’re fighting for inclusion, acceptance, and a progressive society but many who believe they’re fighting for that, are the ones silencing people.

Again, the irony.

With all this in our culture right now, being a student at a post-secondary school, I and many classmates have felt that we’ve had to keep our mouths shut on a lot of issues because we don’t agree with some of our classmates or professors. And this isn’t to blame the school or our classmates, it’s just the way of our society and culture right now. We fear that if we share our honest opinion, we’ll get labeled all sorts of negative things when in reality, we have the same goal as everyone else.

(Second Life / Flikr)

I’ve grown up in a very diverse family that includes straight white Europeans, my cousins who are part of the LGTBQ+ communities and one side of my family is black. With all these differences between us, our love for each other has never wavered while we’ve always been able to share our honest opinions without insults or trying to silence one another. We disagree on a lot of things and we agree on a lot of things. But, at the end of the day, we all understand that we all have the same goal in mind: a progressive, inclusive, equal and open society.

We can all take different roads and still all meet at the same place.