Be offended — and now read my column

The taking of personal offence is a growth industry. If only we could buy stock in the eagerness of people to be offended in modern times.

It would be like investing in Amazon back in 1995 when it was still in a Seattle garage. Facebook and Twitter saw a market for people with time on their hands throwing anonymous shade, posting vacation photos and getting into tiny quarrels over minor matters. Sadly, I did not invest. I am not rich.

Equally, I am rarely offended. I am puzzled by the assiduously offended. I always imagine crowds of people bridling, saying, “Well I do not appreciate . . .” and “How dare you,” shaming others on social media by day and signing e-petitions by night.

People are as brittle as lake ice, as breakable as plates. Outrage is always being sparked by something, justified or silly.

Sen. Lynn Beyak’s open cruelty to indigenous people, both generally and in person to witnesses appearing before the Senate’s Aboriginal Peoples’ committee, was intolerable.

But her claim that being dumped from the committee damaged her right to free speech was absurd. She can say what she likes, just not on that committee. This chirpy senator can keep looking on the bright side, defending those kindly residential schools. Doubtless she will.

Three provinces have now been offended by the CBC’s historical drama Canada: The Story of Us because it didn’t include them or make them look glossy enough. They’re probably right but history has to be condensed to something under 80 hours or no one’s going to watch it. No offence was intended, but it was taken. How exhausting.

Some black Americans are offended by artist Dana Schutz’s Whitney Biennial painting of lynched Emmett Till’s mutilated face in his coffin, not because it’s good or bad — I think it’s very good — but because Schutz is white. She is paying homage to a dearly loved boy who was tortured to death. Why should she not? I do understand that racism is a running American sore, but would a black artist not be allowed to paint Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, white civil rights workers horribly murdered in Mississippi in 1964? Who would paint their comrade, James Chaney? He was black.

Carolyn Bryant, the woman who claimed Till verbally and physically harassed her, now admits she lied. She’s 82 now, saddened but hardly guiltridden. Why not confront her instead of Schutz? Because Schutz is easier to find.

The easier it is to take pointless offence, the more people will do it. But why? For instance, imagine being an adult woman in a small Manitoba town taking offence at my recent column mocking U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence for refusing to dine with any woman but his wife. Who cares? She isn’t related to this unfortunate American boy-man. Had her career been ruined by an errant public supper? Why call me a “caustic man-hating witch?”

Against my better judgment I wrote back and she cheerily replied — which was weird — telling me about her life. She was a baton-twirling coach. “It’s not to be confused with ‘majorettes,’ which is a worldwide sport,” she told me. Is that like ringette? I like ringette.

“I have never actually written to a columnist ever before,” this reader confided. I told her that using vile sexist epithets was not a winning strategy if she planned to write to, say, Chantal Hébert or Paul Krugman. Then she complained about people who make fun of “athletes, coaches, judges and countless volunteers who have devoted their lives to the sport.” I don’t even know what batontwirling is. Do they throw them? Why?

My attention drifted off. But I wondered at her eagerness to be pre-offended by something I hadn’t written. Preoffence is a new thing.

I am rarely offended because I see how taking offence ravages people’s personalities. Also I see such offensiveness in the course of a workday that it all begins to seem watery. I am offended by typos, generic architecture and pests in general. I am angered by racism, also sexism if it weren’t that I’m up to my neck in what they call “microagressions” each day. It’s like barley soup, always another ladle coming along.

The key to learning not to take offence is to go back in time and be raised by my Scottish mother. Life is difficult. Endure it, she advised me. Toughen up. When you’re upset, do some housework. Boil a turnip and mash it. Oh, be quiet.

You can learn from her.

The easier it is to take pointless offence, the more people will do it. But why?